“He sounds like he was good for you,” I say quietly, wishing I could have met him.
“He was the best part of me.” Luca picks up another photo. It’s the one where they’re young men at the warehouse. “I think I showed you this one before,” he murmurs. Before I can say that he had, Luca is already continuing, “This was taken the day we finalized our first major legitimate business deal. Marco had been pushing for years to transition some of our operations into legal enterprises. He had this vision of creating an operation that could eventually go completely legitimate, something we could be proud of instead of just profitable.”
His hand clenches into a fist as he puts the photo down again. “He wanted to prove that people like us—people born into violence and crime—could choose to be better. That we weren’t trapped by our circumstances if we were willing to work hard enough to escape them.”
“And you believed him?” The question comes out gentler than I intended.
“I wanted to.” Luca’s eyes meet mine. The pain in them is almost too much to bear. “But I was pragmatic. I knew that going legitimate meant giving up power, influence, and the respect that comes from being feared. Marco understood that, but he thought it was worth it. He thought building a clean future was more valuable than maintaining something dirty.”
He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “We used to argue about itconstantly. He’d talk about legacy and redemption and what kind of world we wanted to leave behind. I’d counter with reality—that our enemies wouldn’t care about our good intentions, that showing weakness invites attacks, and that the only way to survive in our world is through strength.”
“Who won those arguments?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“Marco. Always Marco.” The admission comes out soft, tinged with grief. “He had this way of making you see things differently, of finding the humanity in situations where I only saw strategy and survival. Even when I disagreed with him, even when his idealism seemed naive—” He stops, swallowing hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Even then, I trusted his judgment over my own.”
I watch emotions play across his handsome face—grief and guilt and regret. In the soft lighting of the desk lamp, with his defenses stripped away, he looks younger. More vulnerable. Like someone who might actually be capable of redemption if given the chance.
“Losing him broke something major inside me.” Luca’s voice is rough. “Not just because he was family, but because he was my moral compass. The voice that reminded me when I let my angerwin, when revenge was blinding me to better solutions. Without him?—”
He gestures at the case files spread across his desk. “Without him, I’ve become exactly what he spent his life trying to prevent. I’ve let grief turn me into something he would have been ashamed of.”
My breath catches. Luca Marchetti is insanely vulnerable right now. I never thought I would ever hear him admit this. My heart aches for him, and I desperately want to comfort him.
“He wouldn’t be ashamed,” I hear myself say. “He’d be heartbroken. There’s a difference.”
Luca’s eyes snap to mine, surprise evident in his features as his dark brows furrow. “Huh?”
I swallow, willing my mouth to make sense of my brain’s convoluted thinking. “Shame is about judgment,” I say slowly, keeping my eyes locked on his. My heart beats a staccato against my chest. “About thinking someone is flawed or broken beyond repair.” I lean forward, needing him to understand this even if I don’t fully understand why it matters so much. “But heartbreak? Heartbreak is about loving someone enough to mourn what they’ve become while still believing they could be better. And from everything you’ve told me about Marco, he loved you too much for shame. He’d be heartbroken that you lost your way, but he wouldn’t think you were beyond saving.”
The silence is loud. Luca stares at me with an incredulous expression, his throat working as he tries to grapple with what I’ve just said.
“You didn’t know him,” he finally says, but there’s no anger in his tone. He’s just merely stating the obvious.
“No,” I concede. “I didn’t. But I know what it’s like to lose someone who kept you grounded.” The words come out before I can stop them, drawn by his vulnerability into matching it with my own. “I know I’ve told you about my mother.” I swallow hard, willing myself not to cry.
Luca’s expression turns into understanding rather than grief. “I remember. I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” I wrap my arms around myself, the robe suddenly not warm enough against memories that still have the power to cut me to my core. “She was—she was everything.” I blink back the tears that are already there. “The person who taught me that being kind wasn’t a weakness, that helping others was its own reward, that the world needed healers as much as it needed fighters.” I dash away a tear. “She used to tell me all the time—look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
“Mr. Rogers,” Luca says quietly, and I nod.
“When she got sick—” My voice catches and I dig my nails into my skin to center myself. Luca watches me like a hawk. “Watching her deteriorate—watching this strong, vibrant woman slowly disappear into pain and medication and exhaustion—it destroyed something in our family. My father especially. He couldn’t handle it.”
“That’s when the gambling started.” Luca says quietly.
I nod, sniffling. “At first, it was just…just a way to escape. A few hours at the casino or the poker table where he could forget that his wife was dying and there was nothing he could do to save her. But after she died, after the funeral, after the reality of living without her set in?” I stop, the memory of my father’s spiralstill painful even after all these years, and I can’t help the tears now. “T-the gambling became his entire life. His way of chasing something, anything, that might fill the hole she left behind—oh, thank you.” I take the tissue that Luca offers. A spark of electricity zaps my fingers as our hands meet.
I wonder if Luca felt the same. I wipe my eyes, my cheeks starting to burn.
“And you became a veterinarian because…?” Luca prompts, clearly unaffected by whatever just happened.
“Because animals don’t lie.” I twist my lips sourly. “They don’t betray you or abandon you or destroy themselves with addiction while you watch helplessly. They’re just…simple.” I shrug helplessly. “They’re honest. If they’re hurt, you fix them. If they’re sick, you treat them. There’s no complicated emotional manipulation, no wondering if they’re going to relapse into self-destructive behavior the moment you turn your back.”
I meet Luca’s eyes, and he looks…uncomfortable by my revelation. Good. “After my mother died and my father fell apart, I needed something I could actually save. Something where my skills and knowledge and effort actually made a difference instead of just—” The tears come harder, and my vision blurs. “Instead of just watching helplessly while everything I loved disappeared.”
“So you saved animals instead of people,” Luca says, and there’s no judgment in his tone.
“Yes.” I swallow again, feeling so very vulnerable right now. “And it worked. For years, it worked. I built a practice, helped creatures that couldn’t help themselves, found purpose in healing instead of helplessness. Until you?—”
