Chapter 9 #2
He’s wearing dark slacks and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his hair still damp from a shower.
He looks perfectly composed and completely in control.
Nothing like the man who lost his mind in my bedroom last night.
But his dark brown eyes are hard, dangerous, fixed on me with an intensity that makes me want to back away.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, the words tumbling over themselves as I set down the photo. “I was just walking and I found this room and I shouldn’t have come in, I know, but the door was unlocked and I—”
“You were going through my private things.” His voice is deadly quiet as he moves into the room, each step deliberate and predatory. “Things that have nothing to do with you.”
I shake my head frantically, feeling wisps of hair dance near my jaw. “I wasn’t going through anything! I was just looking—”
“Why?” He’s close now, close enough that I can smell his cologne and feel his body, and my traitorous body responds with a flush of heat I immediately hate myself for. “Looking for ammunition? Ways to hurt me? Information you can use?”
“No!” The accusation stings because it’s so wrong. Fuck me, I should have listened to my self-preservation. “I was just…I needed to get out of that room. After last night, I couldn’t…I just—” I swallow heavily. “I needed to be somewhere else,” I finish in a whisper.
His expression shifts slightly at the mention of last night, something unreadable crossing his features before the cold mask returns.
“So you decide to invade my most private space?”
“I didn’t know what this room was!” The words come out desperate. “I was just walking. I was trying to escape my own head, and I saw the photographs and I…”
I trail off because I don’t know how to finish that sentence honestly.
Why did I stay once I saw what this room was?
Why didn’t I leave immediately?
My eyes drift back to the photographs on the wall of the laughing boys at the beach, the teenagers with matching tattoos.
The desk frame of the young men at that barbecue looking so happy and whole.
“I saw the pictures,” I say quietly. “Of you and Marco. When you were kids.”
Luca goes very still.
“I know I shouldn’t have looked. I know this is private and none of my business.” I swallow hard. “But once I saw them, I-I couldn’t look away. You looked so…different. So happy.”
“Get out.” His voice is flat, emotionless.
This is going badly. “I’m sorry—”
“I said ‘get out.’”
But something in his tone isn’t quite right. It’s not rage I’m hearing.
It’s something else.
Pain, maybe.
Or fear that I’ve seen too much.
“Why?” The question escapes me before I can stop it, and I feel tears pool into my eyes. “Why do you hate me so much when I never did anything to you?”
He glares at me, his eyes narrowed into slits. “I’ve already told you. Your father—”
“I know what my father did,” I interrupt, feeling tears track down my cheeks.
“And I’m so, so angry at him. For his weakness.
For his cowardice. But I’m not him. And looking at those pictures, seeing how much you loved Marco…
” I shrug helplessly. “I just wanted to understand.” The words burn in my throat.
“I wanted to understand why you’re doing this. Why Marco mattered so much.”
Raw pain flashes across his face, so intense it takes my breath away.
For just a moment, the mask cracks completely and I see the broken man underneath.
The one who loved his cousin so deeply that losing him shattered something fundamental inside him.
Then the mask slams back into place, and he’s cold and unreachable again.
“Marco mattered because he was the only good thing in my world,” Luca says, his voice rough. “The only person who ever gave a damn about me as more than a weapon or a business asset. And your father took him away for a measly fifty thousand dollars.”
I want to tell him the truth.
The words are right there, pressing against my teeth, desperate to be free.
I know who murdered Marco. I have proof.
But fear locks my jaw shut.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper instead, because I don’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry for what happened to him. I’m sorry you lost him.”
Luca stares at me for a long moment, and I can’t read the emotions flickering through his dark eyes.
Anger, yes, but also something else—confusion, maybe, or suspicion.
“Why are you sorry?” he asks quietly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I stare at him, hardly daring to breathe. Did he just…?
“What?” My voice comes out barely a whisper. “What did you say?”
Luca grimaces. “Marco’s death. It wasn’t your fault.” He says it again, and this time I can see the conflict in his eyes, like he’s admitting something he doesn’t want to be true.
I seize on that admission. “But you said—you told me I had to pay for what my father did,” I say desperately, hoping beyond hope that this is a breakthrough. “You—”
“I know what I said.” He cuts me off, his eyes flashing. His entire body is taut, like a string pulled too tight. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Then why—” My throat closes up, and I fight back a sob. “If it’s not my fault, why are you punishing me?”
He doesn’t answer. Can’t answer, maybe, because there is no good answer to that question.
“Because you’re in pain,” I whisper, something I once shouted at him flooding me with understanding. “And I understand what that’s like, to lose someone you love so much you don’t know how to keep breathing without them.”
He flinches like I’ve struck him, and I realize I’ve said and revealed too much.
I’ve shown him my humanity, my empathy, my ability to see his suffering, and it’s dangerous.
It complicates the neat narrative where I’m just a tool for revenge.
But more than that, he’s just admitted—however briefly and reluctantly—that I’m innocent.
That he knows I don’t deserve this.
And he’s doing it anyway.
“Get out.” The words are harsh, but his tone is strangely gentle. “Go back to your room.”
“Luca,” I say desperately.
“Now, Giuliana.” It’s an order now.
I flee, practically running through the hallways back to my suite.
Only when the door closes behind me and I hear the lock engage do I let myself collapse against it, sliding to the floor.
I saw him.
Not the monster who destroyed my clinic or the captor who holds me prisoner or even the man who fucked me against the wall last night.
I saw Luca Marchetti—the man who loved someone so completely that losing him turned him into this twisted version of himself.
And the most terrifying part is that understanding him, seeing his humanity, might be far more dangerous than simply hating him.
Because if Luca is capable of love and grief and loss, then maybe he’s also capable of redemption. Of forgiveness. Of change.
Maybe the monster isn’t all there is.
The thought should comfort me. Instead, it fills me with a dread I can’t name.
Because caring about my captor, sympathizing with him, seeing him as human rather than evil—that way lies madness.
I can’t afford to see Luca as anything but the enemy. My survival depends on it.
But the image of him laughing in that photograph, young and happy and whole, is burned into my brain.
And I’m terrified that I’ll never be able to see him the same way again.
The secret about the killer sits heavy in my chest, growing heavier with every moment I don’t speak it.
But I stay silent because I’m terrified.
I’m terrified of what would happen to me if I exposed him. I’m terrified that the information might make me too valuable to kill or too dangerous to keep alive.
I don’t know which fear is stronger, and that paralysis keeps the truth locked in my throat.
Either way, I’m in more danger than I’ve ever been. Not from Luca’s revenge or his enemies or even from the fate he has planned for me.
I’m in danger of forgetting who I am and why I need to keep hating him.