Chapter 31
Paint. Jasmine. Sex.
The recollection of Giana's body against the studio wall, her cry raw and guttural as she came around his fingers, slammed into him with visceral force, tightening his gut and sending a fresh, unwanted surge of heat southward.
"Maledizione," he muttered and shifted in the driver's seat, adjusting the constriction in his tailored trousers.
Every mile away from Giana hurt. She had always unnerved him when he was with her and haunted him when she wasn't. Maybe he shouldn't have come on so strong.
No. She could have stopped it with a word if she had wanted him to.
He had asked to touch her, and she had agreed. Whether she would let him do it again was up to her. She was the only one he would ever willingly surrender to.
Gabriella's cold voice echoed in his memory: "Control is everything, Rodrigo. Never show them your belly, or they will cut you open and leave you bleeding."
Showing Giana his belly, his desperate, clawing need was the ultimate failure of his control. She was a weakness Falcone or this shadowy boss could exploit.
He was the head of the Colleoni family. He couldn't afford weakness. Yet, for her, he seemed incapable of anything else.
The sleek Audi devoured the kilometers, the powerful engine a counterpoint to the turmoil churning inside him.
Lupo would tell him what to do. He represented a fragile thread of normality, of something good tethered to the Colleoni name.
He had been his father's best friend and had always been more like an uncle than a priest.
Rodrigo wouldn't let Falcone's thugs threaten Lupo's niece or her colicky newborn.
The medieval skyline of Siena emerged in the distance, a cluster of terracotta roofs and the distinctive striped bell tower of the Palazzo Pubblico piercing the pale blue sky.
He found the Basilica Cateriniana San Domenico rising like a sentinel at the top of a hill. It was a good meeting place, so he didn't have to navigate the city's narrow streets. It was too easy to get stuck in them and become a rat in a maze.
Sunlight glinted off the basilica's facade, casting long shadows. Standing patiently under a poplar tree, a small, worn suitcase at his feet, was Father Lupo.
He was dressed in a simple black button-up shirt and trousers, his silver hair neatly combed, his face a roadmap of gentle lines etched by time.
His posture was straight, shoulders squared with the quiet discipline of his long-ago military service.
His eyes, intelligent behind wire-rimmed spectacles, scanned the approaching Audi, then settled on Rodrigo as he brought the car to a smooth stop beside him.
Rodrigo killed the engine, the sudden silence ringing in his ears. He took a deep, steadying breath, trying to shove the lingering scent of Giana, the feel of her skin, into a locked compartment in his mind. He needed to be present. He pushed open the driver's door and stepped out.
"Father," Rodrigo greeted with a smile. He moved quickly to the passenger side and opened the rear door for Lupo's suitcase.
"You made good time." Lupo watched Rodrigo stow the suitcase, his gaze thoughtful, missing little. "You look like you haven't slept in a week, my boy."
Rodrigo managed a tight smile. "It's been eventful since you have been gone. Get in, Father. We shouldn't linger."
Lupo nodded, his expression sobering. He settled into the plush leather seat with a soft sigh, buckling the seatbelt with careful hands.
Rodrigo slid back behind the wheel and navigated the Audi slowly back toward the highway.
"How is Emilia? Marco?" Rodrigo asked, keeping his eyes on the tight confines of the street ahead.
"Exhausted, but managing," Lupo replied, his voice softening. "Little Marco finally settled just before I left. Mio nipote has lungs on him, that's for sure. Thank you for thinking of us and our safety."
"I have also arranged for them to be watched by a third party. Not to bring attention to them, but close enough to help if needed," Rodrigo said gruffly.
"So tell me how the lovely Giana is suddenly back at the villa," Lupo said after a moment of companionable silence.
Rodrigo rubbed his tired eyes. "Trouble's fucking boiled over."
The profanity slipped out, raw and unvarnished. He rarely swore around Lupo, a holdover from childhood respect, but the tension, the sleepless nights, the lingering aftershock of Giana had left his control in tatters.
"Today started before dawn with a call from Sicily," he began, and gave Lupo the details in a quick summary.
The priest listened in silence, his expression growing increasingly grave. When Rodrigo finished, the old priest let out a long, slow breath, the sound heavy in the confined space. He shook his head, a mixture of sorrow and weary exasperation.
"Dio mio, Rodrigo. I swear, I can't leave you boys alone for five minutes without you starting a war or getting tangled in one." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Giana, endured all that okay? The kidnapping?"
Rodrigo flinched inwardly at the thought of Giana in that fucking dog crate, missing nails, damaged teeth. The rage surged again, hot and feral.
"She's recovering, and I'm making sure that she can protect herself."
"And you?" Lupo asked gently, his gaze sharp. "Where are you in all this mess, Rodrigo? Beyond the retaliation, I mean. I want to know where your heart is in this."
Rodrigo kept his eyes fixed on the road.
His heart? His heart was a battleground, scarred and smoking.
How could he explain the tempest inside him?
The possessive fury warring with a terrifying tenderness?
The way Giana's sharp tongue and her fierce intelligence ignited something in him that went far beyond any emotion he knew?
He had built her a safe space in the madness and fucked her against its wall. That's how he dealt with everything he was feeling. Verbalizing it was too much of a struggle.
"Complicated doesn't begin to cover what I feel for Giana," he finally ground out, the words scraping his throat.
"Complicated," Lupo echoed softly. Then, with a directness that belied his gentle demeanor, he asked, "How is Giana? Truly?"
"She's…" Rodrigo struggled for words. "She's strong. Fiercely strong. Defiant. She demanded a seat beside me. Refuses to be a pawn. She's painting again in the studio I had built for her."
Lupo nodded slowly, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Painting. That's good. A lifeline back to herself, perhaps. When all this is over, what do you want from her? Do you know?"
Rodrigo couldn't lie. Not about this. The damning confession clawed its way out.
"I love her, Lupo. I have from the moment she spat in Gabriella's face after the massacre." He gripped the wheel tighter, the leather creaking.
"This thing inside me… It's not just about protection or possession. It's…" He faltered, the enormity of it choking him. "It's final. Absolute. Like my father used to say, it's the kind of love that ruins you for anything else."
He risked a glance at Lupo. The old priest's expression was grave, but not surprised. There was only deep understanding in his eyes.
"And she knows this?" Lupo asked softly.
Rodrigo barked a humorless laugh, and then the words tumbled out, a torrent of fear and longing.
"How do you tell the woman whose family you helped destroy, and whose freedom you stole, that you love her?
How can I be what she needs, not just the monster who cages her or the man who wants to fuck her?
I want her to be safe and whole again. To paint and not have to worry about any of this dark shit.
Every instinct I have screams to lock her away where nothing can touch her, including me. Especially me."
He fell silent again, the only sound the low thrum of the engine and his own ragged breathing.
Lupo was quiet for a long moment, absorbing Rodrigo's raw confession. The gentle lines of his face deepened with compassion.
"Oh, my boy," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "That is the hardest part, isn't it? Loving someone fiercely, yet knowing your very nature, your history, your world feels like a threat to them."
Rodrigo stared straight ahead at the bare autumn fields. "I am a threat to her. I always have been."
"That isn't entirely true, is it?" Lupo said gently. "You are the man who defied his own mother, risked everything, to keep her alive. The man who built her a sanctuary for her art. The man who confesses his love to an old priest in a car."
He placed a warm hand on Rodrigo's forearm.
"Rodrigo, listen to me. You cannot love Giana Sorrentino as a possession. Not if you want that love to be anything but another chain. Gabriella taught you possession. Your world demands it. But true partnership, true love, requires surrender. Not of her to you, but of your fear to her."
Rodrigo turned his head, meeting Lupo's earnest gaze. "Surrender?" The word tasted alien, dangerous. Surrender was defeat. Surrender got you killed.
"Trust," Lupo clarified, his eyes holding Rodrigo's.
"Radical, terrifying trust. Trust that she is strong enough to stand beside you, not behind you.
That she can navigate the darkness of your world with you.
Trust that her real freedom to stay or to go, to love you or to leave, is the only foundation upon which anything real can be built.
You must show her, Rodrigo, not just tell her.
Show her she is your partner, your equal.
Not your captive queen in a gilded tower. "
He squeezed Rodrigo's arm again, then let him go. "The cage must have no lock, my son. Only then can love breathe."
The words resonated deep within Rodrigo, striking chords he hadn't known existed. Show her she is free. The image of Giana standing willingly by his side felt right.
He opened his mouth, the beginnings of agreement, of understanding, forming on his lips. "I think…"
The world exploded. A deafening, shrieking roar of tearing metal filled the air as something slammed into the driver's side of the Audi with the violence of a bomb blast. The reinforced frame of the luxury sedan buckled like tin.
The airbags detonated with concussive force, white powder filling the cabin like toxic snow.
The world tilted violently as they went over, spinning in a rain of shattered glass and crumpled metal. Rodrigo's head snapped sideways, cracking against the window. Stars burst behind his eyes. A wave of nauseating pain crashed over him, and all went dark.