7. Gianna
GIANNA
Five years later
T here are days when the sea looks like it has teeth, and on those days, I keep the girls inside.
Yes, girls, as in plural.
I did not know it at the time I escaped, but later, I learned that I would be a mom to twins.
Then, life became about seeing them come to life, nursing them, holding them, loving them through nights of sleeplessness and sheer exhaustion.
How did I do it?
But then again, how could I not, when they were made for me?
My constant fear isn’t about storms or wind or anything so mundane.
It’s a feeling, a breath beneath the skin, the sense that the currents of fate have shifted, and if I am not careful, the tide will pull me back to where I fought so hard to escape.
On those days, I don't walk to the market.
I don't take the ferry across to the other side of the island.
I don't let their names pass my lips when I answer work calls.
We have a routine.
A life carved quietly out of the stone of self-imposed exile, disguised as loyalty.
I keep the reports clean, my numbers accurate, my affiliations discrete.
I’m paid well and never late.
I speak to Valentina only when necessary.
I don't ask questions.
I don't draw attention.
My daughters, Alessia and Arietta, know only the sound of my voice and the peace of anonymity.
They have grown up with puzzles and oranges and lullabies in a house shaded by frangipani and sea almond trees, their laughter carried only by the wind.
Valentina has never seen them.
No one has.
Not even the neighbors, who believe I’m a widow, or a diplomat, or a woman in recovery from some vague private grief that prevents social calls.
I’ve come to make peace with life as it is now, with no incident, when the call from Valentina comes.
It is not unexpected, but the timing unsettles me.
It arrives just past five, when the girls are coloring in the sitting room and the sun falls across the floor in long gold lines that remind me of the Rossi estate, of afternoons I no longer allow myself to miss.
I answer with the camera turned carefully away from the living room, just in case.
My voice is crisp, my blouse ironed, my smile clean.
Valentina does not look tired, but there is a strain on her face that tells me she is pressed for time.
Her hair is swept up, her earrings subtle, her expression unreadable as always.
I straighten my spine without meaning to.
She doesn’t greet me immediately.
She’s watching, always watching, the same way she did the first time
I walked into her office years ago with nothing but desperation and leverage I had nearly bled to obtain.
"Report," she says finally.
I launch into it without delay.
The figures are ready, although I was supposed to deliver them tomorrow.
The port schedule is adjusted.
The procurement list has been scrubbed of inconsistencies and rerouted through the Trieste office, just as she ordered.
I list the shipments, the false leads we’ve planted for the customs agents, and the new broker whose records will match exactly what we need them to.
She nods occasionally, her pen moving across a pad that I suspect is more for show than necessity.
We both know she remembers everything.
Just as I reach the end of the report, the door to the study creaks.
My blood goes cold before I even turn my head.
I already know the sound.
The patter of small feet on hardwood.
The soft sigh of a child ready for her nap.
Then the tug of tiny fingers at my sleeve, the barely-there weight of a body climbing into my lap, and my youngest daughter leans her cheek against my shoulder, thumb in her mouth, curls wild and face sleepy.
I freeze.
Every instinct I have is to lift her gently and walk out of frame, make an excuse, cut the feed if I have to.
But I am too slow.
Valentina’s eyes stop moving.
Her hand stills.
I don’t hear the scratch of her pen anymore.
Only the silence between us, more suffocating than any threat she’s ever spoken aloud.
"Gianna," she says, and there is something different in her voice now.
I don’t answer immediately.
I want to, but there is no lie that will fit in my mouth, no neat excuse that can wrap around the truth and make it palatable.
I shift Arietta gently, kissing the top of her head and motioning for her to go to her room.
She obeys sleepily, and the door closes behind her with a soft click that might as well be the sound of a lock snapping shut behind me.
"She’s mine," I say, my voice low and steady. "There are two of them. Twin girls. They’re mine."
Valentina’s expression doesn’t change at first, but her voice sharpens. "Who knows?"
"No one. Only the nurse assigned here. The pediatrician. No one else. They’ve never been seen at headquarters. Never traveled with me. I’ve kept them out of everything."
"And the father?"
I hold her gaze now. "V?—"
"No, don’t do that." She shakes her head. "Tell me I’m wrong, that she doesn’t look just like my husband’s youngest brother. Who is he, Gianna?"
There’s just no use lying to her.
They have the means to get to the truth, regardless of how I play this.
I square my shoulders. "Dante."
Valentina’s face blanches of all color.
"What the fuck, Gianna?"
My lower lip twitches, and I can’t maintain eye contact any longer.
"Does he know?" she presses, and I shake my head miserably.
"Damn it."
She lets that sit for a long time, and I can feel her measuring the cost of what I’ve done.
Every hidden file.
Every shipment I’ve accounted for.
Every deal I’ve closed while hiding the truth in plain sight.
"I should be furious," she says finally, but her voice is almost tired. "I should have you dragged back to the city and chained to the steps of the estate until Luca decides what to do with you."
"But you won’t," I say before I can stop myself. "Because I’ve made you too much money. And because you don’t punish efficiency unless it compromises the family."
There’s a glint in her eyes now, something sharper than fury.
"You have compromised the family, Gianna. You just don’t know it yet."
She ends the call before I can answer.
The silence after she disappears is thicker than the one before.
I close the laptop carefully, my fingers trembling.
It takes everything I have not to scream into the empty room, not to collapse under the weight of what I know is coming.
Because Valentina will tell Luca.
And Luca Salvatore does not sit on information.
He will tell Rafa.
Not because of brotherly concern, not because it is an older brother’s right, but because he is Don.
And my daughters, the very ones I’ve protected with every breath in my body, are a liability now.
Not because of what they are.
But because of the blood flowing in them.
The message from Rafa comes before I’ve had time to draw the curtains.
It is short, clipped, devoid of preamble.
Return to the Rossi estate immediately.
Do not make us come for you.
I stare at the words for a long time before setting the phone down.
It is not a request.
It is an order.
And for the first time in years, I don't have the power to refuse it.
I spend the night packing slowly.
My daughters don't understand what it means when I press their favorite toys into the worn leather duffel, when I fold their blankets with care, when I reach for the travel documents kept hidden in the linen closet.
They ask me questions in bursts—why now, where are we going, will we be back, if we’re doing to meet daddy.
I tell them stories as I zip their bags, paint a picture of new places, old houses, of people we will see again.
I lie the way all mothers lie, with gentleness, with conviction, with the kind of grace that makes truth a luxury too dangerous to afford.
The flight is arranged by morning.
Private.
Fast.
The plane meets us at a discreet terminal an hour outside the city.
No one speaks to us beyond the bare necessities.
The stewardess offers warm towels and doesn’t ask who we are.
The pilot nods once and does not wait for introductions.
Everything moves as though it has already been paid for, because of course, it has.
We land at dusk.
The girls are asleep again, their heads heavy on either side of me.
I carry them one at a time from the plane to the waiting car, strapping them in as gently as I can.
The road winds as I remember it, climbing through the hills, the sky bruised and bleeding out the last of the day’s light.
My heart hammers steadily, not from fear, not from panic, but from the sheer inevitability of what awaits us at the end of this road.
The Rossi estate looms ahead, its pale stone facade lit faintly by the warm glow of lamps that have not changed in decades.
Cypress trees line the drive like sentinels.
The fountain out front still runs, though the marble is more cracked than before, the statue at its center missing one arm.
It has grown more unkempt since I left. But it is still home.
I step out first.
The gravel crunches beneath my boots, and I lift my daughters in turn, holding them against my shoulders, one on each hip, as I walk toward the house.
The door swings open before I can knock.
Renato stands there, older, thinner, but eyes that are as intelligent as ever.
He nods once, then steps aside.
The hallway smells like lemon oil and memories.
I don't falter.
At the end of the hall, the light spills from the study.
I hear Rafa’s voice, speaking animatedly on the phone.
It doesn’t escape me that this kind of excitement is telling of who he’s speaking with.
Something tells me there will be a tribunal, not of law, but of family, legacy, expectation and betrayal and blood.
I press a kiss to each of my daughters’ foreheads.
I whisper the promise I’ve whispered a hundred times before—that I will protect them, that I will find a way to keep us safe.
Then I place them gently on the velvet settee outside the doors.
And I walk in.