Chapter 22 – Siena
SIENA
T he apartment is dark except for the sliver of streetlight sneaking through the blinds. Nothing is here anymore because it’s all at the penthouse. All with Giovanni.
I’m on the floor with my back against the door, knees pulled tight to my chest. My face is wet, my hands are trembling, and I can still hear Carlo’s cruel, flat voice in my head. About how Giovanni killed your father .
A sharp knock jolts me, and then another that’s louder, harder.
“Siena!” Giovanni’s voice rips through the hallway. Rough. Desperate. “Sweetheart, open the door.”
My heart lurches toward him even as my body presses harder against the wood, as if I could become part of it and disappear.
“I need to explain,” he says, pounding again. “Please, baby, just listen to me.”
A sob catches in my throat, and I smother it against my sleeve. I can’t let him hear. If he hears me cry, he’ll know I’m still his, still tethered to him even after everything.
His palm hits the door with a dull thud. “Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out.” There’s a pause, the kind of silence that hurts, and then softer, almost broken, he says, “I can’t lose you, Siena.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, my chest shaking. My father’s name is a wound I can’t touch without bleeding, and Giovanni is the one who ripped it open. But God, hearing him so raw and begging, it tears something inside me.
“Please,” he says again, voice cracking. “Come home. You are my home.”
The tears come harder, hot and relentless, but I stay silent. I can’t let him talk his way through this. Not when the ground beneath my world has just given way.
He bangs once more, but it’s weaker this time. I picture him standing there, jaw clenched, shoulders tense, trying to hold himself together.
Minutes stretch like hours until finally, I hear his voice one last time, a whisper through the door. “I love you, Siena. I’m not giving up on us.”
His footsteps fade down the hall, leaving only the sound of my uneven breathing and the weight of a truth I’m not ready to face.
The silence feels heavier than the walls themselves. When Giovanni’s footsteps fade, it’s like the air gets sucked out of the room. I uncurl myself from the door and drag my palms over my face, smearing the tears that keep coming no matter how many times I wipe them away.
The apartment is almost bare now. Just a few stray hangers in the closet, a half-empty candle on the counter, and a folded throw blanket on my old worn couch, I hadn’t bothered to move yet. Everything that made this place feel like mine is already at the penthouse. At his place.
I glance around, searching for something familiar, something that feels like safety, but the space is hollow. My laughter, our whispers, our shared mornings, they’re all gone, absorbed into the life I built with him.
I lay on the cold hardwood floor. The echo of the impact is too loud in the emptiness. I hug my knees again and let the sobs come, ugly and unrestrained.
Carlo’s words sliced so deep and it was purposely done. He knew exactly where to hit. And Giovanni didn’t even deny it when I asked. The look in his eyes wasn’t confusion. It was recognition. A silent confession.
How could the man who held me through sleepless nights, who looked at me like I was the answer to a question he’d never known he was asking, be the same one Carlo painted?
I press my hand over my heart, where the ache feels physical.
“Damn you, Giovanni DeLuca,” I whisper into the emptiness. My voice cracks. “Damn you for loving me the way you do.”
The apartment is too quiet, too empty, too not-home anymore. And despite everything, the part of me that isn’t shattered still longs for the sound of his key in the lock, for his arms to close around me. And for the impossible—to trust him again.
But tonight, I sit alone on the bare floor, wrapped in silence and heartbreak, unsure which piece of me will survive this.
Fia’s apartment smells like lavender and coffee.
It's a combination that should feel comforting, but tonight it only makes the ache in my chest sharper.
She hands me a blanket and a mug of tea, then settles beside me on the couch.
I curl into the far corner, staring at the steam curling from the cup without really seeing it.
“He came by again?” she asks softly.
I nod, my throat too tight to speak. Giovanni’s pounding on my apartment door still echoes in my ears. The desperate way he said my name, the way his voice cracked when he begged me to come home.
“I couldn’t face him,” I whisper finally. My voice sounds foreign, like it belongs to someone else. “I didn’t even breathe until I knew he was gone.”
Fia tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “Siena, you’re safe here. He won’t follow you here. And even if he did, I’d throw him out myself.”
A bitter laugh escapes me, sharp and humorless. “I don’t even know if I want him gone or if I just want him to hold me and tell me it’s not true.”
Her expression softens. “You love him.”
I press my fists to my eyes, trying to stop the tears. “God, I love him so much. But the man I love killed my father. How do I get past that? How do I look at him and not see…” My voice breaks, and I can’t finish.
Fia rubs slow circles on my back, letting me cry until my body shakes. “You don’t have to know tonight,” she says quietly. “You’re in shock. Your whole world just shifted.”
I shake my head violently. “It’s not just shock. It’s betrayal. He looked me in the eye and promised to protect me. He promised me honesty. And all this time…” My breath hitches. “He’s the reason I don’t have a father.”
Fia’s own eyes shine, but she doesn’t interrupt. She just holds space for me, even as I crumble.
“I thought we were unbreakable,” I whisper. “I thought love like ours could survive anything. But this? I don’t know if I can forgive him. I don’t know if I can even try.”
Fia doesn’t say anything, just rests her hand on my knee. The clock ticks softly in the background. Outside, the city hums, indifferent to my heartbreak. Inside, Fia’s apartment feels like the only place I’m not being watched, not being begged, not being reminded of Giovanni’s touch.
Still, in the dark corner of my heart, a treacherous voice whispers that I miss him. That I hate him for what he’s done, but I hate even more how much I still need him. And that’s the part that scares me the most.