The accusation isn’t fair, and it still hurts.
“I know,” I whisper. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
The silence stretches between us. With the lie I just told and the truth I’m still protecting.
But I stay silent, and the secret continues to grow heavier with every passing second.
15
GIULIANA
Luca stands with his back to me, one hand braced against the edge of his desk, his shoulders bowed forward.
I really should leave. I have a bad feeling this will get worse and he will demand answers I’m too terrified to give. But my feet won’t move, and something about the defeated slope of his shoulders keeps me rooted in place.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again, the words inadequate but all I have to offer. “I know that doesn’t fix anything, but?—”
“Stop apologizing.” His voice is rough, drained of the fury I expected. “You were scared. You were trying to protect yourself and your father. I understand that, even if—” He stops, grabbing a fistful of his hair and yanks on it. I wince. “Even if it means three years of my life were wasted.”
He turns back to face me, and the exhaustion in his expression makes my stomach twist. The walls have crumbled, destroyed away by my revelation, leaving something raw and human that I wasn’t prepared to see.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” He picks up the photograph of him and Marco again, studying it like the image might reveal answers he desperately needs. “I’ve been so focused on revenge, on making someone pay for Marco’s death, that I honestly forgot what he actually stood for. What he would have wanted.”
I don’t respond, just wait for him to continue.
“Marco hated violence.” A sad smile crosses Luca’s face. “Which made him aterriblefit for our world, but somehow he made it work anyway. He’d negotiate when I wanted to fight. He would find compromise when I wanted total victory. He would remind me that the people we hurt have families and lives beyond their usefulness to us.”
He sets the photo down gently. “Three years ago, when he died, I thought the best way to honor his memory was through revenge. Through making sure whoever was responsible suffered the way he suffered. But Marco—” His voice catches, and he takes a deep breath. “Marco would hate what I’ve become. What I’ve done to you, to your father. He would have been ashamed of me.”
The admission is so honest and vulnerable that I physicallyhurtfor him. This is the man beneath the monster—the one who knows he’s lost his way and doesn’t know how to find it again.
“Tell me about him,” I hear myself say. “Not about his death, but about—about who he was. What made him matter to you.”
Luca looks at me with surprise in his dark eyes, like he didn’t expect the question. Then his expression softens, and he gestures to the chair I abandoned earlier.
“Sit down,” he says quietly. “This might take a while.”
I settle back into the leather chair, tucking my feet under me, and watch as Luca moves around the desk to lean against it. His shirt pulls across his broad shoulders when he moves and his chest rises and falls with each breath. The open collar of his shirt reveals tan skin and the beginning of a tattoo?
My mouth dries at the peek of the ink, already imagining what his body looks like. I squeeze my fingers together.Pull yourself together, Gigi.
God, he’s so handsome. Even destroyed by grief and guilt, he’s so easy to look at.
“Marco was my cousin,” Luca begins, his eyes distant with memory. “But more than that, he was my best friend. The only person in the world who knew everything about me—the good, the bad, the absolutely fucking ugly—and loved me anyway.”
He leans over his desk, sifting through photos until he plucks one up and shows it to me. Two teenagers standing in front of what looks like a bodega. A young Luca looks surly while teenage Marco grins at the camera. “This was the summer my father died.” Luca’s voice softens. “I was sixteen, Marco was fifteen. We’d just heard that my father had been killed in a warehouse fire. Retaliation from a rival family for something I still don’t fully understand.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmur.
Luca barks out a laugh. “Don’t be.” He sets down the photo, but he doesn’t stop looking at it. “My father was a violent drunk who beat my mother until she killed herself when I was twelve. His death was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
The casual way he says it makes my heart hurt. I think about my own father. He’s weak and foolish and self-destructive, but neverviolent. He’s never been someone whose death would feel like liberation.
“After he died, Marco’s family took me in.” Luca studies the photograph. “They didn’t have to. I was already involved in the family business and showing signs of becoming exactly what my father was. But Marco’s mother—my aunt Caterina—she insisted on keeping me.”
He smiles, and it’s genuine this time, tinged with warmth I’ve never heard from him. My heart lurches traitorously.
“Marco made it his personal mission to keep me human. Every time I wanted to solve a problem with violence, he’d talk me into finding another way. Every time my anger got the better of me, he’d be there to remind me that rage is easy but wisdom is hard.”
