Chapter 30
Damiano
“You two are awfully quiet.”
None of them even looks at me. Lucian stares at the waiter who is setting three fresh glasses of whiskey on the table while Andreas pretends he didn’t hear me.
“Usually, you’re the one complaining about me being so loud,” I add.
Nothing.
We are seated in one of Andreas’s clubs, a massive subterranean asylum of dark stone and neon lights. The thump of bass reverberates through the floor beneath my boots, pulsing up my legs. The air is heavy with the humid scents of sweat and cologne, blending with cigarette smoke.
After helping Lorenzo with his shipments this morning, I was already late.
I told Katarina I would be home before dinner, but Andreas’s call pulled me here instead.
I am on my third glass of whiskey, the alcohol doing nothing except sharpening my nerves.
I can’t help but think about the woman waiting for me at home.
Across me, Andreas and Lucian sit like mutes. They have been acting strangely since I arrived. Andreas fingers tap a restless beat against the arm of his leather chair.
You could hear my patience snap as I take a swig of whiskey, then slam my glass on the table. Andreas inhales sharply before picking up his glass and swirling the clear liquid.
“Just fucking tell me already,” I say. It’s clear they’re holding some bad news they’re hesitant to deliver.
“Fine,” Andreas sighs. “La to’ principessa. Turns out, she’s an actual princess.”
When I don’t respond, he pulls out an envelope from his jacket and places it on the table. I frown, the glass of whiskey pausing halfway to my lips.
“Get to the point.”
Andreas rubs his jaw and looks away before shaking his head.
“Castiglione,” he deadpans.
The air leaves my lungs as the name echoes in my ears.
Princess? Castiglione?
I feel the blood drain from my face, my stomach tying in knots as my brain short-circuits.
“What the fuck are you saying?” I ask, my voice laden with violent warning.
“Castiglione’s heir,” Lucian murmurs this time, finally meeting my eyes with zero shenanigans.
I freeze.
“There were two of them. A boy and a younger girl.” Andreas starts to explain, and the room begins to tilt.
“You’re mistaken,” I hiss, slamming my glass down on the table once again.
My heart is pounding in my chest so hard I can feel it in my ears.
“Those kids died with their mother during the ambush. Everyone knows that. I remember the chaos, the funeral, and I saw the small caskets. We were all there!”
Lucian exhales before shaking his head as if he’s having a hard time breathing, too.
“It seems the Don didn’t know either...” Andreas counters, leaning in, resting his elbows on top of his knees.
“A maid was able to get them to safety and brought them to Argentina. Eventually, she brought them up as her adopted kids, hiding them away from the Mafia. Whoever targeted the family that day had the Don bury the bodies of kids that weren’t his. ”
“Impossìbbili,” I bite out the word, waiting for them to start laughing, to tell me this is a sick joke.
But Andreas is not one to joke about his intel. He slowly shakes his head, jaw clenched.
Lucian leans in, “Think about it, Dami. Her eyes. The way she carries herself. We all saw them years ago. Remember that party in Marbella—the last one before the Castigliones were hit? The kid always playing with Enzo? That boy was Mateo. And that girl... You used to follow her everywhere and tell us that you would make her your wife one day.”
It hits me before I can brace for it.
The sun-filled garden. The smell of newly cut grass and chlorine from the nearby pool.
Enzo and another boy were playing soccer on the lawn.
And behind him, a tiny girl in a white dress follows them, dark waves bouncing as she runs after her brother across the grass.
I remember staring at her. I remember not being able to stop.
And I remember smiling at her and her rolling her eyes at me.
I had forgotten her entirely.
But the moment I saw her again in Argentina, something in me ignited. I thought it was just lust. The way she looked familiar and mysterious at the same time. I didn’t know it was a memory.
“Katarina and Mateo are not their real names,” Lucian says, putting a hand on my shoulder.
God, I’m a fool.
A blind, desperate fucking fool.
“And Guidicelli?” I try to steady my hands as I take in the photo of the little girl who looks like a small version of the woman waiting for me at home. “What does he want?”
“Either a one-up on the old man or a merger,” Andreas says.
“Think about the politics. Everyone thought the nephew, Flavio, would take over. But there were two heirs in the dark. The brother is gone, so now it’s just Katarina.
And being a woman, she isn’t expected to run the business.
She’s meant to be traded, married off. Guidicelli wants to be the one holding the leash when the old man dies. ”
“It’s all about power—none of the families want to see the Castiglione bloodline continue unless it benefits them. If Nicolo claims Katarina, he controls their empire.” Lucian adds, his words falling on deaf ears, as all I can fathom is one thing.
I’ve been sleeping with a Castiglione. No, I fell in love with one.
I stand up so quickly that the table flips and the glass shatters, but I barely hear it. I walk out, aimlessly as if in autopilot. The bass of the club thumping in my chest like a funeral march.
She is not supposed to be part of this world.
She is my only light.
No, she cannot be the daughter of the man who killed my mother.
I drive back to the villa at a terrifying speed, not really knowing why I’m in a hurry, chugging a bottle of whiskey I grabbed from Andrea’s bar. By the time I reach the villa, the sky has turned angry. Rain starts as a fine mist, then turns into a downpour.
When I left the club, I thought what I wanted was to see her. Hold her. So she can tell me they’re lying.
Now I’m glued to the driver’s seat of my car, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles are white.
When I finally stumble out of the car, I find myself in the private cemetery past the gardens, drunk and clothes soaked from the rain. I collapse in the mud in front of my mother’s grave, my forehead pressed against the cold headstone.
“Sono così crudeli, mamma?”
I sob for the first time. Since the day I lost the woman buried in front of me.
“I fell in love with her.” My voice breaks, alternating between defeated laughter and desperate sobs.
“I fell in love with his daughter, Mamma. I let her in. I let her into your house.”
The grief burns, twisting in my gut, moving from something broken into something ugly. Something raw and uncontrollable.
Rage.
I stand up, swaying, and the bottle slips from my hand and shatters against the stone angel at the base of her grave.
“Damiano!” Lorenzo yells.
I turn to see him standing behind me. My eyes are blurry with tears, struggling to focus on him. He stands there getting soaked in the rain like me.
His eyes tell me he already knows.
“I heard,” he says, looking at me with the same pity he had during those years I punished myself after our mother died.
“I’ve been protecting her!” I scream into the storm, my voice cracking. “I’ve been holding her while she has his blood in her veins! I betrayed Mamma, Enzo. I let that Castiglione into our house!”
“She didn’t know,” Lorenzo says calmly, moving closer. “She’s a victim in this, too.”
“Does it matter?” I snap, the alcohol and the betrayal clouding my mind.
“You said it yourself, you love her.” He says, taking a step towards me. His words do nothing but put salt in the gaping wound in my back.
I laugh like a maniac.
“She is the perfect revenge, Enzo.” I sneer, my head spinning before I stumble on my right foot.
The words taste sour as soon as they leave my mouth. My heart lurches, torn in half.
I want to punish her, to make her hurt the way I am hurting. I see her face in my head, the way she laughs, the way she looks at me as if I am still worth loving. Something vicious claws at my chest. My knuckles throb, aching for violence.
“You’re not thinking straight.” Enzo reaches for my shoulder, and I shove him away.
I walk toward the villa, my boots coated with mud. I’m not crying anymore, but shaking with a drunken rage.
“Damiano!” Lorenzo calls out, his arm grabs and turns me around, the motion strong and fast, I almost fall to the ground, but Gio catches me.
“I’m going to make her look at me while I tell her what her father did. I’m going to make her see the monster she belongs to.”
“You will do no such thing,” Lorenzo warns.
“I should punish her! It’s only fair, isn’t it? An eye for an eye! She’s my fucking vengeance!” I shout, my eyes jumping everywhere and nowhere.
I slam through the side door, trailing water across the marble as I head for the stairs. Before I get to take the first step, a hand clamps onto my shoulder and spins me around. Lorenzo slams me back against the wall. His eyes dark and dangerous.
“Enough!” he snaps. “You’re drunk, and you’re talking like a madman.”
“Lassami stari!” I shout.
Lorenzo pushes his forearm on my throat, pinning me against the wall.
“Listen to me very carefully. You’re hurt, and you’re drunk, but if you lay a single finger on that woman—if you try to punish her for the sins of a father she doesn’t even remember—I will shoot you myself.
Do you understand? I will take you down myself before I let you become the monster you’re pretending to be right now. We don’t fucking hurt women!”
I stare at him, my chest pounding, the alcohol making me dizzy.
“Take him to his room!” Lorenzo commands, and Alessio and Gio pull me from the wall, dragging me to the only spare room available. My mother’s old room.
I let out a rattling breath, my head dropping.
The anger is still simmering, but the strength has left my legs.
When they drop me on the floor, I black out.