Chapter 24 Francesco
FRANCESCO
There’s something off about Marco.
He’s become a little too quiet, like he knows something I’m not aware of. The way he looks at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention. There’s something behind his eyes, a cold calculation that makes my skin crawl.
He’s also become more possessive.
Every time he’s near Lia, it’s like he’s trying to mark his territory.
He’s always been this way, but he doesn’t bother to make it subtle anymore.
It’s almost like he’s daring me to notice the way he grabs her waist whenever I step into the room, the way he presses a kiss to her cheek and rubs a hand over her stomach like he’s trying to show me that he took what belongs to me and I can’t do anything about it.
But it’s not just the way he acts around her. He’s been acting differently around everyone lately. He’s been distant, almost like he’s preoccupied with something else nobody knows. He doesn’t crack his annoying jokes at the dining table or even engage in small talk.
And Lia…
She hasn’t looked at me in the past few days. She tries to consciously avoid me, and when she can’t, she pretends like I’m not in the room.
It guts me more than it should. Seeing Marco flaunting her around, seeing how perfect they look together, it makes something deep twist inside my gut.
Today is exactly like the past few days have been.
I try to distract myself with work, with my wedding preparations, and with my personal investigation. But it’s no use. My thoughts keep circling the same drain, pulling me under. The guilt eating me up gets larger and larger each day, to the point where I can’t even sleep.
So instead of locking myself up in my office, sitting behind my desk, and pretending that I’m actually getting some work done, I decide to go to the one place I swore I’d never return to.
The old Romano chapel.
It sits in the farthest corner of the estate grounds, beyond the olive grove, tucked behind crumbling garden walls and a rusted iron gate. It’s a prohibited area. Only family members are allowed in.
The Romano chapel is long forgotten and unused, yet still standing. It hasn’t been used since Mama died. Dante had it locked up because it brought back too many sad memories of her. He barely talks about her anymore.
I remember the last time I came here like it was yesterday. I had been drunk on rebellion. Adriano brought me, saying it was the perfect place to plot our secret plan together.
I push open the old wooden door, and a loud creak echoes in the air. I step into the large room, and the scent hits me like a punch. Old incense, damp stone, and dust. It’s cold inside. The altar is empty, the stained glass windows are faded, but I remember everything that happened in here.
I walk over to the front, kneel in front of the altar, and run my hand along the base until I find it. One loose brick. I dig my fingers in, wrench it free, and reach into the cavity behind it.
I pull out the small, wooden box we hid in there and wipe off the dust coating its surface. Then, I open the lid.
Two forged passports. A silver rosary that looks like an old relic, but when I carefully open it, I find the thumb drive nestled inside. A folded sheet with bank account numbers. A list of safehouses mapped across countries. Everything Adriano left for Lia.
He trusted me with these. He believed in something better for the daughter he could never save. He left it up to me to complete the task he never had the chance to.
I remember everything exactly like it happened.
I discovered Adriano had double-crossed us long before anyone else. His journal, the secrets he knew. I should’ve turned him in. I should have told my father and the Elders. He would have been killed, him and his daughter.
Instead of revealing the truth, I decided to help him hide the evidence of all his findings.
I remember the deal he offered me. If I helped him reveal the truth, he would help me escape.
I saw beneath his pride a desperate man who wanted to protect his child.
Beneath the rage that drove him, I also saw hope, and that ignited something in my chest.
I wanted that. I was sick of the blood, the blind obedience, and the brutal chains that bound me. La Mano Nera had turned me into a monster of a man. I wanted out, and for the first time, there was a hope, a chance that I could get what I wanted.
So we spent months creating false identities, hiding money in secret accounts, and building safehouses where Adriano could escape to with Lia after the truth was revealed. And maybe, someday, I could use it to escape too.
We planned everything. Right here in this chapel.
And I failed him anyway.
I grip the box harder. My jaw clenches.
When my father found out about Adriano’s betrayal, everything came crumbling down. I wasn’t there fast enough, and he was already dead by the time I walked through his front door.
I couldn’t save him. So I did the next best thing. I saved her.
I convinced my father not to kill her. Instead, take her under the Romano roof as a servant just so I could keep my eyes on her. And I buried the escape plan here, waiting for the day she might need it.
And now? Everything is crumbling again.
Marco is making moves in secret. The Elders are watching our house now more than ever. And Lia is stuck in the crossfire like the pawn she is.
And it’s all my fault. I created a bigger mess simply because I couldn’t keep my hands and my dick to myself. Now she’s carrying a baby, my baby, and I’m desperate to save her, now more than ever.
When I return to the main house, it’s late. Yet, I find her alone in the library, curled on one of the chairs by the fireplace with an open book on her lap. She thinks she can hide from me, but I’ve spent years of my life watching over her.
She doesn’t see me when I enter the room, but by the way her body stiffens, I know she knows I’m here.
She doesn’t look up when I stand before her.
“Lia.”
Her fingers tighten around the pages.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
I stretch my hand forward, handing the box over to her. She looks at me but doesn’t move to collect it.
“You’re wrong if you think your father didn’t fight for you. If you think he was just a traitor whose carelessness led to his death. If you think he abandoned you to suffer…”
I kneel before her and place the box on top of the book she’s pretending to read.
She stares at it like it might bite her, but there’s a different emotion in her eyes now.
“I tried to save you even before you realized you needed saving.”
She finally looks at me, and the hurt in her eyes cuts deeper than any knife. “What are you talking about?”
“Your father tried to get you out of here. He didn’t abandon you for all those years he was away. He was trying to escape.”
I see her clench her jaws firmly. I see the tears forming in her eyes.
“How do you know this?”
“Because I was helping him,” I reveal. “When Adriano found out about the Society’s secret, he knew he couldn’t just reveal it and be a free man.
He knew they would try to kill him… and you.
So before he revealed what he knew, he spent years plotting an escape plan.
And I helped him because I wanted to escape too. ”
A tear runs down her cheek.
“I hated what I was becoming. I hated how much control La Mano Nera had over innocent people who were born into this world. The atrocities they committed and continue to commit. Maybe we were stupid enough to think we could change the world by exposing them,” I chuckle harshly.
“But you were there when my father was killed,” she accuses.
“I didn’t know my father had discovered Adriano’s betrayal.
I thought we were still just looking for him for some petty theft.
Dante never shared with me. By the time I came to the house, he was already dead.
The guilt has eaten me up ever since, knowing he died because I didn’t do enough to protect him.
It’s why I took you in… why I turned you into a servant.
I wasn’t trying to punish you for your father’s betrayal. I was trying to keep you alive…”
She shakes her head as more tears pour out of her eyes.
“Why are you telling me this now? What do you want?”
“I don’t want—”
“You think it makes you a good person? Because you chose to spare me? I’ve been treated like an object, like a pawn in a fucking chess game. I’ve been kicked around like a soccer ball between you and your brother…”
“I know I’m not a good person, but you deserve to know the truth. You deserve to know that your father died trying to give you your freedom.”
I push the box toward her.
“Inside is your way out of here. Forged identities. Money. A network your father trusted.”
She hesitates, looking at the box like she still doesn’t believe me.
“You might think staying with Marco is safer. But if you remain here, with him, with me, with the clutches of La Mano Nera… you’ll never be free. This,” I tap the lid, “is your father’s final gift. And my only redemption.”
She doesn’t move.
“I’m not asking you to trust me,” I add. “I’m telling you when the time comes… run, and don’t look back.”
Her lips part, like she wants to say something, but nothing comes out.
I rise to my feet.
“One more thing,” I say. “Whatever you choose… If you choose to stay or leave, I will protect our child, even if it costs me everything.”
I leave her there, and for the first time in years, I don’t feel like I’m carrying a huge secret.
But I do feel like I’ve just handed away the last piece of myself.