“You’re telling me,” he says slowly and alarm bells are screaming in my head, “that you’ve known for three years that Marco’s death was a mistake? That someoneelsewas the target?”
“I didn’t know for certain?—”
“Bullshit.” He stands abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. “You knew your father was coerced. You knew he was reporting to someone. You knew Marco’s death wasn’t the intended outcome. And you saidnothing?”
Panic floods through me. “Who was I supposed to tell? I was scared, twenty-nine years old and my father had just confessed to being involved in a murder. I didn’t know what to do, who to trust?—”
“So you stayed silent?” His voice rises. “While I tore apart your father’s life trying to understand how a gambling addict orchestrated something this sophisticated? While I planned this entire revenge?”
“I didn’t know you! Did you really expect me to rat out my father?” I cry out, feeling fear bubble up in me. This was exactly what I was afraid of. This is why I didn’t want to say anything. “I thought it would die with me!” The admission bursts out. “I thought if I just kept quiet, if I just pretended I didn’t know anything, eventually everyone would forget and move on and?—”
“And what?” Luca snarls. “Your father would escape consequences? Marco’s death would go unavenged?”
“I didn’t want anyone else to die!” Tears are streaming down my face now. “I didn’t want my father dead, I didn’t want to become a target myself, I just wanted—I just wanted it all to go away…”
Luca circles the desk, and I instinctively push back in my chair. But he doesn’t touch me. He just stands there looking down at me with a furious expression. His brows are drawn tight and his jaw is clenched so hard the muscle ticks in his cheek. His eyes are locked on mine, unblinking and sharp. His mouth is set in a flat line, like he’s holding back words or something worse.
“Do you have proof?” His voice is low, vibrating with rage. “This phone call, this conversation your father had—do you have evidence?”
This is it. The moment where I either commit fully to the lie or admit I have a recording that could change everything.
“I—” My throat closes up. “I had my phone’s voice memo app running. I’d been recording my thoughts about staging an intervention for his gambling. It captured—it captured everything that night. His breakdown, the phone call, all of it.”
Luca’s eyes widen slightly. There’s hope and fury and desperate need all tangled together. “You have a recording of the person who orchestrated Marco’s murder?” he asks, his voice low but sharp.
“Of my father’s conversation with them, yes.” The admission feels like jumping off a cliff. “I couldn’t hear the other person, but my father’s side of the conversation—it’s all there.”
Luca takes a step closer. “Where is this recording?” he asks, quieter now, but with an edge that makes the air feel heavier.
“Backed up to cloud storage.” I’m shaking now, terrified of what comes next. “Luca, I need you to understand—I-I was protecting myself. Protecting my father. I didn’t know you. I didn’t know Marco or anyone involved. I didn’t understand what any of this meant at the time?—”
“Shut up.” The command is sharp but not cruel. He’s thinking, processing, his mind clearly racing through implications. “Do you know who was on the other end of that call?”
The question I’ve been dreading. Terror wars with the desperate urge to finally, finally be honest with someone about this burden I’ve been carrying.
“I—” I start, but the words die in my throat.
Because telling him means admitting I recognized Salvatore Romano’s voice tonight. That we’ve been sitting across from Marco’s real killer and I said nothing. That every day I’ve stayed silent has been another day of complicity in Luca’s misdirected revenge.
“Giuliana.” Luca’s voice is lower now, almost gentle. “Do you know who killed Marco?”
I meet his eyes—those dark, intense eyes that have seen too much violence, too much loss. Eyes that belong to a man who’s spent three years torturing himself over details that point to the wrong enemy.
I need to tell him. I need to end this nightmare of secrets and lies and redirect his revenge toward someone who actually deserves it.
But the image of Salvatore Romano’s cold blue eyes flashes through my mind, along with Rico’s casual cruelty and the knowledge that the Romano family doesn’t hesitate to eliminate threats.
“No,” I hear myself say, the lie tasting like ash in my mouth. “The voice was distorted. Unfamiliar. I was too focused on my father’sbreakdown to pay attention to details about who he was talking to.”
Liar. Liar.Liar.
Luca studies my face for a long moment, and I’m terrified he can see through me and read the deception written in every line of my expression.
“You’re sure?” His voice carries an edge that suggests he doesn’t quite believe me.
“I’m sure.” I force myself to hold his gaze. “I’m sorry, Luca. I wish I could give you more than this, but?—”
“But you can’t.” He turns away, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “Three years, Giuliana. Three years I’ve been hunting the wrong enemy because you were too scared to tell me the truth.”
