Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
Carlo
The club is packed tonight, music pounding through speakers that Ginni arranged, lights strobing across bodies that move in perfect rhythm to the beat.
From my position in the VIP area, I can see everything.
The beautiful people spending beautiful money, the carefully orchestrated chaos that generates enough profit to make this entire operation worthwhile.
Everyone here knows who I am. They nod respectfully when they catch my eye, keep their voices down when they pass my table, make sure I never have to wait for a drink or ask twice for anything.
It’s the kind of automatic deference that comes with real power, the kind that’s built on reputation and fear rather than just money.
None of these people would ever dare chain me to a bed. None of them would look at me like I was something precious they couldn’t bear to lose. None of them would drug their own wine rather than face the possibility of living without me.
I take another sip of my whisky and try to focus on the numbers scrolling across my tablet.
Revenue projections, staffing costs, inventory reports.
The cash that is carefully cleaned. All the mechanical details of running a successful business that should ground me in reality, remind me of who I actually am instead of who I was pretending to be for two weeks in a basement.
But the numbers blur together, meaningless marks on a screen that can’t hold my attention for more than a few seconds at a time. Everything feels hollow. Even here, surrounded by the proof of my success and the respect of my peers, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just going through the motions.
A commotion near the VIP entrance catches my attention. One of my security guards is trying to block someone’s path, but the man pushes past him with the kind of authority that suggests he’s not used to being told no.
Marco.
Fuck.
I haven’t returned any of his calls in over a week, haven’t responded to his increasingly concerned messages.
I’ve been avoiding him because I can’t trust myself to ask about Ginni without giving everything away.
And because this man is dead to me but I can’t tell him why. Not without letting everything slip.
“Why the fuck have you been ignoring me?” Marco demands as he strides over to my table, his usually immaculate appearance slightly disheveled. His hair is mussed like he’s been running his hands through it, and there’s something wild in his eyes that immediately puts me on alert.
I take a long, slow sip of my drink, using the time to arrange my face into something resembling calm indifference. “Good evening to you too, Marco.”
“Don’t give me that shit.” He drops into the chair across from me without invitation, his movements sharp and agitated. “I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Where the hell have you been?”
“Busy.”
“Busy?” Marco’s voice goes up an octave. “I called twelve times yesterday alone. Twelve times, Carlo. And you couldn’t be bothered to pick up once?”
I shrug, still maintaining the facade of casual disinterest even as my heart pounds against my ribs. Something’s wrong. Something’s happened. I can see it in every line of Marco’s body, hear it in the edge of panic underlying his anger.
“My phone’s been acting up,” I lie smoothly. “What’s so urgent that it couldn’t wait?”
Marco runs a hand through his hair again, the gesture so familiar it makes my chest ache with unexpected recognition. Ginni does the same thing when he’s nervous, that unconscious attempt to impose order when everything else is falling apart.
“Ginni’s been arrested.”
The words knock all the air out of my lungs. My glass slips from my suddenly nerveless fingers, whisky splashing across the polished table as I choke on the sip I’d just taken.
“What?” The word comes out as a croak, barely audible over the pounding music.
But Marco hears it, and his eyes narrow as he takes in my reaction. The way I’ve gone pale, the way my hands are shaking as I pick up my dropped glass, the complete absence of the casual indifference I was trying so hard to project.
I’m on my feet before I realize I’m moving, my chair scraping back across the floor. “What the fuck happened? When did this happen?”
Marco also jumps to his feet and actually takes a step back, clearly alarmed by the explosiveness of my reaction. His gaze flicks over my face, cataloguing details, filing away information that I can’t afford for him to have.
“Couple of days ago,” he says slowly, his voice careful now. “Why are you... Cristo, Carlo, you look like someone just told you your mother died.”
Because that’s exactly what it feels like. Like something vital and irreplaceable has been ripped away from me, leaving nothing but a gaping wound where my heart used to be.
I try to pull myself together, to find some rational explanation for my reaction, but all I can think about is Ginni alone in a cell somewhere.
Ginni surrounded by criminals who won’t understand his sensitivity, his gentleness, his complete inability to defend himself against the kind of casual violence that permeates places like that.
“What was he arrested for?” I manage to ask.
Marco’s expression grows even more guarded. “He stabbed a policeman.”
The bottom drops out of my world entirely.
Ginni. My beautiful, gentle Ginni who spins gracefully across the floor in wedding dresses. Ginni who secretly sings opera. The boy who creates stunning art. Who cries at nightmares and when the lights go out.
That Ginni stabbed someone.
“That’s impossible,” I say flatly. Even though I’ve seen his knife collection. Seen how professionally he sharpens each blade.
“I was there,” Marco replies. “Saw it happen. He walked up to a constable outside Harrods in broad daylight and put a kitchen knife between his ribs. No warning, no provocation. Just... did it.”
I sink back into my chair, my legs suddenly unable to support my weight. This doesn’t make sense. Nothing about this makes sense. Ginni doesn’t have it in him to hurt anyone, let alone attack a stranger for no reason. Abduction, yes, actual grievous bodily harm? That’s not his style.
Unless it wasn’t for no reason.
Unless it was for a very specific reason. A calculated decision made by someone who wanted to be arrested, who needed to be locked away somewhere his family couldn’t reach him. Someone who was trying to escape a situation that had become unbearable.
Fuck. I was so close to getting him out. Days at most. The Torrini family mansion is a fortress, but one of the maids just needed a little more incentive to leave the main gate unlocked and the cameras off.
I wanted to whisk Ginni away and leave no trace.
No way for his family to ever find him. I wanted him to be able to settle down and never have to be moved again.
I wanted it to look like I had nothing to do with it, because there is no rational answer to why I suddenly need Ginni to be in the very best care that money can buy.
I thought I had time. Time to do it my way. Time to hide the truth. I should have known I was being a fucking idiot.
“When are you getting him out?” I ask.
Marco shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “It was in broad daylight, Carlo. In view of dozens of witnesses and CCTV cameras. It would be tricky as hell to get him off, and...”
“And?”
“Papa thinks prison is the best place for him.”
The words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. For a moment, I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t process the casual brutality of that statement.
Prison. They think Ginni belongs in prison.
Beautiful, fragile, damaged Ginni who needs silk pajamas and expensive cologne and someone to tell him he’s precious. In prison with hardened criminals who will see his beauty and his vulnerability and his complete inability to protect himself as an invitation to destroy him.
“Prison?” I snarl, the word tasting like poison in my mouth.
Marco nods grimly. “He’s clearly having another breakdown. Maybe being locked up will force him to accept treatment, to get the help he needs.”
Help. They think prison is help. They think putting him in a cage with predators is somehow going to fix what’s miswired inside him instead of shattering him completely.
I force myself to take a breath, to think rationally. “Surely a psych evaluation will send him somewhere else? A hospital, proper treatment facility?”
Marco shrugs with heartbreaking indifference. “He passed. Declared mentally competent to stand trial. Which means he’s going to be processed like any other criminal.”
The casual way he delivers this information, like he’s discussing the weather instead of condemning his own brother to hell, sends a wave of rage through me so pure and violent I can barely see straight.
Before I realize I’m moving, I’m on my feet again, my hands fisting in Marco’s expensive jacket as I slam him back against the wall behind his chair. The sound of his back hitting the brick is drowned out by the music, but I can see the shock and fear in his eyes as my face hovers inches from his.
“Like any other criminal?” I growl, my voice barely recognizable even to myself. “How dare you call Ginni that!”
Marco’s hands come up defensively, but he doesn’t try to break my grip. Smart man. Right now, I’m operating on pure instinct, and every instinct I have is screaming at me to hurt someone for what they’re doing to Ginni.
“Carlo, what the hell...”
But I can’t find the words. Can’t explain the murderous fury that’s consuming me, the need to make someone pay for abandoning the most vulnerable member of their family when he needs them most.
I release him abruptly and spin away, unable to look at his face for another second. Unable to stand here while the only person I’ve ever truly loved is rotting in a cell because his own family thinks he’s disposable.
“Where are you going?” Marco calls after me as I stride toward the exit.
I don’t answer. Can’t answer. Because if I open my mouth right now, I’m going to say something that reveals exactly how much Ginni means to me, and that’s a secret I can’t afford to share.
Not yet.
The drive through London passes in a blur of rage and panic. My hands are shaking on the steering wheel, my foot pressing the accelerator harder than it should as I weave through traffic with reckless desperation.
Ginni is in prison. Alone, terrified, probably convinced that I’ve abandoned him just like everyone else. Probably thinking that the note I left him was just a pretty lie, that my promise to come back for him was meaningless.
He has no idea I’ve been falling apart without him. No idea that every day since I left has been a struggle just to remember how to breathe.
The industrial estate on the outskirts of the city is dark and mostly empty, the kind of place where legitimate businesses pack up and go home at five o’clock, leaving only the operations that prefer to work in shadows.
I screech to a halt outside a unit that looks abandoned, its windows blacked out and no sign indicating what might be inside. But I know Dante’s here. He’s always here when people need the kind of help that can’t be found through official channels.
I bang on the metal door with my fist, not caring about subtlety or discretion. “Dante! Open the fucking door!”
The door opens almost immediately, revealing Dante’s tall frame silhouetted against the dim light from inside. He takes one look at my face and steps aside without a word.
“We need to talk,” I say as I push past him into the warehouse.
“I gathered that,” Dante replies calmly, closing the door behind me.
I spin around to face him, and whatever he sees in my expression makes his own features sharpen with interest.
“It’s about my secret,” I say without preamble. “The one you knew I was keeping.”
“I’m listening.”
And just like that, the last of my defenses crumble. Because Ginni is in prison, and I’m the only one who gives a damn about getting him out. And if that means trusting Dante with the truth about what happened between us, then so be it.
“I need your help,” I say quietly. “And when I tell you why, you’re probably going to think I’ve lost my mind.”
Dante’s dark eyes study my face for a long moment, and then he nods once.
“Try me.”
“I’m in love with Giovanni Torrini and I need you to help me break him out of jail.”