Luca stares at me for a long moment, and I can’t read the emotions flickering through his dark eyes.
Anger, yes, but also something else—confusion, maybe, or suspicion.
“Why are you sorry?” he asks quietly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I stare at him, hardly daring to breathe. Did he just…?
“What?” My voice comes out barely a whisper. “What did you say?”
Luca grimaces. “Marco’s death. It wasn’t your fault.” He says it again, and this time I can see the conflict in his eyes, like he’s admitting something he doesn’t want to be true.
I seize on that admission. “But you said—you told me I had to pay for what my father did,” I say desperately, hoping beyond hope that this is a breakthrough. “You?—”
“I know what I said.” He cuts me off, his eyes flashing. His entire body is taut, like a string pulled too tight. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Then why—” My throat closes up, and I fight back a sob. “If it’s not my fault, why are you punishing me?”
He doesn’t answer. Can’t answer, maybe, because there is no good answer to that question.
“Because you’re in pain,” I whisper, something I once shouted at him flooding me with understanding. “And I understand what that’s like, to lose someone you love so much you don’t know how to keep breathing without them.”
He flinches like I’ve struck him, and I realize I’ve said and revealed too much.
I’ve shown him my humanity, my empathy, my ability to see his suffering, and it’s dangerous.
It complicates the neat narrative where I’m just a tool for revenge.
But more than that, he’s just admitted—however briefly and reluctantly—that I’m innocent.
That he knows I don’t deserve this.
And he’s doing it anyway.
“Get out.” The words are harsh, but his tone is strangely gentle. “Go back to your room.”
“Luca,” I say desperately.
“Now, Giuliana.” It’s an order now.
I flee, practically running through the hallways back to my suite.
Only when the door closes behind me and I hear the lock engage do I let myself collapse against it, sliding to the floor.
I saw him.
Not the monster who destroyed my clinic or the captor who holds me prisoner or even the man who fucked me against the wall last night.
I saw Luca Marchetti—the man who loved someone so completely that losing him turned him into this twisted version of himself.
And the most terrifying part is that understanding him, seeing his humanity, might be far more dangerous than simply hating him.
Because if Luca is capable of love and grief and loss, then maybe he’s also capable of redemption. Of forgiveness. Of change.
Maybe the monster isn’t all there is.
The thought should comfort me. Instead, it fills me with a dread I can’t name.
Because caring about my captor, sympathizing with him, seeing him as human rather than evil—that way lies madness.
