Chapter 13
Rodrigo stood outside Giana's door, his knuckles throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He had washed the blood off and hastily wrapped a bandage around them. The pain was a grounding counterpoint to the chaos churning inside him.
He wouldn't blame Giana if she didn't answer the door. Not after the anger that had consumed him at the sight of that gilded fucking birdcage.
The press of her touch on his chest burned hotter than the raw skin on his hurt hand. All the rage bled out until all he could see was her, and he could think straight again.
Rodrigo raised his left hand, the uninjured one, and knocked again. He forced his breathing to even out, wrestling the feral beast inside him back into its cage.
She needs calm, you asshole. Not the monster Gabriella made.
"Giana," he said as softly as he could. Please answer.
She opened the door, looking rumpled and tired. He wanted to wrap her in a blanket and never let anyone near her again. Her hair was a messy dark halo around her face, her bangs askew. Beautiful.
Her gaze met his, wary, questioning, stripped of the easy hatred that had always been in them. That absence left Rodrigo feeling exposed, but she had always been able to do that to him. She could cut him open with a single glance.
"Rodrigo." Her voice was quiet, husky with exhaustion and lingering pain.
"Giana." His own voice sounded rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat. "May I come in?"
Hesitation crossed her face, quickly masked as she stepped back and opened the door wider. "Sure. It's your house."
He ignored the barb, stepping past her and trying not to inhale the jasmine perfume she favored.
He kept his distance, moving toward the center of the spacious room, his back to the ornate bed. He turned to face her as she closed the door and watched him with those unnervingly perceptive eyes.
"Are you all right?" he asked, the question feeling inadequate. He gestured vaguely at her bandaged hand, her ribs. "The pain?"
"Manageable," she said, her tone clipped.
She pushed off the door, walking slowly to the writing desk where the sleek laptop Leo had given her sat glowing softly.
She didn't sit, just rested her good hand on the back of the chair.
"Doctor Rossi gave me something. I'm not dancing a jig, but I'm upright. What do you need?"
"Leo picked up something. A small hack. Someone's poking around the edges of our surveillance feeds."
Her posture stiffened, the hacker in her instantly alert. "How deep? What did they access?"
"Surface level only, so far, and just perimeter cameras and some of the older, less critical internal ones. Leo caught it quickly." He saw the calculations flickering behind her eyes, the strategic mind clicking into gear. "He's tracing it, but it's slow. Whoever it is, they're good."
"Then we kick them out," she stated, her fingers tightening on the chair back. "Lock it down, reroute everything through hardened channels Leo and Iz can set up. Fortify the digital walls."
"Leo and Dante have a better idea." Rodrigo allowed himself a small, grim smile. "Leo thinks kicking them out might be premature. It tells them we know they are there and makes us look scared."
Giana frowned. "So?"
"So," Rodrigo said, taking a step closer, drawn in despite himself. "He suggests we manipulate what they see. Feed them a narrative to make them overconfident and clumsy with their plans to attack us."
Her eyes narrowed. "What kind of narrative?"
"A celebration." He held her gaze. "We throw an engagement party.
Close family and trusted allies only like Altun, Julian, and the rest of Kon's inner circle.
We make it look real. As if Vincenzo's little gift didn't rattle us and we're oblivious, distracted by love and champagne.
We let them watch us play happy couple, preparing for a wedding, not a war. "
Understanding dawned in Giana's eyes, followed swiftly by skepticism. "A performance."
"A necessary one," Rodrigo countered. "If they believe we're focused on celebrating, they will underestimate our readiness. They will make their move on our terms, on our ground."
Giana was silent for a long moment, studying him. He could almost see the pros and cons being weighed in her mind.
"It could work," she said slowly and gnawed on her bottom lip. "It relies on them taking the bait and believing the act, so it will need to be convincing."
"Exactly." He paused, choosing his next words with care. "It requires both of us to play our parts and sell the intimacy and commitment."
He saw her hesitation and met her wary gaze directly. "I won't force you into this, Giana. Not the performance or the proximity. If you're not comfortable with it, we find another way. Leo can lock the feeds down tonight."
Giana looked up at him, her expression careful and considering. "Why tell me? Why ask? You could have just ordered it and pretended it was a strategy. Gabriella would have kept me in the dark."
The mention of his mother was like a cold splash of water in Rodrigo's face.
"Because we are partners," he said, the words still feeling foreign on his tongue. He hesitated as the truth clawed its way up. "Because this affects you as much as it affects me, and I need you to trust me. That starts with me trusting you with the truth and the choice to say no."
Giana didn't look away from him as she considered his words. The anger was still there, but it had lost some of its edge.
"All right," she said finally. "I'll play the blushing fiancée at your party, Rodrigo."
Relief, sharp and unexpected, flooded him. "Giana—"
She held up her good hand, stopping him. "On one condition."
"Name it."
"You answer my questions." Her gaze locked onto his, unflinching. "No more half-truths. No more cryptic bullshit."
He knew it was a trap, and still he nodded, "Okay. What do you want to know?"
"Why, Rodrigo? Why give me the laptop? Why help me undermine Gabriella? Why come for me in Izmir?"
Giana took a step toward him, her eyes searching his face. "You said then that you saw me as a queen in chains. Fine. But why risk everything else?"
Rodrigo knew this moment would come. He dreaded and needed it. He couldn't lie to her anymore.
"Because you weren't the only one Gabriella tried to control and crush," he began, his voice low with the effort of dragging the memories into the light. He moved past her, needing space, pacing toward the large window overlooking the moonlit gardens. The familiar vista offered no comfort now.
"After my father was killed by yours…" He forced the words out, feeling Giana's tension behind him.
"We were all mad with grief. Dario. Leo.
Me. Gabriella, most of all. None of us were thinking straight.
If we had been, we wouldn't have followed Gabriella's plan to annihilate your family. It was pure, vengeful madness."
Rodrigo heard her sharp intake of breath but didn't turn. He couldn't look at her and say everything he needed to.
"Gabriella wanted you dead too. That night, she saw you only as Sorrentino's spawn.
I convinced her you were worth more alive.
Good leverage. A future bride to bind the remnants of your family's influence to ours.
" The justification tasted like ash. "It was pragmatic and cold, but it was the only thing I could do to keep you breathing. "
Rodrigo finally turned, leaning back against the windowpane. Giana's face was pale but composed, her eyes huge and dark in the lamplight.
"I saw that it had all gone too far," he continued, the words coming easier now. "All my brothers did. But it was too late, and the blood was already spilled. Leo… Leo defied her outright. Refused to be the one to pull the trigger on everyone. He couldn't do it."
Rodrigo's voice hardened. "So Gabriella had someone else finish the job, and she punished Leo by forcing the engagement with you.
Tying him to the girl whose family he failed to kill was meant to be a constant reminder of his weakness and her power.
He tried to leave us, and Gabriella shot him.
He couldn't bear to be trapped in the middle of it all.
He lived and got out, and I convinced my mother to leave him be and that he would return to the fold when he cooled down. "
Rodrigo blew out a breath, but it didn't loosen the tight pain in his chest. "Leo was gone, and you were still trapped for four more years under Gabriella's control.
You didn't deserve any of it. None of it was your fault.
You were barely twenty, a young woman who should have been able to enjoy university, not be caught in a war started by grieving, furious adults who lost their minds. "
He pushed off the window, taking a step toward her.
"I wanted you to be free of us. Truly free.
Not just escape, but be strong in a way that didn't make you look like easy prey to every other jackal out there.
So I gave you the tools and showed you the cracks in Gabriella's armor.
I wanted you to take her money and make your escape look like a victory and a calculated strike against her.
I wanted the other mafia families to see Giana Sorrentino wasn't just a broken pawn, but a queen who'd clawed her way out of her chains. "
Rodrigo stopped a few feet from her, the confession hanging raw between them.
"Gabriella died before you could land the final blow, and I let you go because you asked me to. I thought freedom was what you wanted above all else and that you had earned it."
He looked down at her bandaged hand, and guilt stabbed at him.
"But I wasn't thinking straight. If I had been, I would have let the world know you'd stolen from us and outmaneuvered the Colleoni matriarch.
I would have let you take the money publicly, so everyone would have known you weren't weak or unprotected, but a formidable force in your own right. "
Rodrigo's voice dropped to a harsh whisper, thick with self-loathing. "I was distracted by letting you go. I failed you. If I'd done it right, made you look powerful, Vincenzo would never have dared to try and kidnap you." He swallowed hard, the image of her broken in the crate searing his mind.
"That's on me, Giana. I'm responsible for all of it, and I will never be able to make it right for you."
The silence that followed was heavy with guilt, grief, and a tangled web of blame and regret spanning years.
Rodrigo braced himself for her anger and revulsion, the final shattering of whatever fragile connection had begun to form.
Giana moved slowly and stopped right in front of him, so close he could see the lighter flecks of brown in her dark eyes and the faint tremor in her lower lip.
Her warm fingers closed gently around his wrist. Then, slowly, she slid her hand down, her palm meeting his before her fingers laced tentatively through his, sending a jolt straight through him.
"My family started this," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Her eyes held his, not with accusation, but with a terrible, shared understanding.
"Your father died because of mine. My family died because your mother went mad with grief.
We are both caught in the wreckage of our parents' mistakes, Rodrigo.
Trapped by their choices, their vengeance. "
Giana's grip tightened slightly on his hand. "I want to try and make this right. To build something out of the ashes that isn't just more cages and blood debts, but we have to try to move on from the past and step out of their shadows together if we're going to survive. If we're going to live."
Rodrigo stared at her, stunned. He had expected fury or rejection, not a fragile bridge across the chasm of their shared history.
He saw the vulnerability in her eyes that mirrored his own.
The carefully constructed walls around his own heart were crumbling.
The feral possessiveness was still there, the instinctive drive to shield her from every threat, but it was overlaid now with something deeper and more terrifying.
His thumb moved in a slow stroke across the back of her hand where it lay in his. "I can't handle the thought of anyone hurting you again. Seeing you in that cage… knowing what they did…" He broke off, the image threatening to choke him.
He let her see his fear, the helpless rage, the depth of his terror for her. No mask. No cold control. Just Rodrigo, laid bare by the woman whose hand he held.
Giana's lips curved into a small, tremulous smile. It wasn't joy, but a fierce kind of resolve.
"You've kept me safe for years, Rodrigo, even when I hated you for it. I know you can do it now." She squeezed his hand and smiled. "But you don't have to do it alone. My skills with a gun and a blade might be a little rusty, but it won't take me long to brush up if you're patient and teach me."
The request, the trust implicit in it, sent a wave of heat through him, chasing away the chill that had lived inside him for so long.
Rodrigo's free hand lifted and cupped her face, his thumb stroking lightly over the high curve of her cheekbone. Her eyes widened slightly, but she held her ground, watching him.
"Anima mia," he murmured, the endearment slipping out before he could censor it. "If you ask me to, I'll teach you things you will never forget."
A faint flush rose on her skin, and her lips parted in a soft intake of breath. The sight sent a jolt of pure heat straight to his gut. Her eyes held his, wide and dark, filled with confusion and something dangerously like answering heat.
It was a spark he wanted desperately to fan, but he wouldn't push his luck when their peace was so new and fragile.
Slowly, Rodrigo lowered his hand from her face. He gave her fingers one last firm squeeze before releasing her hand.
"Rest, Giana," he said, his voice regaining some of its usual gravel. "We have a party to plan, and lessons will begin tomorrow."
Rodrigo turned and walked toward the door, feeling her gaze on him. He closed the door softly behind him without looking back. He didn't trust himself to. The image of her blush, the heat in her eyes, the feel of her skin... He wouldn't be strong enough to resist that a second time.