Chapter 13 #2
"She's chaos, Jino. Messy." His hands gesture outward, fingers spread as if trying to catch something intangible, something slipping through his grasp like sand.
"The shit left behind after a dust storm. There’s nothing precise about this woman except.
.." He pauses, searching for words that won't betray weakness, that won't shatter the facade he's spent years constructing.
"These words she collects. She curates them.
Arranges them into particular patterns in her head.
Effortlessly. She doesn't even try. They just come spilling out in the most extraordinary combinations and it paints the world in an entirely new way. "
I watch his hands tremble slightly as they move through the air, trying to capture the essence of something formless, something that defies his need for order and control. His reverence for her chaos is a contradiction that disturbs me deeply.
Giovanni has always been a man of meticulous precision, of calculated moves and measured responses. Yet here he sits, speaking of disorder with something akin to worship in his voice, as if this woman's untamed nature is not a flaw to correct but a wonder to behold.
The stigmata inked into my palms seem to burn as I flex my fingers, the rosary beads tattooed along my knuckles catching the dim light.
I've dedicated my life to structure, to the ritual of breaking down and rebuilding that which is disordered.
And now Giovanni speaks of embracing the very chaos we've sworn to contain.
I observe the reverence in his voice. This is heresy. This is Giovanni Bavga—heir, executioner, perfect son—speaking of disorder as if it were sacred.
"She makes me laugh." The admission sounds torn from him. "She's earnest. She tries hard at everything."
A smirk forms on my lips before I can suppress it.
Yes, she does try hard. Yesterday—her first day of submission training—she maintained Position One until her thighs trembled like seismic aftershocks.
Position Two until her knees bruised purple against the concrete.
Position Three until tears poured from her eyes like rivers.
Earnest is not the word I would have chosen.
Stubborn, perhaps.
Willful to the point of self-destruction.
But her dedication—the way she commits with her entire being to even the most humiliating task—is a desirable trait. The foundation of proper discipline.
Something I can work with. Something I can shape.
Giovanni continues, oblivious to my assessment. "She doesn't feel like a woman. She feels like a friend." The word 'friend' carries an unfamiliar weight in his mouth. "I like her—could... maybe, one day, love her. If I let myself. I could see it."
Love. The weakest confession. The most dangerous attachment.
"I know it was a mistake to leave a witness to Rico's murder." His voice hardens again, edges returning. "But I tried to push her away. Did push her away. After she recovered in the Bavga wing at Presbyterian Hospital—"
"You took her to Salvatore's hospital wing?" The words burst from me, a controlled explosion. "What the fuck were you thinking?"
The Bavga Wing is sacred space. Reserved for Salvatore's treatments. The fortress where family secrets are tended, where blood is shed and cleaned in the same breath. To bring an outsider there is to invite death inside our walls.
Giovanni puts up a hand. The gesture is both dismissive and pleading.
"Don't worry, I paid them off. And trust me, it was more than enough to buy silence about one girl with a head wound.
They don't know what's going on. They probably thought I struck her and was trying to cover up my crime. Or, at the very least, minimize it."
The arrogance. The blind, foolish arrogance. A Bavga son taking a bleeding witness to the most guarded Bavga sanctuary. The staff might be paid, but eyes are everywhere. Ears are everywhere.
"I gave her the money, the plane ticket. Everything she needed to vanish."
Yes. This part I knew. But not why he had paid off some woman. Not that this woman was a witness to Rico's murder. No that Giovanni was the one who murdered him. Not that he created this impossible equation where Rico's death equals this woman's life.
"And yet… here she is, Giovanni. Dangerous. A fucking bomb ready to detonate. A goddamn bunker buster. I mean—"
"Shut. The Fuck. Up!" Giovanni roars. "Do you think I don't know that? My fucking God, Jino. I get it. It was a mistake. But I don't fucking care!"
Giovanni straightens his spine. The tiredness evaporates, replaced by something cold and immovable. "I'm going to protect her. Keep her, if I can." His eyes meet mine, challenge embedded in every syllable. "And there's nothing you can do or say to stop me."
I blow out a breath. The air passes through my lips slowly, deliberately, carrying away the rage that threatens to blind me. The rage that would end with one of us bleeding out on this concrete floor. Again.
I look down at the far end of the dungeon, at the closed door where the woman sits, ignorant of the fact that her life is being weighed in the balance.
The peace between Bavga and LaRiccia is at stake here. The fragile tissue grown over a wound that never truly healed. A wound named Arianna. A wound that spilled enough blood to fill the Three Rivers. Salvatore’s sister. Giovanni’s aunt. Former wife of Luca LaRiccia.
Until she cheated on him and he killed her.
I look back at Giovanni. Thinking.
Giovanni waits. Almost expectantly. Because he sees it. I have an idea.
It's a really fucked up idea.
But desperate men agree to shitty deals every day.
"There might be a way," I start. But I don't finish.
Let the sentence hang between us like the blade of a guillotine.
Let him feel the weight of what must follow.
Giovanni stares, waiting. His posture shifts—minute adjustments in his stance that betray desperation.
I recognize them because I've cataloged every physical tell he possesses since we were children.
The slight lean forward. The fingers that don't quite curl into fists.
The deliberate control of his breathing.
I remain silent, calculating. Measuring.
"Well?" Giovanni snaps finally. He begins pacing, each step a precise rhythm against the concrete. "Are you going to share this miraculous solution, or just stand there looking like a fucking priest at confession?"
I run the numbers through my mind. The variables. The contingencies. This isn't merely a problem of protection—it's a matter of containment. The woman beyond that door is no longer a person but a vessel of dangerous knowledge. A walking confession.
Giovanni's patience splinters. His pacing quickens, turns sharp at the corners. Each glare he gives me carries mounting frustration.
"For fuck's sake, Jino. If you have something to say—"
"Make her a slave," I state.
The words drop between us, heavy and real.
Giovanni scoffs, his hand panning toward the basement around us—the implements, the platform, the kneeling mat. "What the fuck do you think we're doing here? Playing house?"
I shake my head. This isn't comprehension. This is surface-level understanding, and Giovanni has always been too impatient to see layers.
"No. Not this." I gesture dismissively at the training setup. "Lock her up. Here. She never sees the light of day again."
Giovanni's face twists. "You're fucking crazy."
"Perhaps," I concede. "But crazy keeps us alive. If she learns her lessons well enough..." I allow myself a small incline of my head. "Maybe, one day—"
"You're a psycho," Giovanni cuts in, disgust coloring his words. "An actual fucking psychopath."
The insult glances off me. Labels are meaningless when survival is at stake. I've been called worse by better men.
"As long as Emmaleen is under our control, under your roof, she's not a threat," I explain, my voice calm and measured. "She's contained. Predictable."
Giovanni laughs, sharp and bitter. "You clearly don't know Emmaleen Rourke. She's about as containable as nitroglycerin."
I shrug. The motion is deliberate, calibrated to display indifference.
"Minds are just... clay. They can be shaped.
" I move to the wall, tracing my finger along the edge of a cabinet, feeling the grain of the wood beneath my touch.
"Clearly, the girl likes you. Enough that she's willing to be your sub.
To play this fucked-up sex game." I look up, meeting his eyes.
"She's already submissive or she wouldn't be here. "
Giovanni's jaw tightens. "I did a background check. Her ex-boyfriend abused her. She ran away. It's cruel to take advantage of her state of mind. That’s what she was trying to say to me when she mentioned the background check. That I knew her weakness and…” He sighs. “And now I’m using it against her.”
“As one does,” I reply dismissively.
Giovanni sneers at me. “Since when have you turned into a ruthless asshole about women? You’re the one who was so fucking concerned about her agency.
” He nods to the key on the wall. My idea.
“You’re the one who said we needed to follow protocols.
Now you’re telling me that manipulating the fact that she’s been abused is just another negotiation variable in the war on her mind? ”
I wave all that bullshit away. Because this could work. "Listen," I say. "This isn't about her state of mind, but her natural tendency. She wants to submit, but in the case of the ex-boyfriend, she just attached herself to the wrong guy."
The thought takes root. I can see it in the subtle shift of Giovanni's expression. The momentary consideration before he rejects it.
"So I'm the right guy?" Giovanni scoffs, pointing to himself. His voice drips with bitter irony.
"No." The word is a verdict, clear and absolute. I don't soften it.
Giovanni's eyes narrow, confused by my certainty.