Chapter 16 Luca #3
“Yeah.” She lifts her head up from my shoulder and looks at me.
The expression on her face is complicated.
She looks happy, but there’s also sadness in her eyes.
“I wish I could do this. Really do this, I mean. Not just occasionally treating strays in your sunroom, but pursuing the surgical specialization I always wanted. Building a practice that focuses on complex cases.”
The wistfulness in her voice makes my throat burn. I would give her all the funding in the world to make her dreams come true. “You still could.”
“Right.” She laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “After we get married, after whatever happens with your revenge plan and my father and this whole fucked up situation—I’m sure my veterinary career will be exactly where I left it.”
The sarcasm is deserved, and it’s like cold water has been thrown on me.
I’ve destroyed her clinic, ruined her reputation by making her disappear without explanation, and isolated her from colleagues and clients who might have offered opportunities.
Even if I let her go tomorrow, her career is probably beyond salvaging.
The thought makes me feel sick.
“I could help you,” I hear myself say. “After the wedding—I could help you set up a new clinic. One with proper surgical equipment, everything you’d need for specialization. I could connect you with the right people, pull strings to get you into the training programs you wanted.”
Her eyes widen, surprise flickering across her features. “I—what?”
“A clinic,” I repeat, the words gaining momentum even as some part of me screams that I’m making promises I can’t keep.
“Fully equipped for surgical cases. I could finance the additional training, make sure you have everything you need to pursue what you actually want instead of what circumstances forced you into.”
For a moment, she just stares at me. Hope, cautious and fragile, but unmistakably there is clear on her face. “You’re serious. You’re not—” She swallows audibly. “You’re not toying with me? This isn’t some test where I’ll be punished for the wrong answer?”
“No,” I tell her. “I’m serious.” And I am, even though I don’t know how the fuck I’m going to reconcile this promise with the plan that’s supposed to end with her death.
“That’s—that’s more than I ever had before. More than I could have afforded on my own even without—” She gestures vaguely, encompassing everything that’s happened. “That would be incredible, Luca. I could actually do the work I’ve always dreamed of.”
The hope in her voice makes me want to vomit. What am I doing? I’m offering her dreams and a future when the original plan calls for her to have neither? When Viktor’s alliance gets secured and her usefulness supposedly ends?
The contradiction is suffocating.
“You deserve it,” I manage, and at least that part is true. “You deserve to have your dreams back.”
She’s looking at me differently now. Not with the underlying wariness that never quite disappears between us, but with full emotion, something softer. It looks almost like trust, like maybe she’s starting to believe I could be more than the monster who destroyed her life.
The guilt is crushing. It’s suffocating.
“I-I don’t know what to say.” Tears gather in her eyes now, happy tears. “Thank you doesn’t seem like enough, but—thank you, Luca. Really.”
I pull her against me before she can see the conflict that must be written all over my face.
I’m promising her things I don’t know how to give her.
I have to destroy her. That’s the plan. And the worst part is that I mean it.
Every word. I want to give her this. I want to see her flourish in the way she was meant to before I fucked everything up.
I just don’t know if I can choose her over three years of revenge planning. I don’t know if I’m capable of being the man who keeps these promises instead of the monster who ends her.
“Tomorrow morning,” she says against my chest. “I want to release Bambi at dawn. Will you—” She bites her bottom lip nervously.
My eyes latch onto it, wishing I could capture her lips with mine.
“Will you come with me?”
“Of course.” The answer is automatic. Fuck, I’m look at how far gone I am.
She nods, then pulls back slightly before standing up. “I should get some sleep then. Big day tomorrow.”
I stand too, close enough that I can see the freckles that dust her nose and cheekbones. .
“Gigi,” I say, the nickname slipping out before I can stop it.
Her eyes widen slightly, her breath catching. Panic bleats within me. Fuck. I wasn’t supposed to call her that. That was supposed to be my internal nickname only. Only her inner circle can call her that. I have no right to claim it, but I just did anyway.
“Is that—” I stop, suddenly uncertain. “Is it okay if I call you that?”
Color rises in her cheeks, a blush that makes her look so beautiful I forget to fucking breathe. “Yeah,” she says, her lips trembling a little bit as she looks at me so softly I hate myself for it. “Yeah, it’s okay.”
The guilt intensifies because she’s giving me this intimacy, this trust, this piece of herself while I’m still carrying the weight of what I originally planned to do to her.
“Stay with me tonight,” I blurt out, and it’s not a command for once. Just a request, almost desperate. “Please.”
She should refuse. She needs to recognize that every boundary we blur makes this more complicated and infinitely more dangerous. She needs to protect herself from me.
Instead, she reaches for my hand, lacing her fingers through mine with a trust that makes me feel like the absolute worst kind of bastard.
“Okay.”
Dawn comes too quickly. We’re both awake before the sun rises, moving quietly through the estate toward the sunroom where Bambi waits. Gigi exudes nervousness but remains gentle as she prepares the deer for release, checking his wound one last time, ensuring he’s strong enough for what comes next.
“He’ll be okay,” I assure her, watching her fuss over details. “You’ve done everything you can.”
“I know.” But her hands still shake slightly as she opens the enclosure door. “It’s just what if he’s not ready? What if I’m releasing him too soon and he—”
“He’ll be fine.” I move to stand behind her, my hands settling on her shoulders. “Trust your skills, Gigi. Trust what you’ve built here.”
She leans back against me slightly, and together we watch as Bambi tentatively steps out of the enclosure and into the early morning light streaming through the glass walls.
The deer pauses, testing his weight on the formerly injured leg, and I feel Gigi hold her breath. But Bambi moves smoothly, no sign of pain or weakness, and after a moment of hesitation he walks toward the door leading to the grounds.
Danny’s already there, holding it open, and he nods to us as Bambi passes through into the cool dawn air.
We follow, watching as the deer moves across the manicured lawn toward the tree line where the estate’s woods begin. He’s cautious at first, stopping frequently to test the air, but with each step he grows more confident.
At the edge of the woods, he pauses and turns back to look at us. I feel Gigi’s breath catch beside me, and I glance down to see tears streaming down her face. Happy tears, based on the smile splitting her features.
Then Bambi bounds into the trees, disappearing into the shadows with the kind of grace that speaks of complete healing, and Gigi makes a sound that’s half sob, half laugh.
“You did it,” I murmur against her hair. “You saved him.”
“We did it,” she corrects, turning in my arms to face me. And the joy on her face—pure and radiant and absolutely beautiful—literally takes my breath away.
This is what she looks like when she’s allowed to do what she loves. When she’s not trapped or scared or wondering what fresh horror awaits her. This is Gigi unleashed, Gigi fulfilled, Gigi being exactly who she was always meant to be.
And I’m the one who took this from her. I destroyed her clinic and her career and her ability to do this work on her own terms.
The guilt crashes over me like a wave, threatening to drown me. Because she’s standing here radiant with joy over saving a deer, talking about dreams I promised to help her achieve, and she has no fucking idea that the original plan calls for her death once the alliance is secured.
She has no idea I’m supposed to kill her.
The thought makes bile rise in my throat.
“What are you thinking?” Gigi asks, studying my face with concern rather than suspicion. Like she trusts me now. Like she believes I’m becoming someone better.
“That you’re beautiful,” I say honestly, because at least that much is true. “And that watching you release Bambi might be the best thing I’ve witnessed in years.”
She blushes again. “It felt good. Really good. I’ve missed this—helping animals, fixing them, making a difference.
” Her smile is radiant and hopeful. “And knowing that after the wedding I’ll be able to do this professionally again, that you’re going to help me build something even better than what I had before, means everything. ”
Her voice breaks with emotion. Grateful and happy emotion.
She thinks I’m turning a new leaf. That I’m becoming the man Marco wanted me to be.
And I’m letting her believe it while struggling to carry the weight of what I plan to do.
“Thank you, Luca.” She reaches up to cup my face, and the tenderness in her touch is devastating. “For giving me hope again. For making me believe that maybe something good can come from all this.”
I can’t speak. I can’t force words past the guilt choking me. So I just pull her against my chest and hold on, trying not to think about how she’s thanking me for promises I don’t know if I can keep.
How she’s looking at me like I’m her salvation when I’m supposed to be her executioner.
We stand there in the dawn light, watching the place where Bambi disappeared into the woods, and the parallels are too painful to ignore. That deer was wounded, healed, and set free to live the life it was meant to live.
But Gigi?
Gigi is wounded and healing, yes. But freedom? A future? Those were never part of the original plan.
Three years. Three years I spent plotting Antonio Conti’s complete destruction, and making him watch his daughter die was supposed to be the crescendo. The ultimate revenge. The perfect justice for Marco’s death.
But now the thought of being the reason why this world has no Gigi Conti makes me physically sick.
How the fuck am I supposed to choose?
Marco’s memory demands justice. Demands that someone pay for his torture and death. Antonio Conti must suffer the way I’ve suffered.
But Gigi—God, Gigi—she’s become something I can’t categorize or compartmentalize. She’s not collateral damage in someone else’s war. She’s not even just Antonio’s daughter anymore.
She’s Gigi. And I don’t know how to reconcile the woman in my arms with the role she was supposed to play in my revenge.
“We should head back,” she says against my chest, her voice still soft with happiness. “I want to document Bambi’s release in my notes, and then maybe we could have breakfast together? I’ve been teaching Ramirez how to make these Italian pastries my mother used to make, and—”
She’s planning a future. Our future. Breakfasts and teaching my cook how to make pastries and all these small domestic moments that should feel trivial but instead feel monumental.
And I’m letting her plan it while knowing that once Viktor’s alliance is secure, I’m supposed to—
I can’t even finish the thought.
“Yeah,” I manage, my voice rough. “Breakfast sounds good.”
She pulls back to smile at me, and the trust in her expression is like a knife between my ribs. She believes in me now. That I’m capable of being better, of choosing redemption over revenge.
And I want to be that man. I want to be worthy of that trust, that hope, that radiant smile.
But I don’t know if I can abandon three years of planning without betraying Marco’s memory. I don’t know if I can choose Gigi’s life over the justice I swore to deliver.
I don’t know if I’m capable of being anything other than the monster grief made me, no matter how badly I want to be.
As we walk back toward the estate hand in hand, Gigi chattering happily about her plans for the clinic I promised her, I’m drowning in the weight of what she doesn’t know.
And I’m too much of a coward to tell her the truth.