6. Gianna
GIANNA
T he walls in the clinic are painted in shades of soft ivory, probably chosen to resemble calm, but it does nothing for me.
There is no music.
No clock.
Just the muffled sound of shoes against polished tile and the occasional rustle of paper from behind frosted glass.
I sit on a chair that was clearly made for function, not comfort, its upholstery stiff beneath me, my coat folded over my lap with a neatness that doesn’t belong to nerves, only to the need for control.
A nurse had taken my blood, asked me questions, made polite small talk without expecting answers.
I responded when I needed to, nothing more.
When the doctor enters, he closes the door behind him gently, setting a file on the table with a kind of practiced neutrality that always feels worse than concern.
He doesn’t look hesitant, but he does pause long enough before speaking to make it clear he knows what I came here to hear.
"You’re pregnant," he says with the same tone I’ve heard men use when reading out an ordinary bit of news, as if this is a result on paper, not a truth that will alter the trajectory of a life.
I don’t flinch, nor do I make a scene of reacting.
I only meet his gaze and nod, the barest concession to the finality of it.
He continues speaking, something about hormone levels and viability, and I absorb only what matters: six weeks along, healthy, no irregularities detected.
When he finishes, I thank him and leave.
The city has not paused for my reckoning.
The streets are crowded, the sun thin behind layers of drifting exhaust and morning mist, and Nuova Speranza pulses with the same sharp rhythm it always has.
It’s a city that long ago stopped pretending it was run by politicians.
I don’t look at the test results again.
I already know them.
They are written into my body now, clear and irrefutable.
I return home only briefly, long enough to change into something darker, sharper, less revealing, although I’m much, much too early for anyone to make sense of anything.
This is done more out of a sense to protect myself.
Then I call the driver.
I give him an address near the industrial port, one of the old café-restaurants that’s been half-refurbished into something sleek and modern, with enough glass to let the sun in but enough distance from the street to avoid attention.
I ask Dante to come if he has the time, but don’t tell him anything else over the phone.
I need to see who he is when the idea of permanence is not a game or a metaphor.
I need to know what kind of future he can offer without realizing that’s what I’m asking him for.
He arrives late by only a few minutes, dressed like he didn’t try at all, and still manages to draw every eye from the hostess to the bartender.
He doesn’t smile when he sees me, but he does tilt his head as he approaches, already playing at being amused.
"You planning to ambush me every month now, or should I start blocking off my calendar?" he asks, sliding into the seat across from me and stretching his legs out as if the world belongs to him and I’m only borrowing a fraction of it.
"I needed your opinion on something," I reply, lifting my glass of club soda but not drinking. "A hypothetical."
He raises an eyebrow. "Is this the kind of hypothetical where someone dies at the end, or the kind where someone ends up married?"
"Do you ever see yourself being a father?"
His gaze doesn’t shift right away.
For a second, I wonder if he didn’t hear me.
But then he speaks, slow and without ceremony.
"That’s a hell of a question to ask over drinks."
I smile, soft and unreadable.
"It’s just conversation."
He eyes me now, sharp and steady, but the smirk doesn’t reach his mouth.
"No. I don’t."
"Never?"
"Not once," he says. "Not for lack of opportunities, if that’s what you’re asking."
"It wasn’t," I say lightly, though something has already begun to twist low in my chest.
He exhales through his nose, gaze flicking to the ceiling like the whole question bores him.
"I know who I am, Gianna. I enjoy what I enjoy. I burn hot, I move fast, and I don’t pretend to be built for stability. A kid deserves someone who can sit still, who knows how to make space for things that aren’t about him."
"And you can’t?" I ask.
"I won’t," he replies. "Because I’d ruin them. Just like I ruin everything else I touch when I let it get too close. And," he rakes his eyes over me then, "if it’s a problem, I expect the person involved to handle it, discreetly and efficiently."
He’s asking me to get rid of my baby.
"Good to know," I murmur, and let the subject fall like a stone into water.
"Is there a reason you’re asking me this?" His tone doesn’t change, but I see the faint shift in his posture, the way the line of his mouth tightens, not in suspicion, but in the awareness that he may have said too much or spoken too bluntly.
"No reason that concerns you," I answer. I stand before he can respond further. "I just needed clarity. Thank you for your honesty."
He doesn’t stop me as I leave, and I don't look back.
The sun outside has shifted behind the rooftops, the light thinner, colder, but the city keeps moving as if no one has lost anything.
I press my hand to my abdomen through the silk of my blouse, not as a gesture of tenderness, but out of the calculated realization that I am now responsible for more than my own survival.
At home, I slip in through the side entrance and move quickly through the gallery, hoping to reach the stairs before anyone notices.
My shoes are soundless against the tiled corridor, but Rafa is standing by the base of the stairs with a glass in his hand and an expression that never bodes well.
"You’ve been out a lot lately," he says, not quite accusing, but close.
"There’s a lot to handle. Logistics, scheduling, the Venetians are dragging their feet on customs."
"You’re pale."
"I didn’t sleep."
He steps closer, and I feel the question before he asks it. "Are you sick?"
"I’m tired," I say again, with a little more edge.
He holds my gaze a few moments too long.
"If there’s something wrong, Gianna, you need to tell me."
I return his stare with one of my own.
"If there was something wrong, you wouldn’t be the first person I’d tell."
It’s cruel, but effective.
He lets me pass, though I can feel his gaze lingering on my back as I climb the stairs, cataloging everything I don’t say.
I lock the door once I get to my room, not because I think anyone will enter, but because I need to allow myself a few minutes without performance.
I sit on the edge of the bed, hands folded, eyes fixed on the ledger left half open on the writing desk.
I don’t move.
I don’t cry.
I consider the options, the liabilities, the risks.
And I reach one conclusion.
I cannot raise this child under Rafa’s roof, not without assurance that my position is ironclad.
And I will not raise it with Dante, not after the way he spoke of permanence like it was a punishment.
If spending a lifetime getting fucked by the mafia prince means losing my baby, I’m out.
But there is someone else.
Someone who knows exactly how to play the long game.
Someone who has protected herself inside the most dangerous marriage in the country, and turned it into an empire.
Someone who understands that in a city like ours, family is always both weapon and weakness.
Valentina Salvatore.
I pick up my phone and compose the message without ceremony.
We need to talk. Alone. Tomorrow, if possible. Let me know where.
I hit send, set the phone down, and begin pulling the necessary files from my safe.
If she agrees to see me, I need to walk in prepared.
A few minutes later, the screen lights up.
Greenhouse. Noon.
I place the phone face down on the table.
The clock ticks, the window glass turns silver with the changing light, and somewhere inside me, a plan begins to take shape.
It stays tucked close to my heart all the way to the next afternoon, to the point where I arrive at the destined location for my meeting with her.
The greenhouse is tucked behind the main estate, invisible from the road and obscured from most of the house by a long row of cypress hedges and a shallow reflecting pool that no one maintains anymore.
Once, it was a vanity project designed to mimic the orangeries of old Sicilian villas, all curved glass and wrought iron, built not for farming but for the cultivation of rare orchids and other imported blooms that had no business thriving in this climate.
Now, vines claw against the arches and moss feathers the stone tiles beneath the benches, but the interior still hums with warmth from the residual heat caught in the glass.
Valentina waits near the back, dressed in a simple light-pink dress, her sleeves rolled up to the elbow, one hand cupped around a pair of shears.
She clips a dying stem and doesn’t look up when she speaks.
"Whatever this is, it’s not a social call."
I step over the threshold, letting the door fall shut behind me.
"No, it’s not."
She sets the shears down on the edge of the fountain, brushes a curl of hair behind her ear, and turns to face me fully.
Her face is as beautiful and remote as ever.
"You asked for a private meeting. You got one. Use it wisely."
"I want an assignment," I say, careful to keep my tone neutral. "Somewhere far. Somewhere clean."
She arches a brow.
"You’ve become indispensable here. Why uproot that?"
"Because I can serve you better if I’m not tangled in local allegiances. There are deals to be made outside Nuova Speranza—old networks that still owe loyalty to the Rossis, ports and partners who might be more cooperative if they weren’t reporting to a city they associate with violence and ruin."
She looks deep into my eyes for a moment longer.
"You want to disappear."
I say nothing.
She steps around the marble basin, picking up a sprig of mint and crushing it slowly between her fingers.
The scent cuts through the damp air, sharp and green.
"Does this have to do with Dante?"