I frown at him. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You haven't been fine since you met her." He leans back in his chair, studying me. "What happened?"
“We argued. I fucked up.” I don’t really want to tell him the details. I pull out the dossier and slide it across the table. "I need your help with this."
Luca doesn't touch it. "What is it?"
"Everything you got me on Whitmore. Financial crimes. Embezzlement. Fraud. Enough to destroy him completely."
"And you want to—what? Leak it? Send it to the authorities?"
"I want to send it to Savannah’s father. Let him see what kind of man his daughter is engaged to. Let him call off the wedding himself."
"Jesus Christ." Luca runs a hand over his face. "You can't be serious."
"I'm completely serious. This is the solution, Luca. Don't you see? As long as Whitmore exists, Savannah feels trapped. She feels guilty. She thinks she has to choose between duty and desire. But if Whitmore is gone—if the engagement is broken—then there's no conflict. She's free to choose me without any guilt."
"That's not how this works."
"Yes, it is. That's exactly how it works."
"No, Romeo. What you're describing is manipulation. You're trying to engineer her life. You're trying to remove her choices."
"I'm removing an obstacle."
Luca pinches the bridge of his nose. "You're deciding what's best for her. You're deciding who she should be with. You're deciding what her life should look like. You’re just doing a different version of what everyone else does to her.”
My jaw clenches. "It's not the same as what Whitmore does."
"Isn't it? He controls her through obligation and family pressure. You're trying to control her through manipulation and sabotage. The methods are different, but the result is the same—you're both trying to take away her ability to make her own choices."
I stare at him, feeling anger rising in my chest. "You don't understand."
"I understand perfectly. You're in love with her. You're obsessed with her. And you've convinced yourself that anything you do in the name of that love is justified. But it's not, Romeo. It's not justified. It's dangerous. You’re going to reignite a cold feud between families, and people are going to get hurt. Savannah might be one of them."
I shake my head fiercely. "I'm trying to help her. She wants me. I know she does. She's just—she's trapped. She's trapped by her father's expectations and Whitmore's control and?—"
"And you think the solution is to trap her in a different way? To manipulate her circumstances so she has no choice but to come to you?"
"That's not what I'm doing."
"That's exactly what you're doing. If you release this, Whitmore is finished. His career, his reputation, his engagement—all of it, gone."
"Good."
"And Savannah will know you did it."
The words stop me. "What?"
"She's not stupid, Romeo. If this information suddenly appears right after the two of you fight and she tells you she’s done, she'll suspect where it came from. She'll know you did this. And she'll hate you for it."
"She'll understand?—"
"If you go through with this—if you destroy Whitmore to clear the path to her—you'll be proving that you're exactly what she accused you of being. You'll be proving that you're no different from him."
I want to argue. I want to tell him he's wrong, that he doesn't understand, that this is different.
But the words won't come. Because somewhere, in a part of my mind I don't want to acknowledge, I know he's right.
