I leave the office and walk through the Ciresa house, past the rooms where I've spent so much time over the years, past the places where I've laughed with Romeo, eaten with this family, and shared their table and their home, planned operations, feeling like I was part of something important.
I'm not going back to my apartment tonight. I'm not going to sit alone in the darkness and think about everything I've lost. I'mgoing to the gym. I'm going to hit the heavy bag until my hands are too damaged to continue. I'm going to push my body until it's too exhausted to feel anything except physical pain.
It’s all that works, the only thing that gives me any relief from the constant ache of knowing that I'm trapped in a life I never chose, and about to be married to a woman I can't forgive.
I'm going to marry Giulia Ciresa in three days. I'm going to spend the rest of my life bound to her. And the only way I'm going to survive it is by throwing myself into work and channeling my rage into something productive.
It's not the life I wanted, but it's the only life I have left. And I'm going to make damn sure that everyone in this city understands that Luca Moretti—Romeo's second, the man who got trapped by the don's daughter—is still the most dangerous person they'll ever meet.
19
GIULIA
Two days before the wedding, I find Luca in the hallway outside my father's office.
He's been avoiding me successfully for the past week. Every time I've tried to talk to him, he's either disappeared before I can reach him or looked through me like I'm not even there. Like I'm a ghost haunting the halls of my father's house, invisible and irrelevant. But today I'm desperate enough to corner him.
I've been lying awake every night, my hand on my still-flat stomach, thinking about the baby growing inside me and the life we're about to start together. I keep thinking that maybe if I can just talk to him, if I can just make him understand how sorry I am, how much I love him, we can find a way through this.
"Luca." I step in front of him before he can walk past me, blocking his path. "Please. I need to talk to you."
He stops, and for a moment I think he's going to push past me anyway. But then his eyes meet mine, and what I see there makes my breath catch in my throat.
Nothing.
There's nothing in his eyes. No anger, no pain, no residual affection. Just a cold blankness that's somehow worse than any emotion would be. It’s more than there was before all of this. Then, I could tell something was eating at him, even if he treated me professionally. Now it’s as if he’s emptied out entirely.
"What do you want, Giulia?" His voice is flat and bored.
"I want to talk about the wedding. About us. About?—"
"There is no us." He cuts me off, his tone still perfectly neutral. "There's a legal arrangement that your father is forcing me into. That's all."
The words feel like a slap, but I force myself to keep going. "I know you're angry. I know I hurt you. But we're going to be married, we're going to have a child together, and I just thought?—"
"You thought what?" He raises an eyebrow, looking down at me as if I’m a stupid child. "That we'd play house? That I'd forgive you and we'd live happily ever after?"
"No, I just—I thought maybe we could try. Maybe we could?—"
His voice goes hard. "Stop. You need to stop trying, Giulia. You need to accept what this is and stop pretending it's something else."
"What is it, then?" My voice breaks on the question, and I hate myself for the weakness. "What are we?"
"We're two people trapped in a situation neither of us wanted." He takes a step closer, and I can smell his cologne—the same scent that used to make me feel safe, desired, loved. Now it just makes me want to cry. "I'm marrying you because I have to, because your father is giving me no choice. Because you're carrying my child, and I have a responsibility to that child. But don't mistake obligation for anything else."
"Luca, please?—"
"I don't love you." He says it deliberately, slowly. "I loved Valentina. I loved the woman I met in that club, but she doesn't exist, does she? She was just a role you were playing.”
"That's not true." I blink back the tears that are threatening to form, my voice wavering. "Everything I told you was true. Everything I felt was real. I am that person?—"
"No, you're not." I can see the muscle ticking in his jaw, the only sign that this conversation is affecting him at all. "You're Giulia Ciresa. The don's daughter. A woman who lies as easily as she breathes. A woman who manipulated me into falling in love with someone who doesn't exist so she could trap me into marriage."
"I didn't—I never meant to trap you. It was supposed to be one night. And I wanted to tell you, but?—”
"But you didn't." His voice drops. "You waited until you were pregnant. Until you had no other choice and you needed me to save you from the consequences of your own actions."
"That's not fair?—"
