Chapter 3 Giuliana
GIULIANA
Less than twenty-four hours later, I’m back at what used to be my clinic, standing in the skeleton of my life’s work with a flashlight in one hand and a garbage bag in the other.
Every breath sends sharp pain through my ribs where that bastard kicked me, and my head still throbs from where it hit the concrete.
The smell is overwhelming—acrid smoke mixed with melted plastic and something chemical that burns my nostrils.
I cough, and the pain in my ribs makes me gasp and my eyes water.
I couldn’t sleep last night.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my father being dragged into the darkness and heard my own screams echoing off the warehouse ceiling.
The helplessness was worse than the physical pain.
I’d lie there in the dark, clutching my ribs, wondering if Dad was hurt worse now.
If they’d beaten him again for my interference.
If he was even still alive.
The fire department has cleared the scene for me to salvage what I can, though “salvage” feels like a cruel fucking joke.
I move gingerly through the debris, each step carefully measured to avoid jarring my injured ribs.
Glass crunches under my feet with every step, a sound that makes me wince.
The walls are blackened husks, the ceiling has partially collapsed, and everything I owned lies in twisted, unrecognizable heaps.
I pick up what might have been my stethoscope, gritting my teeth at the movement.
The metal is warped beyond recognition, and something inside me cracks.
Two years of building this place from nothing.
Two years of loving and caring for every animal that walked into this place.
Two years of proving to myself that I could make something good out of the wreckage of Mom’s death and Dad’s addiction.
And it’s gone.
The morning is overcast and humid, the kind of Chicago weather that makes your clothes stick to your skin and promises a thunderstorm by afternoon.
Gray clouds hang low overhead, matching my mood perfectly.
I pull my hair back into a ponytail and try to focus on what I came here for—anything important that might have survived in the fireproof safe I kept in the back office.
The safe is still there, buried under a pile of debris that used to be my surgery table.
It takes me twenty minutes to dig it out, my hands getting progressively dirtier as I move chunks of charred wood and twisted metal.
When I finally get it open, relief floods through me.
My veterinary license, insurance papers, and emergency cash are all intact and protected.
I blow out a relieved breath, nearly sagging with relief. At least this stuff is okay.
My phone buzzes with another call from Katie.
It’s the seventh one this morning.
I’ve been letting them go to voicemail because I don’t know how to explain what’s happening without putting her in danger.
But I can’t avoid her forever.
I answer on the next ring.
“Gigi? Oh my god, where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling—” Katie’s voice is tight with worry, the words tumbling over each other. “I saw the news about the fire. Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m…” I start to say I’m fine, but the words stick in my throat. I’m not fine. I’m so far from fine I can’t even see it from here. “Can you come pick me up? I’m at the clinic.” I glance around. Calling it “the clinic” still seems so wrong. “Or what’s left of it.”
“On my way. Don’t move.”
Twenty minutes later, Katie’s ancient Ford Fiesta pulls up to the curb, music blasting from speakers that have seen better decades.
She gets out wearing her favorite Northwestern T-shirt and jeans with holes in both knees, her blonde hair escaping from a messy bun in the way that somehow looks effortlessly perfect on her.
The moment she sees me, her face goes pale.
“What the fuck, Gigi?” She’s at my side in seconds, her hands hovering over me like she’s afraid to touch me.
The smell of her vanilla body spray and the coffee she’s perpetually drinking envelope me. “What the hell happened to your face? Who did this to you?”
I’d almost forgotten about the split lip and the bruise blooming across my cheekbone. I touch it gingerly and wince. “It’s nothing—”
“That’s not nothing. That’s—” She stops, her eyes going wide as she notices how carefully I’m moving. “Are you hurt? Should we go to the hospital?”
“No hospital.” I grab her arm, probably too hard, but I need her to understand. “Katie, please. Just…can we go somewhere? I need to talk to you.”
She studies my face for a long moment then nods. “Okay. Come on.”
We drive to Lincoln Park in silence, Katie occasionally glancing at me with worried brown eyes that keep dropping to my ribs.
I’m holding myself too stiffly, I know, trying not to breathe too deeply because each breath feels like knives.
“Did someone attack you?” Katie finally asks as she parks under an oak tree whose leaves are just starting to turn yellow at the edges, autumn coming whether we’re ready for it or not. “Gigi, we need to call the police—”
“No police.” The words come out sharper than I intend. “Katie, I can’t. If I go to the police, Dad dies. And maybe you too.”
Her hands tighten on the steering wheel and her face whitens. “What?”
“Okay.” She turns off the engine and faces me fully, a serious expression on her pretty face. “Talk to me. What’s really going on? And don’t tell me it’s nothing because I know that look. That’s your ‘my life is imploding and I don’t know how to fix it’ look.”
I lean back against the passenger seat—carefully, because my ribs scream in protest—watching joggers pass by on the lakefront path.
They look carefree.
Relaxed even.
Probably only worrying about normal things like work deadlines and weekend plans. I envy them so much it physically hurts.
“It’s complicated,” I finally say.
Katie raises an eyebrow. “Complicated how? Like ‘I’m secretly dating my professor’ complicated, or like ‘I accidentally joined the witness protection program’ complicated?”
Despite everything, I almost smile.
Katie has always been able to make me laugh even when the world is ending. “More like the second one.”
Her expression shifts from concerned to alarmed. “Gigi, you’re scaring me. What happened?”
Despite myself, I take deep breath—even though I want to cry from the pain—and try to figure out how to explain this without getting her killed.
Because I know, with absolute certainty, that if I tell her the whole truth, she’ll try to help me.
And if she tries to help me, Luca Marchetti will add her to his list of people who need to disappear.
He’s already threatened as much.
“Someone burned down my clinic,” I say carefully. “Someone who has…issues with my family.”
“What kind of issues?”
“The kind that end with people getting hurt if they interfere.” I meet her eyes, willing her to understand without making me spell it out. “Katie, I need you to promise me you’ll stay out of this. Whatever happens next, you can’t try to help me.”
She stares at me for a long moment, and I can see her mind working, putting together pieces I haven’t given her.
Katie’s not stupid.
She knows Chicago has dangerous people, and she knows my father’s gambling has been getting progressively worse since Mom died.
“Someone threatened you,” she says, not a question.
I don’t answer, which is answer enough.
“Okay,” she says finally, puffing out her cheeks and exhaling. She scrubs her face with her hands before she faces me again. “What do you need me to do?”
Oh, Katie. Always trying to be helpful. I shake my head. “Nothing. That’s what I’m trying to tell you—”
“Bullshit.” Katie’s voice goes sharp the way it does when she’s decided something and won’t be put off by any logic or reasoning. “You don’t get to protect me by shutting me out. We’ve been friends for fifteen years, and I’m not abandoning you now just because things got scary.”
The tears I’ve been holding back all morning finally spill over. “Katie, you don’t understand,” I get out, each tremble of my voice another stabbing to my ribs. “These aren’t people who make idle threats. If they think you’re helping me—”
“Then we’ll be smart about it,” she interrupts, handing me a tissue.
“We’ll drive over into Canada and start new lives.
We can finally be a Hallmark Christmas movie duo.
I’ll open a bakery and you’ll start another animal clinic and we can live out our best lives in a cute little Podunk town and eventually meet average looking men wearing holiday sweaters and live happily ever after. ”
I let out a wet laugh. “But you can’t bake.”
“And neither do the heroines in the Hallmark movies, but they still open a bakery!” She grasps my hand, uncaring that they’re dirty. “But I’m not leaving you to handle this alone.”
I wipe my eyes with the tissue, pulling it back to see the white tissue covered in black soot.
God, I must be a mess. “There might not be anything you can do to help.”
“Tell me what happened. All of it,” she demands, her eyes serious.
So I do, in carefully edited terms that leave out names and specifics but give her the basic shape of my nightmare.
I tell her about the phone call, about finding my father beaten and bloody.
I don’t mention Luca’s name or the ultimatum or the details of what my father did three years ago, but I give her enough to understand why running isn’t an option.
My voice breaks when I get to the part about trying to take Dad with me. “I tried to get him out. I tried to fight, but…” My hand unconsciously moves to my ribs. “His guy threw me around like I was nothing. And they just took him. Dragged him away while I was on the ground, and I couldn’t…”
My voice breaks. Katie reaches over and grasps my hand.
“I don’t even know if he’s still alive,” I whisper, the words I’ve been holding back all night finally spilling out. “What if they killed him anyway? What if—”
“Stop,” Katie says firmly, her leg starting to jiggle. She’s getting anxious. “Don’t go there. You don’t know that.”