30. Gianna
Chapter 30
Gianna
S leep is the only escape I have left—an oblivion that shields me from guilt, fear, and the horrible uncertainty of what my future holds.
But the peace doesn’t last long.
A soft knock at the door—once, maybe twice—breaks through my dreamless haze, and I blink blearily. For a moment, I have no idea where I am. A motel? My wedding suite? My father’s estate? Every place I’ve ever been blurs together in the first few seconds I’m conscious. My heart beats a dull, heavy thud as I try to place myself.
Then I remember: I ran away from my wedding. I hopped on a bus and traveled for hours and hours, only to wind up in this dingy motel room in western Kansas. No one should be knocking on my door. No one should know I’m here. The clerk barely looked at me when she gave me the key. I paid in cash like a fugitive; I used a fake last name. No one should be knocking.
I hold my breath, body tensing, my heart straining painfully against my ribs. Maybe it’s just a traveler who got the wrong room. Or the night manager checking if I need anything. But there’s something off, some unnamable dread creeping up my spine. The knock doesn’t come again.
Seconds tick by—too many. My hands go clammy. Maybe I dreamt it. Maybe my paranoia runs so deep that I’m inventing knocks in the middle of the night.
I’m about to sink back into bed, willing my pulse to calm down, when the door suddenly bursts inward. Wood splinters with a sickening crack, fragments spraying across the carpet. The flimsy chain slides loose with an ugly scrape of metal, the worthless security measure I’d foolishly trusted now dangling uselessly from the frame. I jolt upright, my body freezing between fight and flight as the night air rushes through the violated doorway.
My father stands framed in the weak light from the rising sun behind him. And he’s holding a gun.
My first wild thought is that he’s here to drag me home and scold me for fleeing. But that glimmer of hope flickers and dies the instant I meet his eyes. He’s not worried; he doesn’t look frantic—he’s calm and cold like ice creeping over a corpse. Slowly, he closes the door behind him, sealing us both inside the motel room like a tomb.
“Little runaway,” he says softly. His lips twist into a sneer. “Hiding in a rat-hole. Typical.”
I clutch the bedspread to give my hands something to do, twisting the cheap fabric between my fingers until my knuckles turn white. “F-Father,” I choke out, the word catching in my throat like a fish bone. “How... You can’t be here.” It’s a foolish statement, but I can’t form coherent thoughts. My mind is static, white noise drowning out reason. The sight of him is like waking up and realizing the nightmare you just fled from is your reality—that the monster you thought you’d escaped has followed you into the daylight and brought all your terrors with him.
“Unfortunately for you,” he says, taking a measured step forward, “I am here.”
My body refuses to move. “Why are you?—?”
His lips curl back, cutting me off. “To collect what’s mine, you might imagine?” Giovanni snorts dismissively. “I see that little flicker of hope in your eyes, that pathetic wonder if I’ve come to retrieve you and whisk you back home for a father-daughter reunion.” He leans in, his gaze darkening with contempt. “Rest assured, Gianna, I have no such intentions.”
A shiver runs through me so violently I nearly retch. “What do you want, then?”
He gives a humorless laugh. “Everyone at the wedding thought I’d be distraught. They comforted me because they felt sorry for me.” Giovanni takes another step closer. “But how could they know you never mattered to me? That you’ve been a worthless child since day one? Always sniveling, always too sensitive for this life.” His voice drops to a contemptuous whisper. “Your weakness disgusts me. Why your mother and I kept you around is a mystery. It’s one of the few mistakes I’ve made that I can’t justify.”
His words are like acid, each syllable burning away any last shred of hope I have. Part of me always knew he loathed me. But hearing him say it out loud is like having my chest cracked open.
“I did everything,” I whisper, my voice shaky. “I tried to be the daughter you wanted?—”
Giovanni cuts me off with an impatient flick of his wrist. “Stop.” His eyes flick over me, brimming with the same disgust I’ve seen since I was old enough to register emotion. “You think I cared about your attempts to be a good daughter? I’ve watched you fail from the moment you learned to crawl. Every stumble, every mistake, every disappointment—I cataloged them all.” He steps closer again. “You’re a stupid, useless jade. A piece of cheap glass masquerading as a daughter fit for the Lucatello family.”
He’s stepping forward with every hateful word, forcing me back until I’m almost falling off the other side of the bed. My mouth opens in soundless horror. The terror that floods my veins makes my mind scream: Run. Fight. Do something. But I’m frozen, pinned by his aura of absolute revulsion.
“You want to know the real reason I’m here?” He cocks his head. “It certainly isn’t to save you. Your disappearance from our family is actually a blessing, if you ask me.”
Every part of my body shakes; I can’t stop it. “Why are you here?”
“Because,” he says, voice lowering to a razor’s edge, “I want to watch you die.”
For a moment, my mind blanks. The corners of my vision darken and close in, black edges creeping toward the center of my sight. My father—my own flesh and blood—is standing in front of me, stating so casually that he wants to see me die. The man who should have protected me since birth now watches me with cold anticipation.
Giovanni sees my horror and feeds on it. “You ran away from Luciano Terlizzi, yes? But he’s been combing the state searching for you. I saw the mania in his eyes before he began his hunt—the desperate, unhinged look of a man possessed. You might think you left him behind, but that man is lost in you. He doesn’t even realize he’s in love, but I can see it plain as day.” The words slither from his mouth with cruel satisfaction.
My heart twists at the mention of Luciano, shame and something perilously close to longing tangling in my chest. Luciano’s searching for me. For us. Maybe… for our child. But my father is still talking, and each word slams me back into horror.
“I recognized the look in his eyes,” he says, lips curling into a bitter smile. “I know how men operate. They kill for love. They burn for it. He was ready to burn for you.” His smile becomes something monstrous. “And if I want to destroy a man like Luciano, I don’t go for his business or his money. I go for the thing he can’t replace. I kill the thing that’s crept inside his chest and started beating in time with his own heart.”
I gasp, lungs tight. “No…”
“Oh, yes,” my father whispers. “I kill you. And when he arrives—because believe me, he’s on his way—he’ll find your body in a pool of blood. He’ll see the proof that he was too late. And do you know what that will do to him?”
Giovanni waits, savoring my reaction. My voice won’t come. My tears burn, scalding my cheeks. The room spins around me, reality collapsing into a single, horrifying moment.
“It will break him,” he says simply. “Maybe beyond repair. Maybe not. But either way, he’ll walk through life with the knowledge that I took his precious bride away while he was too busy playing vigilante.” Giovanni’s eyes gleam as he raises the gun, pointing it at my forehead. “After all, his family took you from me. This is only balancing the scales.”
His finger caresses the trigger with disturbing tenderness. “Poetic justice, wouldn’t you agree? He’ll carry your ghost like a chain, dragging it behind him through every empty day. Every night alone. Every breath without you.” The metal of the gun catches the light peeking in from the window. “And I’ll sleep soundly knowing that Luciano Terlizzi understands exactly what it means to lose everything that matters to him.”
My father branded Luciano, humiliated him, and left him for dead, and in turn, Luciano used me for revenge. I have been a pawn in both of their games, but Giovanni will have the last laugh. The symmetry of it all hits me with sickening clarity—my body is the battlefield where two men’s hatred has found its expression.
He steps forward, and I inch back until my spine presses into the wall. There’s nowhere left to go. My heart is pounding so violently that I think it might explode. “You don’t have to do this,” I manage, voice cracking. “What does killing me accomplish, really?”
“I just told you,” he says, impatience coloring his tone. “Pay attention. For once in your pitiful life, pay attention. This is what you get for being worthless. This is what you get for thinking you matter. Every minute of your existence has been a waste, Gianna. You were born a liability—soft, pathetic. You can’t even survive on your own in a place like this, can you? Hiding, trembling. Pitiful.”
My throat tightens, and I shake so violently it’s impossible to speak. Every word he says finds a home in my deepest insecurities, the ones that whispered all my life that I was unlovable, that I’d never be strong enough, that I was fundamentally flawed. He confirms them all, and it kills me. The worst part is how familiar his accusations feel—like he’s reading from a script my own mind wrote years ago, one I’ve spent so long trying to unlearn.
Giovanni’s eyes burn with cruel triumph as he narrows the gap between us, the gun now hovering inches from my face. “The only thing you ever managed to do right,” he says softly, “was become a weapon against Luciano Terlizzi. And now that purpose is done.”
My eyes squeeze shut. I feel the metal muzzle press lightly between my eyebrows. My entire body goes cold. This is it, my mind screams. It’s over. My father is about to kill me, and I have no escape. I try to have one last happy thought, but all I can think about is Luciano and the possibility that I’m pregnant with his child. A fleeting spark of regret scorches my insides. I left him. I walked away. I might be pregnant with his baby, and he won’t ever know for sure. He’ll find me dead before we get an answer, and he’ll spend the rest of his life haunted by what could’ve been.
Terror and guilt meld into one raw pulse of agony. I shouldn’t have run. I should’ve stayed and fought, should’ve told him the truth, should’ve trusted him to find the strength to love me the way I deserved. Now, I’m going to die alone as an afterthought to a father who hates me.
“I—I’m sorry,” I whisper to no one and everyone. Maybe I’m talking to the child I might be carrying. Maybe to Luciano. Maybe to the universe itself. They float into the darkness like dying stars, carrying apologies that will never reach their destinations.
Giovanni’s finger tightens on the trigger and my heartbeat explodes in my ears. I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for the gunshot. The moment slows, every sense sharpening. I can smell the stale coffee from the chipped nightstand, hear the buzz of a flickering light in the distance, feel the scratch of the bedspread under my fingertips. I’m about to die. An odd sense of stillness overtakes me, a final acceptance.
And then the door slams open again—hard enough to rattle the walls. The sound is a thunderclap, shattering the moment. I jerk my head up, eyes flying open, hope and fear tangling in the same breath. My muscles tense, poised between the instinct to flee and the desperate wish that this violent interruption might somehow be my salvation.
Luciano stands in the doorway, breath heaving, eyes blazing with lethal intent. His silhouette cuts a stark figure in the dim light. He has his gun drawn and aimed squarely at my father. The sudden rush of relief in my chest is overwhelming. I want to sob, want to leap up and fling myself into his arms, but I’m paralyzed. The muzzle of Giovanni’s pistol is still pressed to my skin.
My father snarls, pivoting slightly to face this new threat, but he keeps me in his line of fire. “You’re too late,” he taunts.
Luciano’s voice trembles with raw fury. “Step away from her.”
The two men lock gazes, and for a moment, the tension in the room becomes unbearable. My father’s gun hasn’t moved. The metal still grazes my forehead, a hideous reminder of how close I am to death. I can feel my pulse hammering in my temples.
Giovanni’s lips quirk in a smile. “You hear him, Gianna? Your dashing hero is telling me what to do.” He keeps his eyes on Luciano. “He thinks he can save you.”
Luciano’s face is a mask of rage. “Remove the gun from her head,” he orders, stepping forward.
Every nerve ending in my body screams as my father presses the muzzle harder against my brow. “Take another step, Terlizzi, and I’ll redecorate these walls with her brains.”
I see the flicker in Luciano’s gaze—a mixture of pure terror and seething hatred. He halts, gun still raised.
Giovanni glances down at me. “Look at that fear in her eyes, Terlizzi. Do you see it? That’s what I want you to feel. That’s how I want you to break.” He leans toward me, his breath rancid as he hisses, “This is all you’ve ever been good for, Gianna.”
My eyes sting with tears, and I choke on a sob. I hate you, I want to scream. But the words won’t come. I’m too broken, too powerless. My father’s insult slices deep because it’s the final confirmation that he never cared about me, that he truly came here just to kill me as a means to an end.
Luciano’s snarl is a rumble from hell. “Take it out on me,” he says, voice cracking with raw emotion. “Don’t hurt her. If you have a problem with me, kill me. But leave Gianna out of this.”
Giovanni’s gaze drifts back to Luciano, a spark of twisted glee in his eyes. “So noble. Except you used my daughter as your pawn, too. You think I don’t know what you were trying to do? You’re no different from me. The only difference is you started to care about her.” He laughs, and the sound is grotesque and joyful. “That was your mistake, Terlizzi.”
A faint moan escapes my lips, a mixture of guilt and despair clawing at my insides. Luciano did use me—I was a tool in his revenge against my father—but things changed between us. I know they did. I felt it in every stolen moment, every lingering look, every reluctant gentleness he tried to hide beneath his hardened exterior. The way his walls crumbled when he thought I wouldn’t notice. And now, that beautiful, terrifying complexity has boiled down to this—a crude standoff at gunpoint, with the two men who have defined my existence locked in a deadly game where I’m still somehow the prize.
“Gianna,” Luciano says, his gaze briefly flicking to mine, heartbreak etched across his face. “I’m sorry.”
The apology tears at something inside me, and fresh sobs claw at my throat. I see regret swimming in the dark depths of his eyes, fury at himself for hurting me, for not protecting me. And I see something else there, too—desperate, clinging hope and love.
“Put the gun down,” Luciano orders, his voice quiet but steady and unwavering.
Giovanni scoffs. “You really want to risk me calling your bluff?” He cocks the hammer. The metallic click reverberates in my skull, sending a bolt of terror through every nerve in my body. My father’s smile is a predator’s grin. “I think not.”
Luciano’s hand tightens around his weapon. I see him weigh the odds, see the anguish in his eyes as he debates whether to fire. If he shoots, there’s a chance my father’s reflex will be to pull the trigger. If he doesn’t shoot, I’m dead anyway. My father’s set on it. Luciano’s gaze oscillates between my father and the barrel pressed against my forehead, calculations racing behind his expression.
I’m choking on sobs, tears blurring my vision until the room becomes nothing but smudges of gray and shadow. This is the end. The cold metal against my skin feels like the final period of a life sentence cut short. My father has me pinned. And unless a miracle happens in the next heartbeat, I’m about to die without knowing if I’m pregnant or if Luciano and I would’ve been able to build something real between us. My last thought will be of possibilities extinguished before they had a chance to ignite.
My father’s finger tightens. I see the tendon in his hand move. He’s going to pull the trigger.
Everything in me seizes. A silent scream thunders in my skull. I clench my eyes shut, bracing for death.
Then Luciano lunges. Time explodes. The lamp on the bedside table rattles and falls to the ground. I hear a roar—Luciano’s or mine, I’m not sure. The muzzle at my forehead jerks away. A shot detonates with a deafening crack, the sound reverberating through the small room and making my ears ring.
I’m blinded by panic and the flash of gunfire. My father’s weight crashes into the bed, and I scramble, half-falling off the mattress. A chunk of plaster breaks from the ceiling. Another shot blasts. I scream, curling into myself. The smell of burned gunpowder sears my nostrils.
Luciano is shouting something guttural and enraged. My vision spins, and for a second, all I see are silhouettes battling for control of the gun. The muzzle points wildly in different directions, threatening to kill either me or the men locked in that fight. My heart is in my throat; I can’t breathe. Red rains down on the bedspread, but I can’t tell who’s bleeding.
A third shot explodes, muffled like I’m underwater. I feel the hot rush of adrenaline flooding my veins, my limbs tingling. In the dimness, I see them grappling. Giovanni tries to elbow Luciano in the ribs, but Luciano ducks, smashing the butt of his gun against my father’s wrist. “You branded me like a fucking animal. You tried to tear my family apart. And now you tried to kill my wife?”
Giovanni just chuckles. “I’d do it again.”
I see Luciano’s jaw tighten. In his eyes, I see every shred of restraint fraying, the line between reason and revenge dissolving. My father’s glare dares him to pull the trigger.
Then there’s a flurry of motion—my father launches for his discarded gun or maybe for the door. Everything blurs, and a strangled cry escapes my throat. This is it, the final flashpoint. He’ll kill me, or Luciano will kill him, or we’ll all die here. The motel walls seem to close in, and I can’t breathe…
A shot rings out again.
I scream, covering my ears. The cord of the lamp snaps, and sparks dance across the floor. Fire begins to consume the carpet as the world stands still. No one moves, no one breathes. My entire body shakes, waiting to see who’s been hit, who’s alive, who’s dead, who’s injured.
I hear ragged breathing. Luciano stands, gun raised. My father is on the floor, unmoving. Blood seeps across the cheap carpet, a grotesque bloom of darkness. I can’t tear my eyes away from it. My head spins. My stomach lurches. Is he dead?
Luciano staggers backward, gasping for breath. I crawl off the bed, knees scraping the floor. My throat is so tight I can’t speak. My father’s hand twitches once, twice. A cough rattles from his chest—he’s alive but injured. Moaning, he tries to drag himself toward his gun. A whimper tears from my throat.
Luciano aims again. “Don’t move, Lucatello.”
Sirens wail in the distance, growing louder with every second. Someone must have heard the gunshots. The air vibrates with an oncoming storm of police lights and chaos. Panic claws at my chest. What do we do? How do we survive this?
But as the sirens close in, all I can think is that I’m alive. My father was inches from pulling the trigger, from murdering me for no other reason than to destroy Luciano. The horror of it, the heartbreak, tears my insides to shreds. I realize I’m sobbing so violently I can’t catch a full breath.
Luciano approaches, and his warm hand rests on my back, tentative but firm. I look up, and his expression is hollowed out by guilt, rage, and desperate relief. His lips part—maybe he wants to ask if I’m okay or say something to break the horror of this moment—but no words emerge. Then he pulls me in, cradling me against his chest, trembling almost as violently as I am.
Only when my cheek touches his shirt do I feel the sticky warmth spreading across his torso. My eyes flick down in shock—blood. A dark stain blossoms at his midsection, growing with each breath. My throat constricts, and panic seizes me all over again.
“You’re hurt,” I rasp, voice shredded. I press my palm uselessly against the wound, my fingers slipping on slick warmth. Luciano winces but doesn’t push me away. He just tightens his grip around my shoulders, his face pale and eyes heavy.
Before I can beg him to hold on, to stay awake, the motel door slams open again, throwing a chaotic swirl of flashing lights into the room. Uniformed officers flood inside, guns drawn. Their shouts merge into a wall of noise that makes my head spin. They see the carnage—my father sprawled on the floor, bleeding; the bullet holes riddling the walls; Luciano sagging against me, both of us covered in blood.
“Drop the weapon! Hands in the air!” The orders crash into each other, and I don’t even know who they’re aimed at. Adrenaline surges, prying a ragged scream from my throat.
“I—He’s—hurt—” I start, pointing frantically at Luciano’s wound, but their attention locks onto him first. An officer seizes him by the arm, yanking him off me. Luciano sways, face twisting in pain, and collapses to his knees. The officer shouts something, but all I register is Luciano’s low groan as he grips his stomach.
My mind blanks in raw panic. I fling myself forward, desperate to get to him, to press my hands back over the bleeding. “No! Let me help him!” My voice cracks in anguish. “He’s been shot—please!”
More officers pour in; two of them grab my arms, pinning them behind my back. I fight, kicking at their legs, clawing at their vests in a blind, feral attempt to reach him. “Stop—don’t—” I sob, tears streaming, struggling with every ounce of strength I can muster. I have to get to him. He’s the only anchor I have left in this nightmare.
“Ma’am, calm down!” One of them shouts, wrestling me back. I hear the radio crackle— backup, ambulance, immediate medical . The words blur together under the thundering of my pulse.
Through the blur of flashing red and blue, I see Luciano slump onto the stained carpet. The air leaves my lungs in a silent wail. One of the officers eases him onto his back, yelling for a medic. Blood is pooling beneath him. Oh God, he’s going to bleed out right here in this grimy motel room, and I can’t even hold his hand.
“Luciano!” I scream, twisting in the cop’s iron grip. “Look at me! Please!”
He doesn’t respond. His eyes flicker shut, lashes dark against ashen cheeks. My stomach lurches as if I’m falling off a cliff. The world tilts, every siren wail and shouted command muffling under the roar of my own panic.
“No—no, no, no,” I babble. “You can’t leave me, not like this.” But the police keep me pinned, dragging me backward. I can barely see over their shoulders as another officer checks his pulse, then barks something about pressure on the wound.
I watch Luciano’s head roll to the side, limp as a ragdoll. His lips part in a shallow gasp, and then he goes terrifyingly still.
The officer holding me yells again, telling me to calm down, but there is no calm, not when everything I have left is hanging by a thread. I thrash and scream, nails scraping the officer’s arm, not caring if I draw blood. All I see is the growing crimson stain on Luciano’s shirt and the slack angle of his neck.
“Luciano! Please—wake up! Wake up!”
But he doesn’t move. His eyes don’t open.
And as the police wrestle me out of the room, my vision tunnels to the sight of his body lying motionless in a smear of blood. A scream dies in my throat, replaced by a hollow, endless ache. Everything goes dark at the edges, and I realize I’m seconds from collapsing, too.
The last thing I remember is the desperate thought: I ran from him, and now I’m losing him forever.
Then the world goes black.