Chapter Ten #2
"Did you need something, Don Falco?" Roselia asked, her voice maintaining its usual shield of polite, professional distance. She turned back to the rifle, reaching for a microfiber cloth. "The new shipment hasn't been fully cataloged yet."
Renzo stopped a few feet away, standing on the opposite side of the metal table.
He had spent four days trying to find the courage to have this conversation.
He had stood in the shadows, paralyzed by the terror that she would look at him with that hollow indifference and tell him to walk away forever.
But the alternative—watching another man slowly claim the heart that should have been his—was a fate worse than death.
"I do not care about the inventory, Roselia," Renzo said, his voice dropping into a low, quiet register that vibrated in the small room.
He took a slow breath, bracing himself against the inevitable impact. He decided to strip away the pride, the strategy, and the ego, leaving only the truth.
"I came down here to ask you a question," Renzo murmured, his dark eyes locking onto hers, refusing to let her look away. "I want to know... if there is any part of you, no matter how small or deeply buried, that would be willing to give me a chance."
Roselia froze. The firing pin slipped from her fingers, clattering sharply against the metal table.
She stared at him, her dark eyes wide, the breath leaving her lungs. "What?"
"One chance," Renzo clarified, his voice thick with a raw, desperate sincerity that broke the air between them.
He took a half-step closer, his hands resting on the edge of the table as if anchoring himself to the earth.
"I do not expect you to forget the last decade.
I do not expect your forgiveness. I am only asking for the opportunity to prove to you that I see you. Truly see you."
Roselia’s heart began to hammer violently against her ribs. The fortress she had built around herself, the cold indifference she had perfected, suddenly felt incredibly fragile.
"You are the most magnificent, important woman in my life," Renzo continued, the words pouring out of him like blood from a severed artery. "I want to love you. I want to cherish you. I don't want anyone else but me to be the reason you smile. I want to be the one standing next to you."
He paused, a dark, self-deprecating shadow crossing his features.
"I will not lie to you. Watching Raphael Dante walk out of this house with you made me violently, possessively jealous.
It tore me apart. But I need you to understand that this...
my standing here right now... is not a reaction to that date. "
Renzo shook his head slowly, his gaze burning with a fierce, unyielding devotion.
"And it is not a reaction born of guilt, or a frantic need to make amends for my own stupidity.
I am standing here because I truly, sincerely want to court you, Roselia.
As a man who loves you. I want to know if there is any part of you that would want to give me that chance. "
Silence fell over the armory. It wasn't the cold, dead silence of their past interactions. It was suspended and breathless, quiet with the weight of a shattered reality.
Roselia was absolutely shell-shocked.
Her brilliant, tactical mind, capable of anticipating the moves of rival syndicates and assassins, short-circuited.
She stared at the Don of the Falcons—the man who commanded armies, the man who had been her greatest heartbreak and her longest, deepest secret—and found she had absolutely no idea how to process his honesty.
If she was being brutally honest with herself, there was a time when she would have traded her soul to hear these exact words.
Buried beneath the armor, beneath the grease and the leather and the indifference, a tiny, foolish part of her had always hoped.
But she had starved that hope to death years ago to survive Willa.
Hearing it resurrected now, spoken with such devastating, open candor, left her paralyzed.
"I..." Roselia started, her voice barely a whisper, stripped of its usual strength.
Renzo watched the war raging in her eyes. He saw the shock, the residual pain, and the vulnerability she was trying so desperately to hide. His chest ached with the need to pull her into his arms, but he forced his hands to remain on the table.
"Do you need some time to think about it?" Renzo asked softly, his voice a velvet lifeline.
Roselia blinked, her mind still violently spinning. She couldn't form a sentence. She couldn't build a defense. She could only manage a single, breathless word.
"Okay."
It wasn't a yes. It wasn't a rejection. It was the sound of a woman overwhelmed by the sudden shift in gravity.
Renzo felt a crushing wave of relief wash over him. She hadn't told him to leave. She hadn't laughed.
Slowly, carefully, telegraphing his movement so she wouldn't flinch, Renzo reached across the metal table.
He lifted his hand, his long, calloused fingers grazing the side of her face.
The touch was incredibly tender, a ghost of a caress, as he gently tucked a loose, dark strand of hair behind her ear.
His thumb brushed against the shell of her ear, sending a visible shiver down her spine.
"Take all the time you need, stella mia," Renzo murmured, his voice laced with a deep, consuming affection.
He slowly withdrew his hand, stepping back from the table. He didn't demand an answer. He simply turned on his heel and walked toward the stairs, ascending back into the light and leaving Roselia standing frozen in the cold, humming silence of the armory.
For five full minutes, Roselia did not move. She stood like a marble statue, her fingers hovering over the disassembled rifle, her skin still burning where his fingers had grazed her cheek.
Bruno let out a soft huff, shifting his weight beneath the table, the sound finally breaking the spell.
Roselia gasped, a sudden, ragged breath filling her lungs. The sheer magnitude of what had just happened crashed down on her. The armor was gone. The indifference was shattered.
She turned and bolted.