Reckless. A liability. Not serious.
Ten years I’ve been trying to outrun that kid. This mission was supposed to be the finish line. I begged for it. I swore I could do this. And Paolo, the only one who ever went to bat for me, is standing here now, looking at exactly what he was afraid of.
“I talked him out of it,” Paolo says, yanking me back to the present. “Told him you deserved more time. That there had to be a reason for the silence.” He exhales through his nose. “So I need a reason, Luca. And it better be a damn good one.”
My brain is doing three things at once. Processing ten years of memories that just slammed back into place. Constructing a lie that needs to be airtight. And trying not to think about the woman whose sheets still smell like me.
I drag a hand over my mouth. My head feels like it’s splitting open all over again. From the sick, crushing certainty of what I came here to do and how badly, spectacularly, I have failed to do it.
None of that can show on my face.
None of it.
“A storm got me,” I say.
Paolo does not move.
I sort through the wreckage in my head and pull out the parts that can survive scrutiny.
“The boat capsized. I got clipped in the head when the mast came down. Went overboard. I lost everything. Phone, gear, weapon, all of it. By the time I made it to shore, I was half-conscious and bleeding.”
His eyes sweep over me, taking inventory. The healing gash on my temple. The fading bruises. The parts of the story my body can back up whether he believes the rest or not.
“And then what?” he asks.
I laugh once, short and humorless. “Then I woke up here.”
He folds his arms. “You expect me to believe you floated all the way to her beach and just decided to make the best of it?”
I swallow the urge to tell him exactly where he can shove that tone.
“Natalia found me,” I say. “She didn’t know who I was. At that point, neither did I. Not really. My memory was gone. Or scrambled. Whatever the hell you want to call it.”
Paolo’s eyebrows nearly disappear into his hairline.
That look on his face does me in faster than the shouting. I know that look. I’ve seen it too many times over the years. Not just concern. Not just anger. That specific mix he gets when he’s trying to figure out whether I’m actually in trouble or whether I’ve made another mess so stupid it’s offensive.
And underneath all of it, the thing that twists the knife deepest, the thing I have spent half my life needing from him and resenting him for at the same time—the part already calculating how to help me fix this.
I hate that he’s the one standing here. I hate it because if this were Lorenzo, I could get angry. If it were Dario, I could get defensive. My uncle just makes me feel sixteen again, standing outside Lorenzo’s office with my pulse in my throat while the men inside decided whether I was ever going to be trusted with anything that mattered.
His voice drops. “How much came back?”
“Enough.”
“How much, Luca?”
“Enough to know where I am and what I’m doing.”
His stare hardens. “Then tell me why Anton Kozlov’s daughter is still breathing.”
I swallow against the sudden dryness in my throat. My pulse kicks hard enough to make my skin feel too tight. I make my shoulders stay loose anyway. I make my face stay flat.
“Because killing her stopped being the only useful option.”
A line appears between his eyebrows. “Bullshit.”
“Believe whatever you want. It’s the truth.”
