23. Gianna
CHAPTER 23
Niko and I have been married for almost a month, and I still haven’t told him about my uncle. Things have been better than I could have imagined. He talks to me, confides in me, and trusts me. We fight all the time, but it’s more like bickering, and it seems to bring the best resolutions rather than taking from us. We’re passionate and good together, and I’m a miserable liar.
I just can’t do it anymore. I love him too much to look him in the face and lie to him, to risk his life and let him walk into unknown danger when he would never do the same to me. It doesn’t matter what happens. If he chooses to be done with me this time, so be it, but he needs to know the truth, and so do I. Despite keeping his secrets, I still don’t have a clue why my uncle is living as someone else or what he’s up to.
I’m always lonely when Niko is away. As much as he values my input, he won’t bring me anywhere there may be gunfire, and I miss him on the days he’s gone. Soon enough, I’ll have something to do at all times, and my protection will make sense, but for now, we’re doing this weird dance of people knowing he married the Gemelli princess, but no one being completely sure it’s real. That includes the two of us.
I’m trying to keep busy. I’ve already made dinner—eggplant rollatini, which Violetta used to make for me when I needed a little extra comforting. I hope it has the same effect on him, that my cooking for him makes him forgiving. Niko is explosive by nature, and I’m not afraid he’ll hurt me, but I am afraid of his reaction. I don’t want him to be angry with me. I don’t want him to hate me, and he would be well within his rights to feel both.
There’s nothing to do really. He does have someone come in once a week to clean, so I don’t have anything to scrub my tension out on. I pace the house, starting to make a plan for how I’m going to decorate. I still don’t have a phone, which I’m sure I could ask him to rectify, but so much has been going on that I haven’t thought about it. I have a tablet and have been buying things here and there.
I’m on the upper floor, looking out the window over the gorgeous winery that’s my home now when I see someone moving in the tree line. I step to the side, behind the curtain, hoping they weren’t watching me. My heart speeds, and it’s hard to catch my breath. I search until I find them a little farther back, tucked behind a tree on the edge of the property. Are they, are they waving at me?
I push the curtain aside, squinting as hard as I can. Oh my God, is that Carlo?! It can’t be. Why would he come here like this? I rush to the other side of the house, where I might get a closer view, and find that it is Carlo, hiding in the tree line and waving me out. I hold up my finger, telling him to wait a minute. The security is tighter than ever but it’s pointed at intruders now rather than at the house. I’m no longer a prisoner.
I don’t know why he’s here, but clearly, he has something to say, and I have so many things to ask him. It doesn’t matter what’s happened. I have known Carlo my whole life, and I trust him. I’m happy to see him. I am so excited. Actually, my heart is in my throat as I put on my shoes and think about how I can possibly get past the guns to have a word with him.
The garage has a side door pointed directly toward the woodline, and there are a shortage of soldiers on that side as the house is the most naturally defended. I slip out through the door, and I only see one person on this side of the house, but he’s watching the distance. I am not a prisoner, and I’m not afraid of getting shot, so I do my best to sneak past him without actually creeping.
If I get caught and sent back inside, Carlo can return when Niko is home. But I worried for nothing. He doesn’t turn around, and in no time, I’m in front of the wall, which is much lower here, where the visual of the house doesn’t need to be blocked from the property. Using the bricks as steps and finger holds, I get over the much lower area and slip into the woodline myself.
I pick along the edge until I find Carlo leaning against a tree. His familiar face is a stab in the heart. All the well-known lines seem to have grown deeper in our time apart. His hair and beard have lost the battle to the gray. I run toward him, throwing my arms around him. A silent tear tracks down my cheek as I breathe in his smell, and for the first time since my parents died, I feel like I have something of my old life.
“God, Carlo, I missed you,” I whisper, trying to control the worst of the emotion. He’s never liked tears, making me a terrible appointment for him. I’m always crying.
It’s true that I missed him, but not in the way I used to when he left me alone for days with only a couple of minute visits to break it up. This time, I thought I’d never see him again. There was no use in being angry over all the things he didn’t tell me because our relationship was forever lost. But now he’s standing right here, and I think I’m angry with him too. His face is sterner than I expect as he hugs me for only a moment and pushes me back.
“Are you alright? Are you hurt? What’s happened?” He looks me up and down, clearly expecting some grave injury, and I can’t imagine why. He knew Niko wouldn’t hurt me, knew he was completely obsessed with me and had been for years.
“Yeah, of course I’m alright. You know Niko wouldn’t hurt me. You told him so yourself.”
“He told you that?” he asks, looking back and forth like perhaps this is an ambush and he shouldn’t have trusted me just showing up so easily.
“He tells me everything since I married him.”
I flash him the ring, and he laughs at me. The sound isn’t good-natured or entertained like I’m used to with him, but sharp and cruel.
“You actually married him? Even after Marco told me, I didn’t believe it.” The disgust in his tone is so thick I open and close my mouth, waiting for the right words to come. The casual mention of my uncle’s name throws me for a loop.
“You’ve spoken to Marco?”
“I have, and he’s just as disappointed in you as I am. You should be ashamed of yourself.” I hang my head, trying hard not to let the tears gather in my eyes. I’m not sure if I deserve what he’s saying or not. Maybe I do. Maybe I’ve gotten too much out of my parents’ death, and I just need to suffer more for things to be fair.
“I did what I needed to do, Carlo. It’s not as if I’ve seen you here before today. I don’t know if you know this, but my parents died a month ago. I needed to keep myself safe.” I do believe that I secured my position and kept myself alive like I needed to. And my marriage isn’t the betrayal he wants to act like it is. I believe Niko could have said no and let someone else kill me, but that was the choice he could not live with.
“I know your parents are dead, Gianna,” he answers with a sneer. “And who killed them.”
He already knows. It’s clear in the way he’s looking at me. I don’t answer, and my silence is as loud as if I said my husband.
“He didn’t have a choice.” I continue to defend him because I know without a doubt he wouldn’t have killed them if he had a real option.
“You always have a choice.”
“His choice was to refuse the hit and let the next person kill me. He chose what he thought was the next best option. You don’t have to understand, but you do have to accept it.”
“I think you’d be better off dead than married to the enemy, Gianna.” His words are like a slap in the face, a punch to the gut. Is he not happy at all to see me? Is that why that hug he gave me was so short and forced? Does he wish I died beside my parents?
“Is that why you were okay with me being married off to Domalachego? Why you never said anything even though it was planned years ago? What about my brother’s death? You sound like a hypocrite.”
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, little girl. You may think you know what you have gotten yourself into, but you are as clueless as they come, and I was never okay with what your father planned for you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it, considering you did whatever the man told you for years, locked me up on his orders. You didn’t even tell me Niko was stalking me, Carlo! What the fuck? You let me sit there waiting for the day Domalachego would take me.” I’m about to start shouting, but if I do, someone will come and check on me. I dig my nails into my palm as I bite my tongue.
“I didn’t know he was coming that day, but I had my suspicions. You remember how much I didn’t want you to go?”
“Come on, Carlo. No more games. If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise, I’m going back into my house.”
His face turns bright red, and I worry about his health just like I used to when he was the only person who might notice if I died in that apartment. I never thought of that as a selfish feeling. Instead, I considered it to be about him, but as he’s no longer responsible for my well-being and the anger is starting to surface, I’m remembering a lot.
I wouldn’t have killed myself, but I was terrified of dying from carbon monoxide. Listening to the alarm go off but not being able to open my own front door, or someone figuring out the Gemelli princess was a sitting duck and taking me out. I practically cried in relief every time I saw the man. I had that reaction just now when I saw him even though I’m happy with Niko. Do I love this man, or am I trained like Pavlov’s dog?
It’s a question I’ve asked myself about Niko more than once over the past month, and standing in front of Carlo, I’m suddenly sure what Niko and I have isn’t Stockholm syndrome. This is. This man has never loved me.
“Your house?” He laughs again. “That Bouchard fucker’s house is now your house? Do you have any idea how quickly he’s going to toss you away once he has a complete hold on your father’s territory?”
“That’s not true,” I tell him, revealing how angry the accusation makes me, how scared I am that it’s true.
“I had no idea you were this stupid,” he snaps, something akin to hatred in his eyes.
I think it’s deep resentment. The kind a man suffers from when he’s spent his whole life appointed to a spoiled clueless princess who didn’t know the truth about anything. Who married the very people he was trying to protect her from. I am a failure in his eyes, just like I was to my papa.
“I had no idea you were this cruel.”
“I’m a lot of things you don’t know, Gianna, but you want to know the truth? Come with me and find out.” He gestures around himself, issuing the challenge like I’ll cave to it quickly.
I’ve always been predictable. Hotheaded, quick to rise to a challenge even if it ultimately hurts me. I got tricked into getting naked with boys more than once as a result of this competitive streak mixed with naivety. But I’ve been working hard to be more than that. To grow from the fact I didn’t know shit when I thought I did and start learning. Niko relies on me, and he values me. We’re better together.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here. I’m sorry, Carlo. I don’t trust my father or you. If you're in contact with my uncle, tell him my husband knows who he is. You don’t need to come back here again.” I turn and start to walk away from him.
“I haven’t been loyal to your coward papa for five years, Gianna. Not since the day Dante died, and he traded you to the people who killed his own son, but I am loyal to you, to the Gemellis. You need to come with me.” I stop and turn back to look at him.
“You’re loyal to me? After everything you just said? I’m sorry, Carlo. No,” I tell him as I turn back around.
“Come with me now, Gianna. If you know what’s good for you. You’ve lost your mind if you think you can trust Nikolai Bouchard.”
“Are you actually threatening me right now, Carlo? Do you know how fast those men would be over here to defend me?” I point off in the distance, where no less than two hundred soldiers are waiting to use him for target practice.
“I have your parents’ bodies, Gianna. Come with me if you want to see them laid to rest. That does still matter to you doesn’t it?”
Of course it does. I’m a Catholic, and despite everything that happened, I still care about my parents. I don’t want to see anything happen to their corpses. They deserve peace, respect, and to be laid to rest. He watches my face, and the subtle smile is so arrogant I wish more than anything I didn’t care, that I could tell him no. But I can’t let my parents’ bodies go, not after all the other ways I’ve betrayed them.
“Fine, Carlo. Let’s go.”
“I hoped you would see reason.”
And I follow Carlo through the woods and to a side road where he hid his car and found his way through the woods. Just as soon as I get back to Niko, I’m going to point out every weakness this place has, and we’re reinforcing our fortress, whether he wants me or not.