Chapter 20
RENZO
My boots crunch glass as I drop in front of Giada when she folds.
She doesn’t fall so much as collapse inward. Her knees slam into the asphalt. Her hands claw at her head. The sound she makes doesn’t belong to this moment or this place.
‘Madre Superiora.’
The word tears through the silence left behind by gunfire.
Every Salvatore snaps inward, weapons rising in savage reflex to a possible new enemy.
Hell… no, not a new enemy.
A very old one, lying like a fucking viper in the grass, ready to sink its venom into the Salvatores.
Bodies shift as first my family, then the lieutenants and the capos form a hard perimeter without being told, backs out, eyes sweeping, muzzles steady.
Cesare barks orders low and fast. Dante’s already on comms. Rafa takes one step forward, then stops like it costs him blood to do it.
Sofiya is there too. Of course she is. She never stays where she’s put. She drops beside Giada without hesitation, one hand firm on her shoulder, grounding, protective. ‘It’s okay, sis. You’re okay.’
Giada is shaking with full-body tremors, sobs ripping out of her like something’s being torn loose. Her hair’s come free, sticking to her face, to her wet cheeks. Her fingers are white-knuckled in gravel.
I crouch in front of her, heart punching my ribs hard enough to hurt. My hands hover, useless, afraid to touch her wrong, afraid she’ll break if I do.
‘Giada,’ I say. My voice sounds wrecked even to me. ‘Tesoro. Look at me.’
She doesn’t. She rocks, breath dragging in broken pulls, whispering prayers. Names. Fragments.
I swallow and open my mouth again, panic threading through me sharp and mean.
Then she looks up.
Not at Sofiya. Not at the guns or the men or the bodies cooling behind us.
She looks straight at me.
Relief hits her face first as her eyes flood with fresh, clean tears. The kind that come with truth instead of terror. She reaches out, shaky fingers pressing against my mouth, stopping me cold. ‘I didn’t do it,’ she says.
Her hand is warm and steady and I swallow as she repeats it. ‘I didn’t kill your mother.’
The road goes dead silent. Not a breath or a scrape of a boot. Even the insects shut the fuck up.
She pushes herself straighter on her knees. Sofiya’s hand stays on her shoulder, anchoring her as she turns her gaze outward. She looks at my men now. At the faces carved by grief, loyalty, and years of violence done for blood and family.
She meets Rafa’s eyes. He’s gone still in a way I know too well. Like a man holding himself back from ripping the world open with his bare hands.
‘On my life,’ Giada says, voice rough but holding. ‘And on my honour. I did not kill Isabella Salvatore.’
Her breath catches and then her face changes.
Confusion cracks into disbelief. Disbelief hardens into rage.
‘It was—’ She stops. Swallows hard. Her voice shakes. ‘It was Madre Superiora.’
A low murmur ripples through the circle. Dangerous.
‘She fired the shot,’ Giada says, anger rising now, pushing the fear back.
‘She used me. They all did. They were behind it from the start. The Russians. Nonno. Her.’ Her hands curl into fists.
‘She shot your mother. And then she put the gun in my hands. Told me that if I told anyone… that she and El… Nonno.’ Her voice breaks wide open.
‘Oh God. She said they would kill me too.’
Sofiya tightens her grip. Leans closer. ‘You’re safe,’ she murmurs. ‘You’re free of it now. I promise.’
Rafa steps forward despite himself. His jaw is clenched so tight it looks like it might crack. ‘Everything,’ he snaps. ‘You tell us everything. Now.’
I’m on my feet before the word finishes leaving his mouth. ‘Enough.’
The growl cuts clean. Rafa freezes. His eyes snap to mine, blazing and haunted and agonised, then away. Sofiya shoots him a look that says ‘not now’ and ‘don’t you fucking dare’ all at once.
‘We’re still on an open road,’ Sofiya says coolly. ‘Bodies. Noise. Lights. Vittore isn’t done throwing shit at us yet. We need to move.’
She’s right. I know it. The men know it.
I don’t care.
I turn back to Giada and don’t hesitate again.
I scoop her up off the ground, one arm under her knees, the other locked around her back, pulling her tight against my chest. She gasps, startled, then melts into me, face pressed into my neck.
‘Mine,’ I mutter into her hair. ‘You’re mine. No one fucking touches you.’
No one challenges it. No one even looks surprised.
I carry her to the car myself, open the back door and slide in, hauling her onto my lap and cradling her as close as I dare without breaking her. She curls into me instinctively, her soft arms locking around my neck.
The engine roars and the convoy rolls.
I kiss her temple. Her cheek. Her hairline. Over and over. Grounding her. Grounding myself. ‘I knew,’ I tell her, mouth against her skin. ‘I fucking knew. I never believed it. Not for a second.’
Her breath stutters. She clutches my jacket.
‘My angel,’ I murmur. ‘My sweet fucking angel. What you’ve been through.’
She lifts her head, eyes red, searching my face like she needs to see it there too. I let her and I don’t hide a goddamn thing.
Floodlights cut through the dark ahead and I see steel and stone. Guns waiting and the safe house gates parting. I almost grimace at how close we were to home.
Just before we pass through, she shifts in my arms, her eyes still on me.
And I ask the question tearing a jagged path through me. ‘Giada,’ I say quietly. ‘What else do you remember?’
She doesn’t hesitate. ‘I remember everything.’
My heart slams hard enough to steal my breath. She cups my face, thumbs brushing my jaw, gaze steady now. Clear.
‘I remember you and me. I remember that I belong to you, Renzo,’ she says. ‘Only to you.’
* * *
Giada
The safe house seals behind us with a sound that feels final.
Steel and stone and power humming through the walls.
Inside, the Salvatore men station themselves around the room with a deathly stillness that would’ve terrified me if I didn’t remember that these are the kind who have learned to stand still through grief because if they don’t, they break things they can’t put back together.
And a sound escapes me when the deeper thought pervades.
I remember. I remember. Every single one of these men. Some I only saw from afar but one I know like the back of my hand.
I feel every eye on me.
Maddie reaches me first and wraps her arms around me and holds on like she’s afraid I’ll vanish if she loosens her grip. I clutch her back hard, my hands shaking. Her shoulder is warm. Real. She smells like home and fear and relief all mixed together.
‘You’re okay,’ she whispers, voice cracking. ‘Oh thank God, you’re okay. When Cesare said you were under attack—’ Her voice breaks.
I squeeze her tight and nod against her, breath hitching. ‘I’m here.’
Sofiya steps in close, hand firm between my shoulder blades. She leans towards Maddie, quiet, controlled.
‘She remembers,’ she says in her non-dramatic way. And yet it tightens the tension. Worse. Every man in here feels it settle into his bones.
Maddie’s head snaps up, eyes wide as the room changes. She glances at her husband, who nods. Then at Rafa, her blue eyes softening with sympathy but also questioning. Protective. A look that says she’ll go to war with her own husband’s family to protect me.
Just as she’s always done since I was little and she took beatings from our father and grandfather meant for me. Just as she did that day in the church when she snatched the gun from me and screamed at me. Run.
She saved me, even without knowing the full truth.
I hug her again just in gratitude for that moment of selflessness.
But the lethal restlessness intensifies and I know I can’t hold back any longer.
Renzo is a solid watchful pillar behind me, close enough that I can feel him without touching him. He looks like he’s holding himself together with will alone. His jaw is set so hard I can hear his teeth grind.
Dr Conti clears his throat from the edge of the room. ‘She should be examined,’ he says. ‘With the trauma and shock and the memory return like this—’
‘No.’ The word is out of my mouth before I think about it.
I lift my head, ignoring the throbbing at my temples, the terror in my heart from experiencing that horrible gunfight.
At the time it was so alien, so terrifying.
But now, I know it’s par for the course for the famigghia.
For the life I was born into. For the life running through my veins. So I shake my head again. ‘No doctors.’
Renzo turns to me sharply. ‘Giada—’
‘I need to say this first,’ I tell him. ‘Please.’
His eyes search mine, frantic and protective, furious at the world. He wants to pick me up. Lock me somewhere safe. I know it the same way I know my own heartbeat.
He exhales through his nose. ‘All right,’ he says, rough. ‘You say it.’
I step away from Maddie and move forward.
No one stops me. The men part without being told and I stand in the centre of the room, knees still weak, spine straight because it has to be.
Then I look at them. Every single one.
‘I know you’ve all been waiting years for this,’ I say. My voice doesn’t shake. I don’t know how. ‘And I’m sorry I couldn’t ease your pain earlier.’
Something moves through the room and I hold my breath a moment before I recognise it. Recognition. Acceptance of my acknowledging their pain. There’s lingering resentment too but I can’t deal with that for the moment.
Renzo speaks before I can spiral. ‘It wasn’t your fault, ragazza,’ he says, jaw tight. ‘Don’t take the blame for it.’
I look at him. Nod once.
Then I start.