“No!” I scream. “Loans from men like him always come due. They don’t save you, they own you.”
Lazlo frowns.
“Wouldn’t it have been the same if it came from you?”
“No,” I say hoarsely. “Because he doesn’t forget. And he doesn’t forgive. And when he collects, people bleed.”
The room goes quiet, breaths snatched in.
Milo studies me carefully.
“But you said… Did you lie, bambina mia? Is he hurting you? Tell us the truth.”
The question knocks the air from my lungs.
I force myself to breathe. Slowly. Deeply.
A part of me wants to say yes, knowing it will likely reverse this train wreck I can see barrelling towards me.
But…
“No,” I say, surprising myself with how true it feels. “He isn’t.”
“Then what?” Lazlo presses gently.
I falter, look around the room, unwilling to admit the truth, even to myself.
Because when I replay the last few days honestly, without fear screaming over the memory, I see something that’s hard to dismiss.
I see Giovanni’s patience. Restraint. Indulgence, even. I see care I never asked for and couldn’t deny. A man who gives without demanding, who listens even when he doesn’t yield, who touches me like I matter.
My wall wavers, and the realisation terrifies me.
Who am I protecting with it?
My father’s memory? Or my own heart?
I shake my head and sit back down without answering.
After a tense minute, the atmosphere eases, and we carry on the conversation.
But I know when I leave them they’re a little confused and concerned by my reaction. Still, their love wraps around me even as disappointment and alarm sit heavy in the room.
I carry that confusion with me like a lit fuse as the car takes me back to Westchester.
Back to him.
When we arrive, I don’t wait.
I storm through the house, past startled staff, past guards who don’t dare stop me, straight into Giovanni’s study.
12
LUCIA
He looks up, unsurprised, when I slam the door to his office hard enough that the walls protest the sound in a rumbled echo. He raises one imperious eyebrow when I slam my hands on his desk.
“You paid my uncles,” I say, voice shaking with rage and something dangerously close to betrayal. “And now you’re going to explain exactly what you think that makes us.”
