"After my father was killed by yours…" He forced the words out, feeling Giana's tension behind him. "We were all mad with grief. Dario. Leo. Me. Gabriella, most of all. None of us were thinking straight. If we had been, we wouldn't have followed Gabriella's plan to annihilate your family. It was pure, vengeful madness."
Rodrigo heard her sharp intake of breath but didn't turn. He couldn't look at her and say everything he needed to.
"Gabriella wanted you dead too. That night, she saw you only as Sorrentino's spawn. I convinced her you were worth more alive. Good leverage. A future bride to bind the remnants of your family's influence to ours." The justification tasted like ash. "It was pragmatic and cold, but it was the only thing I could do to keep you breathing."
Rodrigo finally turned, leaning back against the windowpane. Giana's face was pale but composed, her eyes huge and dark in the lamplight.
"I saw that it had all gone too far," he continued, the words coming easier now. "All my brothers did. But it was too late, and the blood was already spilled. Leo… Leo defied her outright. Refused to be the one to pull the trigger on everyone. He couldn't do it."
Rodrigo's voice hardened. "So Gabriella had someone else finish the job, and she punished Leo by forcing the engagement with you. Tying him to the girl whose family he failed to kill was meant to be a constant reminder of his weakness and her power. He tried to leave us, and Gabriella shot him. He couldn't bear to be trapped in the middle of it all. He lived and got out, and I convinced my mother to leave him be and that he would return to the fold when he cooled down."
Rodrigo blew out a breath, but it didn't loosen the tight pain in his chest. "Leo was gone, and you were still trapped for four more years under Gabriella's control. You didn't deserve any of it.Noneof it was your fault. You were barely twenty, a young woman who should have been able to enjoy university, not be caught in a war started by grieving, furious adults who lost their minds."
He pushed off the window, taking a step toward her. "I wanted you to be free of us. Truly free. Not just escape, but be strong in a way that didn't make you look like easy prey to every other jackal out there. So I gave you the tools and showed you the cracks in Gabriella's armor. Iwantedyou to take her money and make your escape look like a victory and a calculated strike against her. I wanted the other mafia families to see Giana Sorrentino wasn't just a broken pawn, but a queen who'd clawed her way out of her chains."
Rodrigo stopped a few feet from her, the confession hanging raw between them.
"Gabriella died before you could land the final blow, and I let you go because you asked me to. I thought freedom was what you wanted above all else and that you had earned it."
He looked down at her bandaged hand, and guilt stabbed at him. "But I wasn't thinking straight. If I had been, I would have let the world know you'd stolen from us and outmaneuvered the Colleoni matriarch. I would have let you take the moneypublicly, so everyone would have known you weren't weak or unprotected, but a formidable force in your own right."
Rodrigo's voice dropped to a harsh whisper, thick with self-loathing. "I was distracted by letting you go. I failed you. If I'd done it right, made you look powerful, Vincenzo would never have dared to try and kidnap you." He swallowed hard, the image of her broken in the crate searing his mind.
"That's onme, Giana. I'm responsible for all of it, and I willneverbe able to make it right for you."
The silence that followed was heavy with guilt, grief, and a tangled web of blame and regret spanning years.
Rodrigo braced himself for her anger and revulsion, the final shattering of whatever fragile connection had begun to form.
Giana moved slowly and stopped right in front of him, so close he could see the lighter flecks of brown in her dark eyes and the faint tremor in her lower lip.
Her warm fingers closed gently around his wrist. Then, slowly, she slid her hand down, her palm meeting his before her fingers laced tentatively through his, sending a jolt straight through him.
"My family started this," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. Her eyes held his, not with accusation, but with a terrible, shared understanding. "Your father died because of mine. My family died because your mother went mad with grief. We arebothcaught in the wreckage of our parents' mistakes, Rodrigo. Trapped by their choices, their vengeance."
Giana's grip tightened slightly on his hand. "I want to try and make this right. To build something out of the ashes that isn't just more cages and blood debts, but we have to try to move on from the past and step out of their shadows together if we're going to survive. If we're going tolive."
Rodrigo stared at her, stunned. He had expected fury or rejection, not a fragile bridge across the chasm of their sharedhistory. He saw the vulnerability in her eyes that mirrored his own. The carefully constructed walls around his own heart were crumbling. The feral possessiveness was still there, the instinctive drive to shield her from every threat, but it was overlaid now with something deeper and more terrifying.
His thumb moved in a slow stroke across the back of her hand where it lay in his. "I can't handle the thought of anyone hurting you again. Seeing you in that cage… knowing what they did…" He broke off, the image threatening to choke him.
He let her see his fear, the helpless rage, the depth of his terror for her. No mask. No cold control. Just Rodrigo, laid bare by the woman whose hand he held.
Giana's lips curved into a small, tremulous smile. It wasn't joy, but a fierce kind of resolve.
"You've kept me safe for years, Rodrigo, even when I hated you for it. I know you can do it now." She squeezed his hand and smiled. "But you don't have to do it alone. My skills with a gun and a blade might be a little rusty, but it won't take me long to brush up if you're patient and teach me."
The request, the trust implicit in it, sent a wave of heat through him, chasing away the chill that had lived inside him for so long.
Rodrigo's free hand lifted and cupped her face, his thumb stroking lightly over the high curve of her cheekbone. Her eyes widened slightly, but she held her ground, watching him.
"Anima mia," he murmured, the endearment slipping out before he could censor it. "If you ask me to, I'll teach you things you will never forget."
A faint flush rose on her skin, and her lips parted in a soft intake of breath. The sight sent a jolt of pure heat straight to his gut. Her eyes held his, wide and dark, filled with confusion and something dangerously like answering heat.
It was a spark he wanted desperately to fan, but he wouldn't push his luck when their peace was so new and fragile.
Slowly, Rodrigo lowered his hand from her face. He gave her fingers one last firm squeeze before releasing her hand.
