Chapter 21 #2
“I studied that too.” His cheeks color again, endearingly embarrassed. “Business journals, financial reports, anything I could find about your industry. I wanted to be able to help if you ever needed it.”
“Why?” I ask. “Why put so much effort into me?”
“Because you were kind to me.” The answer comes immediately, heartfelt and sincere.
“At family dinners when everyone else ignored me or made uncomfortable jokes, you’d always include me in conversations.
You asked about my studies, my interests.
You treated me like a person instead of an embarrassment. ”
Because you were kind to me. Cristo, my heart is going to break.
I try to remember those dinners, those casual interactions that seemed so meaningless at the time. Basic politeness, the kind of courtesy I’d show any family member. But to Ginni, starved for acknowledgment and acceptance, it clearly felt like salvation.
“And you were handsome,” he adds with characteristic honesty. “Not just physically, though you certainly are that. But the way you carried yourself, the quiet confidence, the way you never needed to prove anything to anyone. I wanted to be close to that kind of strength.”
“I’m not that strong, Ginni.”
“You are.” His voice is soft but certain.
“You survived things that would have broken most people. You didn’t come from a privileged family, you built something meaningful from nothing.
Everyone admires you, and your name now means something.
You command respect without demanding it. That’s strength.”
The way he sees me is intoxicating and terrifying in equal measure. Not as the flawed, often ruthless man I know myself to be, but as some idealized version that exists only in his imagination. How can I possibly live up to that kind of devotion?
“What about now?” I ask. “Now that you know me properly, are you disappointed?”
“Disappointed?” He looks genuinely puzzled by the question. “Carlo, you’ve been everything I hoped for and more. Kind when you could have been cruel, patient when I know I’ve been difficult, protective even when you had every reason to hate me.”
“I should hate you,” I point out, though the words lack conviction.
“But you don’t.” It’s not a question. “And I think maybe that means something.”
The projector above us shifts from sunlight to sunset, painting our ceiling in shades of gold and pink. Another artificial close of day in our underground world, another marker of time that has no real meaning here.
“Tell me more,” I say, not ready for this moment of raw honesty to end.
“I used to write poetry about you.” The admission comes with a self-conscious laugh. “Terrible, melodramatic verses full of yearning and romantic clichés. I burned them all before... before this.”
“I wish you hadn’t.”
“They were embarrassing.”
“They were yours.” I reach for his hand, threading our fingers together in a gesture that feels natural despite everything between us. “Everything about you is interesting to me, even the embarrassing parts.”
“Why?”
It’s my turn to consider the question seriously, to examine the feelings that have been growing stronger every day despite my best efforts to deny them.
“Because you see the world differently than anyone I’ve ever met,” I say finally. “You find beauty in things other people ignore. You love with an intensity that should be frightening but somehow isn’t. You make me feel like maybe I’m worth all the effort you’ve put into understanding me.”
“You are,” he says immediately. “You’re worth everything.”
The certainty in his voice is overwhelming. When was the last time someone spoke about me with such unwavering conviction? When was the last time I felt genuinely cherished rather than simply useful or feared? The answer is never. Nobody has ever felt this way about me.
“I’m a dangerous man, Ginni. I’ve done things that would horrify you.”
“I know what you are,” he replies calmly. “I know what you’ve done, what you’re capable of. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.”
“It should.”
“Why? Because violence makes you unworthy of love? Because protecting what matters to you makes you a monster?” He pauses and shakes his head.
“I’m not some innocent civilian off the street.
I was born and raised in your world, Carlo.
Mafia is my blood.” His voice gains strength.
“And more personally than that, you think I don’t understand darkness?
You think I haven’t studied every shadow in my own soul? ”
There’s steel in his voice now, the strength that lurks beneath all that delicate beauty. Evidence of the dangerous intelligence that makes Ginni far more than just a pretty boy with romantic delusions.
“We’re the same, you and I,” he continues. “We both know what it means to do terrible things for the right reasons. We both understand that sometimes love requires violence, that protection demands sacrifice.”
“You’re twenty-one years old.”
“Age doesn’t determine capacity for darkness, Carlo.
I’ve been planning this abduction since I was seventeen.
I drugged you, chained you, threatened to hurt your friends.
I’m fully prepared to kill my own brother if he tries to take you away from me.
” His smile is gentle but his eyes are sharp as blades.
“Does that sound like innocence to you?”
The casual way he discusses potential murder should terrify me, but instead it’s oddly comforting. He’s right about our similarities. We’re both capable of monstrous things. The difference is that Ginni’s monster wears silk and sings opera and makes the most incredible breakfast I’ve ever tasted.
“You don’t frighten me,” I realize aloud.
“Good.” His smile turns genuinely warm again. “You shouldn’t be afraid of someone who loves you. Even if that someone is a little bit insane.”
A little bit. The understatement makes me laugh despite everything, and Ginni’s face lights up at the sound like he’s just accomplished something magnificent.
“There,” he says with satisfaction. “I knew I could make you laugh eventually.”
“You’ve made me do a lot of things I didn’t expect.”
“I hope I’ve made you happy too.”
The question in his voice is so hopeful, so vulnerable, that I can’t bear to give him anything less than complete honesty.
“You have,” I admit, and I’m not just thinking about the mind-blowing sex.
“Even though I kidnapped you?”
“Maybe because you kidnapped me.” The admission surprises us both. “You absolved me of all my responsibilities. Gave me an opportunity to just be.”
He smiles at me and it feels like benediction.
“Ginni?”
“Yes?”
“Sing for me again.”
And he does.