Chapter 13 #2
‘Giada.’ I’m up before my chair even finishes scraping. I catch her as she folds, my arms locking around her just in time. She’s light, too light, and for a horrifying second I feel her slip, feel her vanish.
‘Doctor!’ I bark, lifting her clean off her feet.
She gives a small, broken whimper that rips through me. My chest goes tight, savage with remorse. I’m already marching her off the terrace into the living room, yelling again because apparently today I’m a lunatic who doesn’t know his own strength.
The butler appears. ‘Get Doctor Conti! Now!’
Her head is tucked against my shoulder. One hand fumbles for the front of my shirt, clutching like she can anchor herself there. Her mouth is at my collarbone, her breath hot, frantic.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Dr Conti sprints in within seconds, hair dishevelled, face pale with the kind of professional fear that comes from treating a Salvatore while knowing there are consequences for getting it wrong.
‘What happened?’ he demands, already kneeling by the couch as I lower her carefully.
‘I was a fucking schmuck,’ I snap, because there’s no other way to say it. ‘I told her things maybe I shouldn’t have.’
Conti shoots me a look like you think? and then turns to Giada. His voice gentles the way mine never can. ‘Sister – Giada – look at me. Breathe slowly. In. Out. That’s it.’
Her eyes are huge in her paper-white face.
She nods once, twice, but the panic doesn’t drain.
I pace. I know I’m pacing. I can’t stop.
The doctor prises her fingers open, checks her pulse, shines a small light in her eyes. He asks questions in Italian that are meant to soothe and assess at once.
‘What did you see, cara? What did you feel? A smell? A sound? A name?’
Giada shakes her head, then swallows again like she’s trying to force something down into place. ‘I didn’t… I only felt—’
Her voice fractures.
‘It’s all right,’ Conti says softly. ‘Your mind is healing. This can happen. A memory fragment bleeds through, the body reacts.’
‘No.’ She sits up too fast, her hands gripping the couch cushion. There’s steel in her now under the tremor. ‘No more bleeding through without me knowing. No more secrets. If something is going to hurt me, I want to see it coming.’
I blink.
That’s not Sister Benedetta at all.
That’s Giada Mancinelli with teeth.
My mouth tugs with elated pride despite the knot in my chest. ‘You’re a stubborn little saint.’
She turns those eyes on me, blazing. ‘Don’t call me that in that tone. I don’t even know what I’m meant to be any more.’
The doctor clears his throat, visibly deciding his role here is to keep everyone alive, not mediate a marital war that’s already halfway to eruption.
‘I’ll give you something mild,’ he says, pulling pills from a case. ‘To steady the nerves. It will not impair memory recovery.’
He hands her water. She takes the pills without asking. Proud, even shaky.
I scrub a hand down my face, guilt chewing my gut. ‘Giada, I didn’t mean to—’
‘Stop,’ she cuts in. ‘You don’t get to decide what I can handle. Not any more. I’ll be the judge of that.’
My temper lifts its head, reflexive. ‘No, you won’t. I will.’
‘Renzo—’
‘Because I’m the one who picked you up off a convent floor and dragged you into a war you don’t even remember, so yeah, I get a fucking vote.’
Her chin lifts. Her eyes narrow. A flicker of something hot and defiant flashes through her like a spark catching dry tinder.
‘There’s my fighter,’ I murmur, softer now, because Christ, I missed that fire even when I didn’t know where it came from.
She glowers. ‘Don’t patronise me.’
‘I’m not.’ I crouch in front of her, ignoring the way Conti’s eyes dart between us as if he’s waiting for someone to explode. ‘I’m… trying to keep you safe.’
‘And I’m trying to live in my own head without you deciding what’s in it.’
Touché.
When she draws a breath it shakes like a fucking earthquake, and I want to rip things apart. Then she blurts, words I’m not ready for tumbling out like she’s afraid if she stops to think, courage will evaporate.
‘I saw her.’
The room stills.
Conti freezes mid-pack. I stop breathing. ‘Who… who did you see?’
Her eyes go glassy, fixed on something I can’t see. ‘A woman. Her name flashed… Isabella,’ she whispers. ‘Your mother?’
The sound of the name slams through me like a fist. I nod.
‘She was alive,’ Giada says. Her hands clench, unclench.
‘She was standing in the church. She turned… she looked at me as if she recognised me. She was frightened. And there was shouting. Men. Guns. The lilies, she was holding them. I smelled the lilies, and I heard the choir singing – oh God—’ Her breath spikes.
‘And then there was sound,’ she finishes, voice gone thin. ‘Terrible, horrible sounds.’
The air leaves my lungs in a slow, savage exhale.
Conti’s eyes are on me, but he keeps his mouth shut. Good man.
Giada looks at me – really looks – like she’s standing at the edge of a cliff.
‘Renzo,’ she says quietly. Then louder, rougher, as if she hates the tremble in her own voice. ‘Why can’t I remember what happened next? Did I kill your mother?’
The world tilts.
I reach for her before I can think better of it, thumb stroking at her temple, because she’s shaking again and I won’t watch her break. ‘Only you can tell me, baby.’
Her face tightens with frustrated tears. ‘That’s not an answer.’
‘It’s the only honest one I’ve got.’ I keep my voice low, controlled even as my chest feels like a live animal trying to claw its way out.
‘I wasn’t there. I arrived after it happened and I’ve hunted the truth for years.
I know who orchestrated it. I know you were there. But I don’t know what you did.’
Her mouth parts. Her gaze darts, wild.
It’s like she wants me to hand her a verdict because carrying the unknown makes her feel monstrous.
But I can’t.
Not when the truth is still wrapped around her throat like a noose.
Conti straightens, sensing the damage and his own uselessness in this part of it. ‘I’ll give you both a moment,’ he says carefully. ‘But she needs rest. No pushing. No forcing.’
I look up. ‘First thing tomorrow. You come back. We talk about what she can handle.’
He nods once, wary of my tone. ‘Yes, Signore.’
As he moves towards the hall, Giada’s voice knifes after him. ‘Don’t go,’ she says sharply. ‘Please.’
Conti pauses, a glance flicking to me for permission like I’m her jailer.
I don’t like it. ‘No,’ I say to him. ‘Go. We’re done for now.’
With a tight nod, the doctor leaves. And Giada turns to me, furious. ‘You don’t get to dismiss people like you own the air.’
‘I do when they’re in my house.’
‘I’m not your property.’
‘Could’ve fooled me last night.’
Her breath catches. Her whole body goes rigid.
I see it then, the war inside her. Faith and flesh. Fear and need. The terrifying pull of memory she can’t grasp and desire she can’t deny.
She stands, suddenly restless, pacing like a caged thing.
‘Stop,’ I say, because I can feel her spiralling. ‘Sit down.’
‘No.’
‘Giada.’
She whirls. ‘How can you be calm right now? How can you just sit there and let me drown in questions? You know more than you’re saying.’
‘I’m calm because if I lose my head, you lose yours too.’
‘That doesn’t make me feel better.’
‘It should.’
She shakes her head violently. ‘This is my mind. My life. My faith.’ Her voice cracks. ‘I don’t even know if I’m a monster, Renzo. A monster hiding in a convent under a habit.’
My jaw flexes.
‘You don’t get to say that about yourself. Not in my house. Not in my arms. Not after I’ve spent years bleeding on the idea of you. So come here,’ I order, low. ‘Now, angel.’
She doesn’t. Hell, I don’t think she even heard me.
So my voice drops into something darker, something that always makes men move and women go still with a shiver.
‘Giada, I said sit the fuck down and rest,’ I say quietly, ‘or I take you upstairs and fuck you into a coma. Your choice.’
Silence snaps through the room like a whip.
Giada freezes. Her eyes go huge.
Then her mouth opens on a protest – holy outrage, furious refusal—
Except the way her throat works, the way her breath catches, the way her knees soften a fraction… betrays her.
She stalks towards me in three sharp steps and slams her palms into my chest. ‘Stop. Ordering. Me. Around.’
I blink, then laugh once, rough and disbelieving. ‘Upstairs it is,’ I breathe.
Her fingers climb up my nape and spike into my hair. Then she pulls. Hard.
‘Madonna,’ I murmur. ‘You’re going to be the death of me.’
Her chin lifts again, defiant to the last. ‘Then die.’ She trembles with rage and something far, far more dangerous.
‘Gladly.’
I sweep her up with my good arm before she can change her mind, before guilt can climb her spine and strangle her courage.
She makes a startled sound, gripping my shoulders.
I keep my hold firm, my mouth at her ear as I carry her towards the stairs.
‘You don’t get to run from me,’ I tell her softly. ‘Not when you’re breaking apart. Not when I’m right here holding you together.’
She swallows, eyes stinging bright. ‘Renzo…’
‘Shh.’ I kiss her temple. ‘Let me.’
Her breath shudders. Her hands tighten in my shirt.
And when I push open the bedroom door, I already know this isn’t just about sex.
It’s about drowning out the ghosts for a few hours.
It’s about choosing each other in the middle of ruin. Keeping her steady until the world comes crashing through our gates.
‘Tell me what you need,’ I murmur against her mouth.
Her eyes stay on mine. Raw. Brave. Shaking.
‘You,’ she whispers.
And that single word is enough to make me lose every last shred of restraint I’m pretending to have.