Chapter 13 Luca
LUCA
Imake it three steps down the hallway before my legs stop working.
I grab onto the wall to stay upright, trying to remember how to breathe. The music from the club pounds through the walls—bass that matches my heartbeat, voices that sound like they're coming from underwater.
Giulia. It was Giulia.
The thought keeps circling, refusing to become real. If it's real, then everything else—every moment, every touch, every word—becomes something else entirely.
I see her face in my mind. Not the face I just saw—tear-streaked and desperate and achingly familiar, but Valentina's face. The woman I met that first night. Auburn wig, heavy makeup, a confident smile. Except it wasn't Valentina.
It was never Valentina.
It was Giulia wearing a disguise, pretending to be someone else and lying to me with every breath, every kiss, every time she let me inside her body. My stomach lurches, and I have to close my eyes against the wave of nausea.
The first night. That first night, when I thought—God, I thought she was exactly what I needed. Someone anonymous. Someone safe. Someone who wasn't Giulia fucking Ciresa. But she was.
She was Giulia the entire time.
I remember the way she hesitated when I asked her name. The slight pause before she said "Valentina." I thought it was nerves. Thought she was shy, uncertain, maybe a little scared of what we were about to do. But it wasn't nerves. She was choosing which lie to tell me.
And I took her virginity. Fuck. All the things I thought were just hesitation and nervousness were her not knowing what to really do. That first time…
It was her first time.
My hands are shaking. I press them flat against the wall, trying to ground myself, trying to stop the trembling that's spreading through my entire body. Every conversation replays in my head, recontextualizing into brutal clarity.
"Tell me something real. Something true about you."
She'd told me about feeling trapped. I thought she was being vulnerable, that she was letting me see past the mask, but it was Giulia's truth, not Valentina's. She was describing her own life, her own prison, her own desperate need for escape. And I was too fucking blind to see it.
"There's never been anyone else. Only you.
" I remember how those words made me feel—possessive, protective, like I'd found something precious that belonged only to me. But that was a lie, too. I know Giulia hasn’t been with anyone but me, but there has been someone else this whole time. She was using me to… to what? Make sure Alessandro wasn’t her first?
Get back at him and her father for forcing her into marriage? She used me, and I…
My chest constricts, making it hard to breathe. I wanted Giulia. I wanted her so badly it was destroying me from the inside out. And I had her.
I had her in almost every way possible, and I didn't even fucking know it.
I remember the way Valentina moved. The way she touched me. The sounds she made when I was inside her. The way she looked at me like I was everything she'd ever wanted. That was Giulia.
Giulia's hands on my skin. Giulia's body beneath mine. The woman I've been obsessed with for years was right there, and I was too stupid to recognize her.
My hands curl into fists. The shaking is getting worse. I can feel the rage building—hot and violent and absolutely consuming. She lied.
She lied to my face, let me confess things I never would have said if I'd known who she was, let me touch her in ways I never would have dared, let me fall for someone who didn't even exist.
Giulia, who knows exactly what I am—a soldier, a killer, a man who's sworn loyalty to her father. She knew all of that, and she still let me believe I was confessing to a stranger. The betrayal is so complete I can barely process it.
Every intimate moment we shared—every time I was vulnerable with her, every time I let my guard down—she was lying. She was playing a role. She was manipulating me into doing things I never would have done if I'd known the truth.
The hallway tilts, and I have to brace myself against the wall until the dizziness passes.
Romeo's sister. The words echo in my head like a death sentence.
I've been fucking Romeo's sister. The man who's closer to me than my own blood.
The man who trusts me with his life, with his family's safety, with protecting the people he loves most, and I've been betraying that trust.
I remember Romeo asking me if I was okay, noticing that something was off. And I'd lied to him. Told him I was fine when I was falling apart inside because I was falling for a woman I thought I could never have.
Except I did have her. I had her, and I didn't even know it, and now—
Now Romeo will have every right to kill me.
The thought should terrify me, should make me want to run, to disappear, to put as much distance between myself and the Ciresa family as possible.
But all I feel is rage. Because she did this.
She put me in this position. She made me complicit in a betrayal I never agreed to, never wanted, never would have chosen if I'd had any fucking say in the matter.
My hands are shaking so badly that I have to shove them in my pockets.
The violence I've been suppressing for months—the rage that's been building every time I watched her with Alessandro, every time I had to stand there and pretend I didn't care—it's all rising to the surface now, and I don't trust myself.
I try to think. Valentina was a fiction. A character Giulia created to manipulate me into giving her what she wanted. And what did she want?
The question stops me cold. What was the endgame here? What was she trying to accomplish by deceiving me for months? Did she think it was funny? Did she get some kind of thrill from watching me fall for her while knowing I had no idea who she really was? Or was it something else?
My feet are moving before I make the conscious decision, back down the hallway, and to the door. I reach for the handle.
I should leave. Should walk away and never look back; let her deal with the consequences of her deception on her own. But I can't.
There's something she said that's been echoing in my head since I walked out. "There's something else. Something you need to know."
What else could there possibly be? What other bomb could she drop that would make any of this worse?
I push the door open. She's on the floor, her back against the bed, and her arms wrapped around herself, her face buried in her knees. She looks up when I enter, and the hope that flashes across her face makes me want to break something.
"Luca—"
"Don't." The word comes out cold, but underneath is a fury that makes the air between us feel dangerous. "Don't say my name like that. Like you have any right to it."
She flinches. "Please. I can explain—"
"Explain what?" I close the door behind me, and the sound makes her jump. "Explain how you've been lying to me for months? Explain how you let me confess things I never would have said if I'd known who you were? Explain how you manipulated me into betraying everything I've sworn loyalty to?"
"It wasn't like that—"
"Then what was it like, Giulia?" I nearly spit out her name. "Tell me. Help me understand how any of this was anything other than a calculated deception."
She's crying again, tears streaming down her face and her whole body shaking. "I love you. I've loved you for years, and I didn't know how else—"
"You love me." The words are flat and empty. "You love me, so you decided to lie to me. To create a fake identity and seduce me and let me fall for someone who doesn't even exist."
"She does exist! I exist! Everything I told you was true—"
"Except your name. Except who you are. Except every single thing that actually matters."
I move closer, and she shrinks back against the bed.
Good. She should be afraid. Should understand exactly what she's done.
"Do you have any idea what you've made me complicit in?
" My voice gets louder, the control slipping.
"You're Romeo's sister. You're the don's daughter.
You're the woman I'm supposed to protect, not fuck. And you made me—you made me—"
"I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—"
"You didn't mean what? You didn't mean to lie? You didn't mean to manipulate me? You didn't mean to put me in a position where your brother will have every right to kill me when he finds out?"
"We can—"
"We can what?" I loom over her, and I can see the fear in her eyes, see her trying to make herself smaller, trying to disappear. "We can keep lying? We can keep pretending this never happened? We can just go back to how things were before?"
"No. I know we can't. But we can—"
"There is no 'we,' Giulia. There never was. Because the woman I fell for doesn't exist. She was just a character you played to get what you wanted."
"That's not true—"
"Then what is true?" I crouch down so we're eye level, and the movement makes her press harder against the bed. "Tell me. What part of any of this was real?"
"All of it. Every moment we shared, every word I said—it was all real. I just—I needed to be someone else. Someone who could have you."
"So you lied."
"Yes. I lied about my name. But everything else—"
"Everything else was built on that lie." My hands are shaking again.
I can feel the violence rising, can feel how close I am to losing control completely.
"Every time you touched me. Every time you let me inside you. It was all built on deception. Fuck, Giulia, I took your fucking virginity, and I didn’t even know it! "
She flinches back. "I love you." Her voice breaks on the words. "That's not a lie.”
"You don't get to say that to me,” I growl. "You don't get to tell me you love me after what you've done."
"Luca, please—"