16 - Gianni
I can see Harper struggling against the bindings on the live camera feed in the van. Her breath ragged behind the gag. The dim flickering streetlight illuminates her for a second before the feed gets darker again and lights up at the next lamppost.
She’s still hours away from me but I can wait.
I can wait for my revenge.
I lean against the rusted table in one of my safe houses here in Rome, rolling the gold band between my fingers.
Fourteen years.
Fourteen years of devotion. Of waiting. Of watching Alessia build a life that never should have been hers to begin with.
I smile, slow and measured, as I pocket the ring.
I needed to get Alessia’s attention, and nothing gets her attention quite like getting something, someone, that means a lot to her.
My fingers trace the ring in my pocket, my mind drifting back to that night fourteen years ago. Seventeen-year-old Alessia, sit ting on her knees before me, unaware that the universe had already decided her fate. That I had decided it for her.
I have left her gifts every year since. Trinkets, delicate things meant to remind her of what we shared, of who she belonged to.
A locket.
A single red rose.
A silk rope.
Each carefully placed where she would find them, each are a whisper of the promise I made to myself that night.
She was always meant to be mine .
Yet, every year, she ignored them. Tossed them aside like they meant nothing. Like I meant nothing.
My jaw clenched. That will change. Tonight, will mark a new beginning.
I stand up straight, exhaling slowly, controlling the swell of emotion rising in my chest. She doesn’t belong in her life. Alessia has spent far too long surrounded by people who cloud her judgment. I’m here to fix that. To give her what she truly needs.
I pull my phone from my pocket, scrolling through the pictures. I stop on one of Alessia, taken just days ago, and let my fingers brush over the screen as if touching her face.
“I’ve been patient,” I murmur to the screen. “But patience has its limits.”
It’s time. Time for Alessia to finally understand the depth of my devotion. Time for her to come home.
To me.