Chapter 15 Giuliana
GIULIANA
Luca stands with his back to me, one hand braced against the edge of his desk, his shoulders bowed forward.
I really should leave. I have a bad feeling this will get worse and he will demand answers I’m too terrified to give. But my feet won’t move, and something about the defeated slope of his shoulders keeps me rooted in place.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper again, the words inadequate but all I have to offer. “I know that doesn’t fix anything, but—”
“Stop apologizing.” His voice is rough, drained of the fury I expected. “You were scared. You were trying to protect yourself and your father. I understand that, even if—” He stops, grabbing a fistful of his hair and yanks on it. I wince. “Even if it means three years of my life were wasted.”
He turns back to face me, and the exhaustion in his expression makes my stomach twist. The walls have crumbled, destroyed away by my revelation, leaving something raw and human that I wasn’t prepared to see.
“Do you know what the worst part is?” He picks up the photograph of him and Marco again, studying it like the image might reveal answers he desperately needs.
“I’ve been so focused on revenge, on making someone pay for Marco’s death, that I honestly forgot what he actually stood for. What he would have wanted.”
I don’t respond, just wait for him to continue.
“Marco hated violence.” A sad smile crosses Luca’s face.
“Which made him a terrible fit for our world, but somehow he made it work anyway. He’d negotiate when I wanted to fight.
He would find compromise when I wanted total victory.
He would remind me that the people we hurt have families and lives beyond their usefulness to us. ”
He sets the photo down gently. “Three years ago, when he died, I thought the best way to honor his memory was through revenge. Through making sure whoever was responsible suffered the way he suffered. But Marco—” His voice catches, and he takes a deep breath.
“Marco would hate what I’ve become. What I’ve done to you, to your father. He would have been ashamed of me.”
The admission is so honest and vulnerable that I physically hurt for him. This is the man beneath the monster—the one who knows he’s lost his way and doesn’t know how to find it again.
“Tell me about him,” I hear myself say. “Not about his death, but about—about who he was. What made him matter to you.”
Luca looks at me with surprise in his dark eyes, like he didn’t expect the question. Then his expression softens, and he gestures to the chair I abandoned earlier.
“Sit down,” he says quietly. “This might take a while.”
I settle back into the leather chair, tucking my feet under me, and watch as Luca moves around the desk to lean against it.
His shirt pulls across his broad shoulders when he moves and his chest rises and falls with each breath.
The open collar of his shirt reveals tan skin and the beginning of a tattoo?
My mouth dries at the peek of the ink, already imagining what his body looks like. I squeeze my fingers together. Pull yourself together, Gigi.
God, he’s so handsome. Even destroyed by grief and guilt, he’s so easy to look at.
“Marco was my cousin,” Luca begins, his eyes distant with memory. “But more than that, he was my best friend. The only person in the world who knew everything about me—the good, the bad, the absolutely fucking ugly—and loved me anyway.”
He leans over his desk, sifting through photos until he plucks one up and shows it to me.
Two teenagers standing in front of what looks like a bodega.
A young Luca looks surly while teenage Marco grins at the camera.
“This was the summer my father died.” Luca’s voice softens.
“I was sixteen, Marco was fifteen. We’d just heard that my father had been killed in a warehouse fire.
Retaliation from a rival family for something I still don’t fully understand. ”
“I’m sorry,” I murmur.
Luca barks out a laugh. “Don’t be.” He sets down the photo, but he doesn’t stop looking at it. “My father was a violent drunk who beat my mother until she killed herself when I was twelve. His death was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
The casual way he says it makes my heart hurt. I think about my own father. He’s weak and foolish and self-destructive, but never violent. He’s never been someone whose death would feel like liberation.
“After he died, Marco’s family took me in.” Luca studies the photograph. “They didn’t have to. I was already involved in the family business and showing signs of becoming exactly what my father was. But Marco’s mother—my aunt Caterina—she insisted on keeping me.”
He smiles, and it’s genuine this time, tinged with warmth I’ve never heard from him. My heart lurches traitorously.
“Marco made it his personal mission to keep me human. Every time I wanted to solve a problem with violence, he’d talk me into finding another way. Every time my anger got the better of me, he’d be there to remind me that rage is easy but wisdom is hard.”
“He sounds like he was good for you,” I say quietly, wishing I could have met him.
“He was the best part of me.” Luca picks up another photo.
It’s the one where they’re young men at the warehouse.
“I think I showed you this one before,” he murmurs.
Before I can say that he had, Luca is already continuing, “This was taken the day we finalized our first major legitimate business deal. Marco had been pushing for years to transition some of our operations into legal enterprises. He had this vision of creating an operation that could eventually go completely legitimate, something we could be proud of instead of just profitable.”
His hand clenches into a fist as he puts the photo down again. “He wanted to prove that people like us—people born into violence and crime—could choose to be better. That we weren’t trapped by our circumstances if we were willing to work hard enough to escape them.”
“And you believed him?” The question comes out gentler than I intended.
“I wanted to.” Luca’s eyes meet mine. The pain in them is almost too much to bear.
“But I was pragmatic. I knew that going legitimate meant giving up power, influence, and the respect that comes from being feared. Marco understood that, but he thought it was worth it. He thought building a clean future was more valuable than maintaining something dirty.”
He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “We used to argue about it constantly. He’d talk about legacy and redemption and what kind of world we wanted to leave behind.
I’d counter with reality—that our enemies wouldn’t care about our good intentions, that showing weakness invites attacks, and that the only way to survive in our world is through strength. ”
“Who won those arguments?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“Marco. Always Marco.” The admission comes out soft, tinged with grief.
“He had this way of making you see things differently, of finding the humanity in situations where I only saw strategy and survival. Even when I disagreed with him, even when his idealism seemed naive—” He stops, swallowing hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Even then, I trusted his judgment over my own.”
I watch emotions play across his handsome face—grief and guilt and regret. In the soft lighting of the desk lamp, with his defenses stripped away, he looks younger. More vulnerable. Like someone who might actually be capable of redemption if given the chance.
“Losing him broke something major inside me.” Luca’s voice is rough. “Not just because he was family, but because he was my moral compass. The voice that reminded me when I let my anger win, when revenge was blinding me to better solutions. Without him—”
He gestures at the case files spread across his desk. “Without him, I’ve become exactly what he spent his life trying to prevent. I’ve let grief turn me into something he would have been ashamed of.”
My breath catches. Luca Marchetti is insanely vulnerable right now. I never thought I would ever hear him admit this. My heart aches for him, and I desperately want to comfort him.
“He wouldn’t be ashamed,” I hear myself say. “He’d be heartbroken. There’s a difference.”
Luca’s eyes snap to mine, surprise evident in his features as his dark brows furrow. “Huh?”
I swallow, willing my mouth to make sense of my brain’s convoluted thinking.
“Shame is about judgment,” I say slowly, keeping my eyes locked on his.
My heart beats a staccato against my chest. “About thinking someone is flawed or broken beyond repair.” I lean forward, needing him to understand this even if I don’t fully understand why it matters so much.
“But heartbreak? Heartbreak is about loving someone enough to mourn what they’ve become while still believing they could be better.
And from everything you’ve told me about Marco, he loved you too much for shame.
He’d be heartbroken that you lost your way, but he wouldn’t think you were beyond saving. ”
The silence is loud. Luca stares at me with an incredulous expression, his throat working as he tries to grapple with what I’ve just said.
“You didn’t know him,” he finally says, but there’s no anger in his tone. He’s just merely stating the obvious.
“No,” I concede. “I didn’t. But I know what it’s like to lose someone who kept you grounded.” The words come out before I can stop them, drawn by his vulnerability into matching it with my own. “I know I’ve told you about my mother.” I swallow hard, willing myself not to cry.
Luca’s expression turns into understanding rather than grief. “I remember. I’m sorry.”