Chapter 11 Giuliana #2
I jolt violently at the sound of Luca’s voice, nearly dropping the sparrow who tweets in fear.
My head snaps up to find him standing a few feet away, hands in the pockets of his dark slacks, watching me with an expression I can’t read.
He’s wearing a charcoal suit jacket over a white shirt, the top button undone and his tie loosened—the most casual I’ve ever seen him look.
The afternoon sun catches in his dark hair, and he looks unfairly handsome.
It makes my treacherous body respond despite everything my mind knows to be true.
I hate that I notice.
I hate that even now, crying in a garden over an injured bird while my life crumbles around me, some part of me registers how attractive he is.
“I–I didn’t hear you approach,” I manage to say, my voice thick from crying.
“That was the idea.” He moves closer, his footsteps barely audible on the stone path. “Cruz said you’ve been out here for a while. I came to check on you.”
“To make sure your prisoner hasn’t escaped?” The bitterness in my tone is evident.
“To make sure you’re not planning something foolish,” he corrects, but there’s no heat in it. His dark eyes drop to the bird in my hands, and something shifts in his expression. “Another one?”
“Broken wing. Probably flew into a window.” I swipe at my face with my shoulder, trying to clear the tears without dropping the sparrow. “I just found him.”
Luca settles onto the bench beside me—not touching, but close enough that I can smell him, that woodsy expensive scent that’s become permanently associated with captivity and confusion and unwanted attraction.
He leans forward, studying the bird with genuine interest rather than dismissal.
“Can you fix it?” he asks quietly.
I shift uncomfortably. “Maybe. The break isn’t compound, and there’s no sign of infection yet.
If I can set it properly and keep the bird still long enough for it to heal…
” I trail off, looking down at the tiny creature trembling in my hands.
“But even if I fix the wing, what then? Let it go so it can get caught by a cat? Fly into another window? Die in some other meaningless way?”
The words come out more raw than I intended, and I realize I’m not talking about the bird anymore.
Luca is quiet for a long moment. When he finally speaks, his voice is gentle in a way I’ve never heard from him before. “You’re not talking about the sparrow.”
“I don’t know what I’m talking about anymore.
” Fresh tears spill over, and I don’t have the energy to stop them.
“I’m losing my mind, Luca. Two weeks of this and I can barely remember who I was before.
” I sniffle. “I don’t know if my father’s alive or dead.
I don’t know what happens to me tomorrow or next week or—”
My voice breaks completely, and the sobs I’ve been holding back finally overwhelm me.
The sparrow chirps in distress at my shaking hands, and I force myself to breathe, to stay calm for the bird’s sake if not my own.
“Here.” Luca’s hands appear in my vision, steady and sure. “Let me hold it while you set the wing.”
I stare at him, certain I’ve misheard. “W-what?”
“The bird needs to be still for you to work,” he says matter-of-factly. “I’ll hold it. You fix it.”
There’s no logical reason for him to help me. No strategic advantage, no political gain. But he’s offering anyway, and I’m too broken to question the mercy.
I transfer the sparrow to his cupped hands and watch as this man who’s destroyed my life holds the tiny creature with surprising gentleness.
His large hands cradle the bird carefully, thumbs stroking its back in a soothing rhythm while I dig through my medical supplies for splinting materials.
“Talk to him,” I instruct, my voice still shaky. “Keep him calm.”
Luca obliges, his voice dropping to a low murmur I can barely hear.
The bird settles slightly in his hold, and I take advantage of the stillness to carefully examine the wing.
The break is clean, thank god. Fixable if I’m careful.
I work in silence, my fingers moving as they have for the hundreds of procedures I’ve done, even as my mind struggles to process the surreal reality of Luca Marchetti helping me treat an injured bird.
His hands never waver, never squeeze too tight or loosen.
He keeps up that low, soothing murmur, and the sparrow gradually stops struggling.
“There,” I say finally, securing the last of the splint and leaning back on my haunches. “That should do it. A few weeks in the cage, limited movement, and it should heal.”
“You’re good at this,” Luca observes, transferring the bird back to my hands with the same gentleness he used to hold it. “Fixing broken things, I mean.”
The compliment shouldn’t affect me, but it does. My cheeks warm.
“It’s what I trained for,” I say, placing the sparrow gently into the carrier at my feet. “Helping creatures that can’t help themselves.”
“Is that why you refused Romano’s offer?” The question comes out quiet, curious. “Because you see yourself as someone who heals rather than harms?”
I look up at him sharply, surprised by the insight. “I refused because I’m not a traitor,” I tell him slowly. “I told you that.”
“You did.” His dark eyes search mine, and there’s something in his expression I can’t name. “But I think it’s more than that. I think you need to believe you’re better than your father, that his weakness isn’t inherited. That you can make different choices even when the stakes are impossibly high.”
The observation cuts too close. Way too close. “You don’t know me well enough to psychoanalyze my motivations,” I snap, wrapping my arms around my body.
“Don’t I?” He shifts slightly on the bench, angling toward me, his sharp eyes assessing me.
“Two weeks of watching you, Giuliana. Two weeks of seeing how you handle captivity better than most people would manage. You turn down freedom and two million dollars. You spend your supervised garden time treating injured birds instead of planning an escape. You cry in private but maintain your composure when you think anyone’s watching.
I know more about who you are than you might think. ”
“Y-you’ve been watching me?” The words come out breathless, and I hate how that makes me feel—violated and oddly thrilled in equal measure.
Duh he’s watching me.
I’m his goddamn prisoner after all.
“Of course I’ve been watching you.” His voice drops lower, more intimate. “You’re my responsibility. My prisoner. My…” He trails off, seeming to struggle with what word comes next. “It would be foolish not to monitor you.”
“Your what?” I press, needing to hear him finish that sentence, my heart thumping wildly.
But Luca just shakes his head, standing abruptly and putting distance between us. “Why do you treat the birds?” he asks instead. The subject change is so fast it nearly gives me whiplash.
“They’re just birds. Who cares if they live or die? It’s not your problem. But you want to fix them. Why?”
I look down at the sparrow settling into its carrier, considering the question.
“Because they’re helpless. Because someone hurt them—accidentally or otherwise—and they can’t fix themselves.
Because…” I swallow hard. “Because if I can’t fix anything else in my life right now, at least I can fix them. ”
“Even though they’ll just fly away once they’re healed?” His tone is unreadable. “Even though they’ll never know you saved them, never appreciate the sacrifice of your time and skill?”
“Even though.” I meet his eyes, and something electric passes between us. “Healing isn’t about gratitude or reciprocation. It’s about seeing something broken and refusing to walk away just because fixing it is hard.”
Luca is very still, and I watch something complicated move across his features. “Marco used to say something similar,” he says quietly, his voice soft.
My breath catches. “He did?”
He settles back onto the bench but maintains careful distance, as if afraid of getting too close again.
“When I was thirteen, my father came home in one of his rages. He beat me badly enough that I couldn’t go to school for a week.
Marco was twelve. He found me in our bathroom, trying to clean myself up before anyone else saw. ”
I shouldn’t want to hear this story. I shouldn’t care about Luca’s childhood or his pain or anything that makes him more human than a monster. But I can’t make myself stop him.
“He brought me to his house instead of mine,” Luca continues, his voice distant with memory.
“And on the way, we found a stray dog that had been hit by a car. Broken leg, bleeding, clearly terrified. The bastard tried to take a chunk out of my leg.” Luca’s lips curve in a heart stopping smile.
“Marco insisted we take it to a vet even though we had no money and I was barely conscious myself.”
“What happened?” The question escapes before I can stop it.
“The vet patched up the dog for free when Marco explained our situation. Probably saved its life.” Luca’s expression softens, making him look more human.
“Marco told me then that healing was just as important as fighting. That showing mercy to helpless things didn’t make you weak—it made you strong enough to care about something beyond yourself. ”
“Those are very wise words from a twelve year old,” I manage, imagining how scared a thirteen-year-old Luca must have been.
Luca smiles gently. “Marco was like that. He was always into the philosophical bullshit.”
That smile—this story—this is what I saw in his private office.
The evidence of Marco’s compassion, his gentle influence on his cousin.
And this is what I’m watching disappear as Luca hardens himself into a monster pursuing revenge against the wrong enemy.
The secret burns in my stomach like acid, demanding to be spoken.
Tell him.
Tell him about the recording.
Tell him who Marco’s real killer is so he’ll stop destroying innocent people.
“That’s why you let me treat the bird,” I say instead, the confession dying unspoken in my throat. “Because Marco taught you that healing matters.”
“Maybe.” He won’t look at me now, his gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the garden walls as a light breeze plays at his dark hair. “Or maybe I just want to see if you’ll keep choosing mercy even when mercy hasn’t been shown to you.”
I stiffen. I feel like whatever moment we’ve shared is gone. “Is that what this is? Some kind of test?”
“Everything is a test, Giuliana.” His voice goes cold again, the brief glimpse of vulnerability slamming shut behind familiar walls. “Every choice you make, every word you say, every moment you think I’m not watching—it all tells me something about who you really are.”
“And who am I?” I ask, too tired to be afraid of the answer. “According to your careful observations?”
Luca finally looks at me again, and the intensity in his dark eyes makes my breath catch.
“I’ve already told you that you’re not your father.
You might share his blood, but that’s where the similarity ends.
You make choices he never did. You try to heal instead of hurt.
You forgive, when others would lash out.
” He pauses, and something almost painful crosses his face.
“You’re everything I should have been if grief hadn’t turned me into this. ”
The world seems to stop at his admission.
For just a moment, I see him clearly—not the monster who destroyed my clinic or the captor who holds me prisoner, but the broken man underneath.
The one who loved his cousin so much that losing him shattered his humanity.
“I—” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Your bird will recover.” His tone shifts back to businesslike as he stands. “You’re truly skilled at fixing broken things, Giuliana. I hope you remember that.”
He turns to leave, and panic seizes me at the thought of being alone with my spiraling thoughts, at the secret I’m carrying, and the walls closing in again.
“Why?” The question bursts out of me, desperate and raw. “Why are you letting me do this when you’ve shown me nothing else?”
Luca pauses mid-stride, his back to me.
For several long seconds, I think he’s not going to answer.
Then his shoulders shift, and he glances back with an expression that might be regret.
“Because watching you heal things reminds me of who I used to be,” he says quietly.
“Before Marco died. Before revenge consumed everything. You’re…
” He trails off, seeming to struggle with the words.
I see him flex his hands. “You’re what I lost when I decided destroying you mattered more than being the kind of man Marco would recognize. ”
Then he’s gone, leaving me alone in the garden with the terrible knowledge that understanding him is so much more dangerous than hating him ever was.
I press my hands to my face and let the tears come again, this time for different reasons.
Because I saw his humanity just now, saw the man hidden beneath the monster.
Because he opened up about Marco in a way that makes my secret feel like a betrayal.
Because some twisted part of me wants to comfort him, to tell him that he’s not too far gone, that healing is still possible if he’d just stop pursuing this twisted revenge.
But most of all, I cry because I’m beginning to see who he could have been.
Who he might still become if someone could show him there’s another path forward.
The secret about the recording grows heavier with every moment of unexpected kindness he shows me.
I could redirect his rage toward the real culprit. I could change everything with a few words.
But what if he doesn’t believe me?
What if he thinks I’m lying to manipulate him?
Worse, what if he does believe me and decides I’m too useful as a witness to ever let go?
So I keep silent, and the secret burns deeper.
The sparrow chirps softly from its carrier, and I wipe my eyes, trying to pull myself together.
At least I can save the birds.
Even if I can’t save myself or Dad, at least I can fix these small, broken things.