23. Gianna
GIANNA
I can hear the faint shift of fabric, the breath caught in the back of his throat like a man preparing to say something that cannot be unsaid.
"You’re working against them," I say at last. Not a question, nor an accusation. Just a line drawn in the sand.
"I’m working for us," he replies, with an unnerving calm, as if he hasn’t uprooted everything I believed in.
It was never the Salvatores against Rafa and me.
It was me trying to preserve what was left of my family in an era that was already poised to end us.
And I’ve failed.
And now he’s speaking in that voice I used to trust before I understood how he'd changed and metamorphosed into a Rossi who believed love only made sense if it brought material returns or revenge.
There are no tears left to fall.
My hand curls around the edge of the desk in my suite.
The wood creaks under my grip.
"There is no us, Rafa," I whisper.
There’s a pause, then a breath.
"Then let me remind you."
I close my eyes.
He begins speaking—not like a confession, but like a ledger being read aloud.
Line by line.
Fact by fact.
No hesitation.
No apology.
He tells me that Vincenzo Arditi was not killed.
He vanished because Rafa helped him.
Helped him erase his name from the books, helped him move west into neutral territory, where Il Sangue Nero was already gathering beneath the surface like oil waiting for a spark.
The Black Blood is not new, he says.
It is old blood.
Our blood.
Built from the men who were left behind when Valentina consolidated, when the old Salvatore allies were discarded like spent shells.
"They needed a figurehead," he says. "Someone with blood rights to power. Someone with enough legacy to make the old names rise again."
"You," I say, my throat dry.
"Yes."
It is not pride that laces the word.
It is inevitability.
"You made me marry him," I say. "You arranged this life. This house. This family. You gave me to them like leverage."
"No," he says. "I placed you where you would survive."
My pulse stutters.
"You think this is survival?" I ask. "Being a wife in a house where every door locks from the outside? Watching my girls sleep with guards posted down the hall?"
"I think survival looks different depending on who is holding the knife," he says. "And I’ve always made sure yours stayed sharp."
The silence that follows is thicker than before.
I cannot tell if I am more afraid of what he’s saying, or the part of me that still wants to believe he means it.
He goes on.
"I activated Operation Umber not to burn this house down, but to build something underneath it. Quietly. Slowly. Without the eyes of men like Luca or the chains of Valentina. You weren’t supposed to find the trail yet. But now that you have..."
He pauses, lets the weight of the moment settle.
"You have a choice."
My hand begins to shake.
I press my thumb into the soft flesh of my palm until the sting clears my head.
"What choice," I ask.
"You can tell them," he says. "You can warn Dante, let him strike first. Let him drag us into a war that will stain this city for a generation. Or..."
"Or?"
"You can help me," he says, and his voice shifts, softens. "You can hold the door open long enough for me to finish this. There’s one more move left. One more consolidation. After that, no more secrets. No more shadows. You will not have to kneel to Valentina or answer to Luca. You will not be someone’s wife, someone’s pawn, someone’s debt to be repaid.
You will be a Rossi. And your daughters. .."
I squeeze my eyes shut.
"Your daughters will grow up with their names spoken like titles, not afterthoughts. They will not marry into power. They will be power."
My throat is tight.
I cannot breathe past it.
"And Dante?" I ask.
"You already know he won’t survive this," Rafa says quietly. "But I can make sure it happens cleanly. No blood at your feet. No screams in the night. A transfer. An accident. Something soft."
I feel the world tilt.
"I love him," I whisper.
"I know," Rafa says. "And I know what it costs you to admit it. But you’ve loved before. You will again. Love is not a crown, sorella. Power is."
"Where are you, Rafa?"
He laughs gently.
"Oh, my dear, sweet sister. I wish I could tell you."
The call ends before I can say anything else, leaving behind a silence afterward that is louder than his voice.
It pulses in my ears, a high-pitched hum that fills the hollow left in his wake.
I stare at the blank screen, still lit from the call, my thumb hovering above it like I might redial.
Like I might undo.
But I don’t.
Because Rafa doesn’t lie unless it serves a greater truth.
And this—this isn’t a bluff.
It’s a promise.
A prophecy.
A warning delivered too late.
The courtyard presses in around me.
The olive trees, once a comfort, feel like sentinels now.
Watching.
Waiting.
My mouth tastes of iron, like I bit down on something I shouldn’t have.
My fingers twitch, wanting to tell someone, to throw the weight of it into Dante’s hands, into Luca’s, into anyone who could make it matter.
But I can’t. Not yet.
Because what Rafa said is true in the most dangerous way.
Dante won't be back until later tonight.
I try his number three times, and each time, it goes to voicemail.
I check the time.
Just past seven.
The sky outside has already shifted into dusk, that deep violet hour where the olive trees blur into shadows and the courtyard lights begin to glow like sentinels.
It's time for dinner, and I may as well tell Luca and Valentina at the table.
There's no backing out now.
I move through the corridor toward the dining hall, already rehearsing the words.
I expect quiet—just the three of us, maybe four, if Marco returned early.
But the room is full.
Six people are seated near the center of the long table. Luca is at the head.
Valentina is at his right.
The others are unfamiliar, but not anonymous.
One of them wears the lapel pin of the provincial board.
Another I recognize from a Rossi political donor list I reviewed years ago, back when I still believed that money could clean our name.
I enter anyway.
Luca gestures to the seat beside Valentina.
I take it.
My hands fold into my lap.
The meal is already in progress.
Braised chicken in a rosemary glaze.
Roasted root vegetables, lacquered and tender.
A bottle of wine I don’t recognize.
No one speaks about why they’re here.
The conversation hovers in strange places—land management initiatives, community rebuilding projects in the southern ports, the complications of retaining loyalty in mixed-blood estates.
I sip water.
I keep my posture straight.
I glance at Valentina twice.
She is tired, but poised.
Her hands move as if she has rehearsed this performance for years.
Every nerve in my spine is still humming from Rafa’s voice.
How do I tell them?
The server who brings the wine is new.
Clean-shaven.
Early twenties.
Too crisp.
Too graceful.
He bows slightly as he fills the glasses and murmurs something I don’t catch.
I thank him.
He meets my eyes for half a second.
Something about his face catches my attention.
Valentina lifts her glass first.
She’s tired.
Distracted.
Her wrist trembles a little when she sips, but she doesn’t comment on it.
Luca follows, ever formal, ever controlled.
I try to place the boy.
Where did I see him before?
The tilt of his chin.
The way he held the bottle.
Not like a server.
Like someone trained to mimic a server.
The details are wrong in the smallest ways.
Then it hits me.
Rossi gala.
Ten years ago.
A celebration thrown after the southern accord was signed.
A party with too many cameras, too many allies disguised as enemies.
I was nineteen, wearing a black silk gown with silver embroidery shaped like vines.
Rafa had paraded me through the halls like a trophy, then vanished when it counted.
I had retreated to the corridor behind the service wing to catch my breath.
That boy—this boy—was there.
He wasn’t a guest.
He was watching one.
His eyes weren’t on the wine.
They were on the exits.
My breath snags.
"Don’t drink," I say softly.
A guest stares at me.
"What?"
But it’s too late.
Valentina’s goblet is half-empty.
Luca is already pushing his chair back, frowning.
I rise sharply.
Valentina blinks at me.
"Gianna?"
"Don’t drink," I say again. "Put a finger in your throat and bring it out. Now."
She stands and walks quickly to the sideboard.
Bends over the basin there.
Luca sways.
His hand goes to the table’s edge, white-knuckled.
Dante appears just then.
"Gianna," he snaps, "what’s happening?"
I point at the server, who breaks into a quick run and is tailed by Salvatore guards.
From the shouts and screams that follow moments later, they catch him.
"That boy. I know him. Rossi event, years ago. He’s not new. He’s planted."
Valentina sinks to her knees.
She’s gagging now.
Luca grabs the edge of the table and topples his glass.
It shatters.
"Get the med kit!" Dante roars, already across the room.
I kneel beside Valentina, lifting her head, watching her pupils contract unevenly.
Her lips are turning grey at the corners.
The same pallor is beginning to creep across Luca’s skin, sweat beading on his brow.
His breathing is shallow.
Dante jabs an injector into Luca’s thigh.
We live in strange times that require me to ask no questions when I find the med kid contains stuff like this.
He then does the same to Valentina.
His hands are steady, but his eyes are wild.
The antidote works fast, potent enough to stop the spiral.
Luca coughs hard.
Valentina groans softly, her mouth still stained red.
Dante turns to the security team storming in with the server between them, his eyes wide with manic fear.
"Shut the estate. Lock down every entry point. No one in or out. I want eyes on every corridor, every staff member interviewed, every uniform verified. Start with the kitchens."