She's staring at me like I've just told her the sky is green. “I don’t understand,” she whispers. “You… before… you hardly spoke to me. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I?—”
“Do you remember the first dinner where Dante introduced possible husbands? When you met Alessandro, Marco, and Enzo?”
"I remember." Her voice is small and uncertain.
“I couldn’t stop watching you that night. I saw the way you smiled at them, even though I could see you hated every second of it. And I hated watching Alessandro touch your hand, and Marco lean too close, fucking seeing Enzo look at you like he was already imagining what he'd do to you once you were his."
The memory makes my jaw clench, that old anger flaring up hotly despite everything that's happened since. "It killed me every dinner party, sitting there watching other men court you, knowing that one of them was going to marry you and take you away—" I can't finish the sentence. I can’t properly articulate the depth of possessive rage I felt that night and all the nights after. "I wanted to kill all of them. Wanted to put bullets in their heads and make sure none of them ever touched you again. And I knew—I knew that reaction was insane, that I had no right to feel that way about you, that you were Romeo's sister and Dante's daughter and completely off-limits to someone like me. You were supposed to marry someone important, someone who could bring your family alliances, power, and legitimacy. Not the guy who breaks bones for a living and has killed more people than he can count."
"I never wanted any of those men," she says fiercely. The intensity in her voice feels forceful, like a physical presence between us. "I never wanted Marco or Enzo or even Alessandro before I knew what he really was. I only ever wanted you."
"I know that now." I shake my head. "But at the time, all I knew was that I was in love with someone I could never have, and it was destroying me from the inside out. So when I heard about the club, I thought maybe it would help. Maybe if I could find someone else, someone who wasn't you, I could finally get you out of my system."
Understanding is dawning on her face now, and I can see her putting the pieces together, understanding the full scope of what I'm confessing. "That's why you were there. At the club. You were trying to forget about me."
"Yes." I let out a breath. "I was trying to find someone, anyone, who could make me feel something other than this constant, grinding need for you. And then Valentina walked in, and—" I pause, trying to figure out how to explain whathappened next without making it sound like an accusation. "She was everything I'd been looking for. And for the first time in years, I felt like maybe I could have something I actually wanted instead of just enduring what I couldn't change."
Tears roll down Giulia’s cheeks as I keep speaking, but she doesn’t try to interrupt me this time. "I fell in love with her," I continue, and I see her flinch at the words. "She made me feel wanted. I felt like I was losing my mind with how good it was, with how I was getting so caught up in it, and I was guilty over wanting someone other than you. I felt fucking awful over it, and then I found out Valentina was you. And it wasn't just the betrayal that destroyed me, Giulia. It wasn't just the anger at being lied to or manipulated. It was the realization that the two women I'd fallen in love with—the one I could never have and the one who made me feel alive—were the same person. That I'd been so blind, so desperate to keep you separate in my mind, that I couldn't see what should have been obvious from the beginning. That I’d been tearing myself up over loving two women when it was only ever one. I felt like such a fucking idiot, and I hated being put through so much over a lie."
"I'm sorry," she whispers. The words are so full of genuine remorse that I have to resist the urge to pull her into my arms despite the pain it would cause. "I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you like that. I just—I didn't know how else to be with you. I didn't know how to make you see me as someone you could want instead of just Romeo's little sister."
"I know. I know why you did it now. I understand the trap you were in, the way your entire life was being controlled. I understand that creating Valentina was your act of rebellion. And I—" I take a slow breath. "I've been cruel to you because of it. I've deliberately made our marriage miserable to punish you for what you did. I was angry and hurt and didn't know how else to deal with what I was feeling."
"You had every right to be angry," she whispers. There's no accusation in her voice, just weary acceptance. "I hurt you. I betrayed your trust. Everything you did was?—"
"Wrong." I cut her off before she can finish that sentence. "Everything I did was wrong, Giulia. Yes, you hurt me. Yes, you betrayed my trust. But that didn't give me the right to make you suffer for it, or treat you like you were nothing more than an obligation I resented. We both made mistakes. We both hurt each other. The question is whether we can move forward from here.”
Her eyes widen, and I see a flicker of hope and fear cross her face. It makes my chest ache. "Can we?" Her voice is so uncertain that I want to promise her everything will be okay, even though I'm not sure that's a promise I can keep. "Can you forgive me? Can you—can you ever trust me again after what I did?"
"I don't know. I want to. I want to forgive you and move past this and build the kind of marriage we both deserve. But trust isn't something that just comes back because we want it to. It's something we're going to have to rebuild, and that's going to take time and effort and—and probably a lot of difficult conversations like this one."
"I'll do whatever it takes." She says it so quickly that it takes me a second to catch up, hope flooding her expression. "I'll spend the rest of my life proving to you that you can trust me, that I'll never lie to you again, that?—"
"I know you will." I squeeze her hand. "But this is about both of us learning how to be honest with each other, how to communicate without all the bullshit we've been hiding behind. We’re both going to have to figure it out.”
“I…” Giulia looks as if she’s going to burst into tears again. “I want that, Luca. I want to figure it out with you. And I’m sorry I went about all of this the wrong way. I’m sorry I…”
“I know. I don’t fully know what it was like for you. And I get why. We just have to work past what that caused.”
Giulia swallows hard, her thumb tracing my knuckles where our hands are linked together. “I felt suffocated all the time,” she whispers. "From the time I was old enough to understand what my father did, what our family was, I knew my life wasn't really mine. Every choice was made for me—where I went to school, what I studied, who I was allowed to spend time with. Even going to boarding school was just another way to control me—polish me into the perfect mafia wife, someone who could host dinner parties and speak multiple languages and look beautiful on some powerful man's arm."
She looks away from me as she speaks, across the room. "And then I came back, and my father started talking about marriage, and I realized that was it. That was the end of any illusion of autonomy I might have had. I was going to be married off to whoever offered the best alliance and could bring the most benefit to the family. My feelings didn't matter. My wants didn't matter. I was just a commodity to be traded for power and influence."
"The suitors were awful," she continues, and I can hear the disgust in her voice. "Marco treated me like a business transaction. Enzo looked at me like I was something to be consumed. And Alessandro—" She shudders, and I tighten my grip on her hand. "Alessandro seemed kind at first, but there was always something off about him. Something that made my skin crawl even before we knew what he really was. You never looked at me the way they did. You never treated me like a commodity or a prize or something to be possessed. But I knew you'd never pursue me. You were too loyal to Romeo, too aware of the boundaries. So I was going to spend the rest of my life married to someone I didn't love, watching you from a distance, knowing I'd never have even a fraction of what I wanted."
"And then I heard about the club." She bites her lip. "And I thought—I thought maybe this was my chance. I could be someone else, someone without all the baggage and expectations and family complications. And then you were there, and I thought I could have just one night where I could pretend I was someone you might actually want."
"It was selfish," she admits softly. I can hear the self-recrimination in her voice. "It was manipulative and wrong, and I knew it even as I was doing it. But I was drowning, Luca. I was drowning in expectations and obligations. My entire future was being decided without any input from me. And creating Valentina—being with you—it was the only time I felt like I could breathe. The only time I felt like I had any control over my own life. I never meant for it to go as far as it did. I never meant to fall deeper in love with you every time we were together. I never meant to get pregnant. I never meant to trap you into a marriage you didn't want. I just—I just wanted you so desperately I would have done anything, and I can see now how fucked up that was.”
Silence falls after that, and she looks at me helplessly, her eyes wet with tears. “I love you,” she whispers. “I want to make this work.”
“Are you sure about that?” I slide my hand out of hers, brushing my thumb over the back of her hand. She opens her mouth as if to sayyes, of course,but I keep talking before she can.
“I know that you know what I do for your family. You know I'm an enforcer, that I handle problems and collect debts and do whatever needs to be done to maintain order. But I don’t know if you understand what that means, really. What kind of man do I have to be in order to do that.”
She watches me, but says nothing.
"When I saw you with those men who were all vying to marry you," I continue, and I can feel the old rage stirring even now, "Ididn't just feel jealous or possessive. I felt murderous. I wanted to put bullets in their heads and make sure they never touched you again. I wanted to break every bone in Alessandro's hand when he held yours at dinner. I wanted to destroy Enzo for the way he looked at you. These weren't just passing thoughts, Giulia. These were detailed fantasies about all the ways I could hurt them, all the ways I could make them suffer for daring to think they had any right to you."
