Chapter 13 Giovanni
She ravels. Survival mode is kind of her thing.
The words echo in my mind as I navigate the Aventador onto the highway toward Pittsburgh, feeling the engine purr beneath us like a predator waiting to pounce.
Not unravels—ravels.
Pulls herself together under pressure instead of falling apart.
Becomes more functional in crisis, not less.
Tightens rather than loosens.
Condenses rather than scatters.
Interesting. Genuinely interesting.
When she came down those stairs, I almost stopped breathing.
The white outfit was a stroke of genius, truly.
It transformed her petite Welsh pony frame into a two-year-old thoroughbred at the starting gate for the first time—sleek, gleaming, and brimming with untapped potential.
The crisp lines of the tailored skirt accentuated the delicate curve of her hips, while the silk blouse draped perfectly across her shoulders, creating an impression of both strength and vulnerability that was utterly captivating.
Most people are disasters waiting to happen.
They operate on borrowed competence, one missed alarm from total collapse.
Their composure is a facade held together by routine and comfort, crumbling at the first sign of stress.
The slightest deviation from their carefully constructed normalcy sends them spiraling into dysfunction—missed deadlines, forgotten appointments, emotional meltdowns in parking lots.
But Emmaleen Rourke transforms twenty minutes of “don’t embarrass me” into a complete metamorphosis—farmer’s market bohemian to corporate accessory in three.
.. two... one. She emerges not just dressed differently but carrying herself with a precision that suggests she’s been rehearsing this role her entire life, though I know she hasn’t.
Everything about her is measured right now.
Not in a calculating way—the way I measure things.
But in a disappearing kind of way.
She’s positioned herself in the passenger seat perfectly upright, taking up minimal space, as though she’s calculating exactly how much of my car she’s allowed to occupy.
Even her breathing seems measured. Controlled.
A survival mechanism honed through necessity, not taught in finishing school.
Her hands rest in her lap, fingers interlaced so tightly the knuckles have gone white, though I doubt she’s aware of it.
The white outfit makes her look like a ghost trying to haunt the smallest possible corner of my Lamborghini.
She doesn’t want to be seen.
She wants to be invisible.
Why?
I want to know why.
The silence stretches between us. Not uncomfortable, exactly.
More like unfinished business. A conversation waiting to happen.
The purr of the Aventador’s engine fills the space between us, a constant reminder of power held in check.
She stares straight ahead through the windshield, her reflection barely visible in the tinted glass, another layer of disappearing.
I could ask direct questions. That would be efficient.
But efficiency isn’t the point here. Information freely given is more valuable than information extracted.
People lie when they feel interrogated. They reveal when they feel engaged.
The art is in making them want to talk, to offer pieces of themselves without realizing the value of what they’re giving away.
“Let’s play a game,” I say, keeping my eyes on the road, my voice casual as though suggesting something entirely inconsequential.
She turns slightly, a flicker of surprise crossing her features. “A game?”
“Lie, Lie, Truth.” I change lanes, passing a truck moving too slowly, the Aventador responding to the slightest pressure of my foot with eager precision. “I tell you three things about myself. Two are lies, one is true. You guess which one is true. Then you go.”
Her posture shifts—interest, wariness, calculation. Good. An engaged mind means honest answers. She turns in her seat, angled towards me now. She crosses her legs, not an easy thing to do in a pencil skirt, but she manages with a graceful economy of movement that surprises me.
If I could stop myself from looking, I would. But I can’t. Only her calves are showing, the hem of the skirt sits just below the knee, but it’s enough for a flash of desire to smolder inside me. A simple, human reaction I immediately compartmentalize.
She sighs at my request, and when I drag my eyes up from her legs to her face, I find her looking out the window at the blur of guardrails and trees flashing by, her profile sharp against the glass.
“All right,” she says. Reluctantly, I can tell. She turns to face me, a strand of dark hair falling across her cheek. “I’ll play.”
If I were her, I would ask questions about this game first. Questions like, “Will I earn a reward if I play?” or “What will it cost me if I don’t?
” Because I can already tell, she doesn’t want to play a game with me.
She’s too smart not to recognize this for what it is—an extraction technique dressed up as entertainment.
Newsflash, Emmaleen. You’ve been playing a game with me since that night you broke a thousand dollars of crystal.
But Lie, Lie, Truth is a game of secrets. And she wants nothing more than to keep hers that way. I can see it in the tightness around her eyes, the careful neutrality of her expression as she meets my gaze like an equal.
It occurs to me now that I haven’t done a background check on her.
Why?
Well, I know why. Before she came down my steps, she was nobody. Inconsequential. A temporary distraction not worth the twenty minutes it would take to do a thorough check.
Now she’s occupying a space in my head that hasn’t seen the light of day since I was eight. The space of curiosity. The space of wonder. The space of… danger.
Not the kind that ends with blood on marble or bones in a field—those I can manage.
This is subtler. Quieter.
The kind that rearranges priorities.
The kind that makes a man forget to finish the job because he’s too busy trying to understand the reason she smiles when she should be afraid.
Or maybe it’s the other way around? Maybe it’s me who should be afraid?
She clears her throat, obviously uncomfortable with my prolonged staring and silence.
It snaps me out of the introspection and back to the game.
She’s waiting for me to begin. I consider what to offer. I have plenty of secrets of my own. Some more important than others. The trick is choosing one that elevates my authority in her mind mixed in with a calculated vulnerability that creates the illusion of trust.
That’s the point, after all.
My authority over her. She’s mine. Not forever, that’s stupid. But for now.
And I want her to not just know it, but embrace it.
“I hiked the Appalachian Trail alone for three months when I was sixteen.”
She looks at me. Eyebrows furrowed. Probably trying to picture me wearing hiking boots and carrying a backpack. The image doesn’t compute with what she knows of me.
Then she laughs, a small sound that seems to surprise even her, quickly stifled behind pressed lips.
“I trained a tiger to shake hands like a dog.”
Her expression switches, her nose crinkling up in what appears to be genuine amusement. But she’s smiling now, the tension in her shoulders easing fractionally. The game is working already, creating the illusion of normalcy between us.
“I shot someone when I was eight.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. I can see the calculations happening behind those pale green eyes, the way they narrow slightly at the corners as she evaluates each statement.
Her fingers twist together in her lap, a small nervous movement she probably doesn’t realize she’s making.
She’s analyzing the probability curves of each statement with methodical precision, weighing the hiking story against the tiger training against the violence.
The silence stretches between us, filled only with the purr of the Aventador’s engine as we cruise down the highway toward Pittsburgh.
I don’t rush her. This is part of the game too—letting her think, letting her believe she has all the time in the world to make her choice.
The matte black interior of the Lamborghini creates an intimate cocoon around us, the tinted windows shutting out the world while containing our private exchange.
Her breathing has slowed, become more deliberate as she considers each possibility, mentally testing them against what little she knows of me.
A slight furrow appears between her brows as she tilts her head, the sunlight filtering through the windshield highlighting those scattered freckles across her nose. She tucks a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear, a gesture that seems unconscious, vulnerable.
“The third one,” she says finally, the words emerging with quiet certainty. Her eyes meet mine directly, unflinching in their assessment. “You shot someone when you were eight.”
The confession hangs in the air between us, neither accusation nor question—just a simple statement of fact she’s somehow extracted from my carefully constructed game.
Her posture shifts slightly, shoulders squaring as if bracing for my reaction, but there’s no fear in her expression, only a calm, analytical curiosity.
I can see she wanted to choose the first one.
She wants to see me as someone... normal.
Someone who exists in her world, someone whose moral compass aligns with hers, whose past is filled with her quaint values and wholesome traditions.
The kind of man who remembers birthdays and has embarrassing childhood photos his mother keeps in albums.
We are not the same.
And she needs to understand this fundamental truth. The sooner she accepts the reality of who I am, not who she wishes I could be, the better for both of us. There is no version of this story where I transform into something palatable for her sensibilities.