28. Vincenzo
VINCENZO
I t’s been a week since the ambush, five days since we ran the body swap, scrubbed the DNA, and bought ourselves time with a falsified report.
Alessia hasn’t been back to the lab since and I haven’t pushed her.
The pressure’s cooled, but a strange silence between us has taken the place of the superheated tension and I'm not sure how to feel about that.
I still have men watching her apartment, but not even Dr. Bernardi has attempted to approach her.
The Bianchis have backed down, and all that's left is for her to attend the deposition for which she got the subpoena, and her life will be clear of any ties to her father's.
Except the soul ties which I know will haunt her.
I knock once before unlocking her door with the key she gave me weeks ago.
The deadbolt sticks, same as always. I step inside and close the door behind me without calling out, but I know she's expecting me.
Somewhere inside the apartment, I hear the low scrape of cardboard shifting against the floor.
I follow the sound until I see her on the living room floor, surrounded by half-filled boxes and stacked folders.
She doesn’t look up, but I know she hears me.
She's stacking lab notes and framed photos into an open box. Another box sits beside her, already half-full with coats, boots, and the disassembled parts of a French press she probably won’t need again.
The curtains are open and light spills across the floor, catching on the tape dispenser beside her knee.
The sharp metal edge glints under the sunlight.
I step forward slowly and let the door click shut behind me.
"You moving out?" My voice sounds too casual, but I don’t know how else to start this conversation.
Emilio has ordered me to pull my men back now.
The risk to us is over. With Alessia's help, we managed to destroy any ties Gordo left between us and the murder victim, and he won't waste resources on making sure she's okay following the deposition.
But I'm not ready to give up on her personally. There's too much left unsaid between us.
Alessia doesn’t look up. She slides another folder into the box and says, "Not exactly… Maybe… I don't know." Her tone sounds defeated and reserved all at once.
I move toward her and lean one shoulder against the wall as I stare at the stacks of evidence to the contrary that surround her. "Then what is this?"
She sits back on her heels and rests her hands on her thighs. "I’m not going to have a job when this ends. I might as well be ready."
I cross the room, take the envelope from my coat, and set it on the table next to her half-empty coffee mug. She looks at it, but her hands stay on her legs. She raises her chin slightly. "I don’t want your money, Enzo."
I stay standing next to her as I sigh hard.
"It’s not mine. It’s Gordo’s money—or part of it—what he left behind.
You’re owed this. There’s more coming." The decision to take care of Alessia financially was always mine to make.
Emilio washed his hands of his brother permanently, and he was prepared to let the money sit in Gordo's off-shore account and never touch a dime of it.
It rightfully belongs to Alessia now, and I'm going to see to it that she gets it.
Alessia exhales through her nose and scrubs her hands over her face.
Her gaze stays fixed on the ceiling like it might offer some kind of answer.
"You think a payoff changes what I did?" I see every worry line on her face, the taut way her shoulders fill out the blouse she's wearing.
She's a fighter, but everyone has their limit. I can see she's reached hers.
I lower myself to the floor across from her and sit with my legs sprawled out and my shoulders hunched.
"No. I think it buys you space to figure out what comes next.
" Money isn't the answer, but it can provide relief when we need it most. In her case, it might provide more than relief if she lets it.
She draws one knee up and wraps her arms around it.
Her voice drops to something quiet and tired.
"There’s nothing next, Enzo. Not in that job.
Not in any lab that expects clean hands.
I'm done here. I won't work in Rome again, maybe not even in Italy.
If I don't get fired, I'm quitting. I can't do this job knowing at any point, the criminal underworld will squeeze me like this again. "
I shift one of the boxes out of the way and rest my arms on my knees. "Then stop letting that place define what you do."
Alessia lets out a dry laugh, but there’s no smile on her face. "That simple, huh? You think walking away from forensic work is like taking a vacation? I've spent years trying to believe science could stand up to politics. Turns out, I was wrong."
"You don’t owe them anything," I say, and I mean it. Her loyalty’s been stretched past breaking, and I see the will to fight slowly fading away in her eyes.
She doesn’t answer at first. The light shifts across her face as a cloud moves past the window.
Her expression tightens—not with anger, but with clarity.
"I stayed because I thought I could do good. That’s the only reason I ever took the job.
But I was wrong. My father's legacy is too big to ever get away from it. "
I reach for her hand. She doesn’t flinch. She lets me take it, and I pull her until she comes closer, climbing onto my lap.
"You’re not that person," I say quietly.
"You never were." My hand smooths the hair off her face as she settles into my embrace.
It's a hard thing watching her spirit not fight back anymore.
The part of her that is most precious is the part that seems like it's dying, and I feel fully to blame for that.
Alessia’s voice thins to something raw. "I will be if I stay. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next month. But eventually, I’ll lose the part of me that still cares. The second I stop flinching at a cover-up or lying to a victim’s mother, that’s it. That’s the end of the line."
Wrapping my arms tightly around her waist, I hold her to myself as I say, "Then let me help you find something else."
She snorts. The sound isn’t mean, just tired. "Doing what? Teaching chemistry to bored rich kids? Selling skincare supplements to influencers?"
I shift under her and readjust her position on my lap, then reach up and push her dark locks behind her back. "Come work for me." The solution sounds simple to me, but I know it won't be that easy for her to accept.
That gets a laugh. Alessia picks up a roll of tape, spins it once in her fingers, then sets it back down. "Doing what? Helping you catalog which bullets deform in lake water? More cover-ups? More evidence to destroy?"
"No," I say. My jaw tightens at those words, but I know she doesn't mean to be so cynical. "Helping me make something of your father's legacy and keep your uncle out of hot water."
She finally looks at me full-on. Her eyes are skeptical but alert. "You’re serious. You want me to pretend I don't know what they do?"
I nod. "You don’t have to work for me. You don’t even have to touch anything illegal.
But you could consult as an outside specialist. You’d keep your title, your autonomy, and your ethics.
Maybe it’s called clinical oversight in your field, or best practices review.
Whatever the terminology, it means setting standards and watching the line—something you’ve always done anyway.
We'll keep it separate from what I do with the rest of the business. Keep yourself clean. You’d be helping, not hiding anything.
And you’d be with me. We wouldn’t have to split our lives down the middle just to be together. "
Alessia looks down again. Her voice softens. "You’re talking like we get a future." Her fingers toy with the top button of my shirt. I see how she's chewed her nails down to the quick, and I clasp one hand and bring it to my lips to kiss it.
She doesn’t resist, but she’s tense at first. I wrap my arms back around her and wait. Her head drops to my shoulder after a few breaths.
"You think I don’t know what my father was?
What I’ve been?" I ask. I don’t want to say it out loud, but there’s no dodging it anymore—not with her in my arms, not after what we’ve survived.
I’ve lived my entire life operating on necessity, not desire, and now I’m admitting that it isn’t enough.
That’s the weight I feel—finally choosing something for myself, knowing it might cost me everything else.
Alessia stays quiet, but her hands press lightly against my chest. Her body is rigid in my arms, and I press a kiss to her cheek.
Somehow, in the middle of all this shit fight of a life, I found someone I can be with and not have to keep my guard up.
I can't let that go, but I won't force her to choose me. She has to do it because she wants me.
"I’m not proud of it. But I did it because I thought it was necessary. I thought being smarter, faster, colder than the next guy was the only way to keep people safe."
She tilts her head slightly. "And now?"
I close my eyes for a beat. "Now I think survival’s not enough." I shrug a shoulder as she leans into me, and I tighten my hold around her. "You can’t build something real if you’re always planning how to cut loose. And you can’t keep a woman like you at a distance and expect her to wait."
Her breath catches. She doesn’t pull away. "I don’t know how to be with someone who lives in your world. Someone who moves through it like violence is currency. Someone like my father…"
"I don’t know how to be anything else," I admit. "But I know what I want, and that's you."
Her fingers curl around my neck, though her grip is uncertain.
"I’m not promising anything, Vincenzo," she says after a while. "I don’t know what this is or what it becomes."