Chapter 30
LILIANA
The darkness here is a living thing.
It presses against me in the damp, thick air, curling into every breath until I cannot tell if I am breathing at all.
The walls drip, slow rivulets of cold water running down stone that has seen too many things.
The ground is uneven under me, gritty and wet, the smell of rust and something fouler hanging heavy.
My body aches from sitting against the wall for so long, my knees pulled to my chest for warmth. It doesn’t help. The rope around my wrists rubs the skin raw. My back aches from the cold wall I’m pressed against. The cold here seeps into bone. But it is not the cold that makes me tremble.
I try to mark the moments between drips, to count something, anything, that will anchor me, but the rhythm slips every time.
My thoughts always return to my babies. The small lives inside me, fragile and precious, too defenseless for a world like this.
I press a hand low to my stomach, the gesture instinctive, protective.
I sign to them in the dark, slow, deliberate motions against my thigh. Stay strong. Your father will come.
I think of Giovanni, too. His face when he looked at me last. The distance in his eyes.
The way he turned away. I tell myself he will come for me, that nothing would stop him, but the thought feels thinner now, stretched and fraying.
How do I know he is not relieved to be free of me?
How do I know this is not easier for him?
I was a fool to come here. To walk into whatever trap Vittorio had set, thinking I could take something from him and hand it to Giovanni like proof of my loyalty. Now all I have done is put myself exactly where Vittorio wanted me.
The sound comes suddenly, the echo of footsteps on stone, growing louder, heavier. I lift my head, blinking into the dim light spilling from the corridor beyond the bars. The sound of a key turns the air heavy.
The door groans open, and my heart pounds as light spills in, blinding after so long in the dark.
Vittorio steps through, his suit immaculate, his smile a cruel curve that chills me more than the stone. But it’s the man behind him who stops my breath—my father, Renato, his face gaunt, his eyes hard with a purpose I don’t recognize.
Shock crashes through me, a wave that leaves me reeling. I push myself upright, my hands trembling as I sign without thinking. Papa? What are you doing here?
He watches me for a moment, then his mouth twists into that familiar, cruel smirk. He raises his hands, mimicking my signing with exaggerated, mocking movements, as if my words are a joke meant for his amusement. He’s always done this. He knows how it cuts.
Vittorio laughs, low and mocking, as he leans against the wall, his gaze raking over me. “Your father’s been quite helpful,” he says, his voice smooth, venomous. “The family reunion will indeed be touching.”
He steps closer, his shadow swallowing the dim light.
Vittorio Greco is tall, broad in the shoulders, his tailored suit cut from charcoal wool that looks wrong in this place.
His dark hair is combed back with precision, his jaw sharp, clean-shaven.
His eyes are what hold me—black, fathomless, with that glint of cruelty that never leaves.
I've always loathed him. But now, in his presence, it's not hatred that pulses beneath my skin. It's fear for myself, and my unborn babies. Fear for Giovanni.
“You know,” he says, tilting his head as if lost in thought, “your father once promised you to me six years ago to seal our friendship and pact to rule the underworld together. I thought it might be... interesting.” He allows his gaze to linger on me, slow and deliberate, before snapping back to my face.
“But I couldn’t take him up on it. You’re an invalid. Broken. And not worth the trouble.”
The words slice deep, but he isn’t finished.
He smiles faintly, without warmth. “Just because I don’t want you doesn’t mean anyone else should have you.
Giovanni, in his smug little way, thought he could take what was mine.
Thought he could have you and win.” His tone turns to ice.
“I don’t like men touching what’s mine, whether I keep it or not. ”
I turn to my father, desperate for something, anything. You’re going to stand there and watch him hurt me like this?
His face doesn’t soften. If anything, it hardens further.
“I don’t care if you die here,” he says, his voice flat, unfeeling.
“What use are you to me? You’ve been nothing but a burden from the day you were born.
Your mother died because of you. Did you think I would forget that?
Because of your… deformity, it was mandatory that she gives me a perfect child, even after the doctor said another pregnancy would be risky. And it killed her. You killed her.”
The air feels too thin around me. My throat tightens, my vision blurring at the edges. He has said this before. Many times. But here, in this place, it feels final.
It’s not my fault that my mother died. My unfortunate plight was never my fault, I sign, my hands shaking. You forced her to get pregnant again; her death is your fault, not mine.
His lip curls. “You’re a jinx. You walk into people’s lives and ruin them. Just like you’re about to ruin Giovanni’s. He doesn’t see it yet, but he will.”
The floor feels unsteady beneath me. I want to deny it, scream that he is wrong, but the words lodge somewhere deep, tangled with the old wounds he carved long before this day.
Vittorio steps closer, crouching so we are face to face. His cologne is sharp, expensive, and out of place amid the damp rot of the dungeon. “This can end quickly, Liliana,” he says softly. “Tell me about Giovanni. Tell me about his operations, his current routes. Tell me where he’s vulnerable.”
“We want the same thing we have been after for the past six years,” Vittorio says. “Giovanni’s empire. His routes. His contacts. You can give them to us.”
I shake my head. I know nothing that would help you.
My father, or the man who embodies the character, crouches in front of me. And in this moment, he becomes nothing but Renato to me. “You know enough. Where his shipments go. Who his major suppliers are. His current money laundering routes. You tell us, and you walk out of here.”
My signs are slow now, unhurried. You’re asking me to betray my husband.
“I’m asking you to survive,” he replies.
Vittorio moves closer, his shadow falling over me. “Your husband will not come if he believes you’ve already given me what I want. So, you may as well spill the details.”
I meet his gaze and sign with deliberate movements. He will come.
The faint curl of his mouth says he doesn’t believe me. “Last chance. Names. Routes. Schedules.”
I don’t move. I stare at him, my lips pressed together.
He tilts his head. “Or… it can end slowly.”
When I still do not move, he straightens, glancing to my father. “You see? Stubborn.”
“She gets it from her mother,” Renato says with a shrug. “Break her of it.”
Vittorio's jaw tightens. He nods to a man I hadn’t seen in the corner until now.
The first slap catches me on aware. A sharp, searing pain spreads across my jaw, and I taste blood. My head jerks to the side, and my cheek burns. I blink, trying to focus, but they don't give me any time.
Renato watches, arms folded.
Another strike, lower this time. My vision swims, but I hold on to one thought—Giovanni’s face.
Vittorio crouches so we are eye-level. “This can stop, Liliana. One word from you.”
I turn my head away and keep my hands still.
The next blow brings white light behind my eyes. My breath comes ragged, each inhale edged with fire. My body trembles, but my resolve stays intact.
Renato leans in, his voice low. “Giovanni will not die for you. Why would you allow yourself be killed for his sake?”
It takes effort, but I raise my hands. The signs are slow, and shaky. He would.
Something flickers in his eyes. It's not guilt, just irritation.
He straightens and nods for them to drag me away.
The pain becomes a dull throb, merging with the dripping water in the corner.
I hold my mind on the image of Giovanni walking through the door, his voice cutting through this place, and soothing me.
They do not stop.
As they drag me away, my shoulder screams, my ribs ache, my vision flickers between light and shadow. Renato watches from the corner, his face unreadable, as if this is nothing more than a tiresome chore.
I tell myself I will not give them what they want. That I will not let them have a single piece of Giovanni. My resolve tightens, as the memory of my father’s voice cuts through, telling me I am nothing, that I ruin everything I touch.
Somewhere in the middle of it, my will frays.
Not in the way they want. I still hold my silence, but it's in the quiet space inside me where hope lives. Because what if Giovanni doesn’t come?
What if he looks at the empty space where I was and feels only relief?
I shake my head to dislodge years of negative words that have been planted in there.
And instead, try to hold onto the image of him coming through the door, his arms around me, his words reassuring me.
I am not sure when the pain stops. The silence after is almost worse, a hollow ringing in my ears.
I lie where I have fallen, my cheek against the cold stone, the taste of copper in my mouth.
Renato says something low to Vittorio, and their footsteps retreat together, the door scraping shut behind them.
Darkness folds in again.
I do not move. I do not try to sit. The cold soaks into me until I cannot tell where I end and the stone begins. My hand drifts to my stomach, but the comfort I try to take in that touch feels dim now, dulled by the words that keep replaying in my head.
Jinx. Burden. Worthless.
I close my eyes. I tell myself Giovanni will come, but even in my own mind, the voice sounds faint.
Why should he risk it all for me?