CHAPTER 26
MARCELLO
I lay on the bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
My body was still, but everything inside me screamed.
The sheets had long lost her warmth, but the scent lingered—faint, like a ghost refusing to leave. I turned into the pillow, breathing her in. It wasn’t enough.
Her voice echoed in my head from the last night we shared this room.
I’ll miss you.
And then I remembered how miserable she sounded when she came to say goodbye.
Thank you for the necklace. But I can’t accept something that reminds me I cheated. That I’m a liar—the villain in your story.
I hadn’t looked at her. Not because I was angry—but because I couldn’t let her see the wreckage in my eyes.
I was fighting the urge to hold her, to kiss her, to scream at her for hiding the truth. I was furious. And the words I’d thrown at her—cheater, liar—came back to bite me, searing through my chest like a scalding rod.
I reached into my trouser pocket for the scarf she’d forgotten to take. It still carried her scent—stronger than the bed. I pressed it to my face and inhaled. Her scent hit me like a memory I wasn’t ready for. Something inside me buckled like my chest was trying to fold in on itself.
It wasn’t calm. It was collapse. I clung to it like a man drowning. This was the closest I’d felt to breathing since she left.
A wave of calm washed over me. I imagined her fingers in my hair, my head in her lap, her touch soft and forgiving. Her smile. Her kisses. And with that thought, I drifted off.
The sound of a vacuum outside the door jolted me awake. Light filtered through the curtains. I’d slept through the night, for the first time in months.
Antonio was already in the villa. I called Cheung and his son back for the meeting. They wanted me to deliver the goods personally—not just for business, but for history.
Cheung had been my father’s friend. They shared deep mutual respect. I’d trained under him in Guangzhou for a year, learning the ways of the triads, understanding their codes. He was part of a syndicate that dealt in counterfeit goods, currency, and art. They bought arms through me.
They ran brothels across Guangdong Province—servicing politicians and tycoons, discreetly. He had dirt on them, and they were willing to pay to keep it buried.
They wanted me in China next week. To meet someone. A collaborator. Someone who could help me get to Lorenzo. I said yes immediately.
As they left my office, I sat back in my chair.
Antonio turned to me, stepping closer, arms folded.
“You sure about this? I could’ve gone with Santino or Martin. You’re not in the right headspace.”
I lit a cigarette, took a long drag.
“Don’t tell me how to run my business, Antonio.”
My voice was sharp, but my hands trembled. I hated how raw my voice sounded. I wasn’t just defending my choices. I was defending the wreckage I’d become.
Antonio didn’t flinch. “I’m telling you as family.”
I exhaled, smoke curling between us.
“I need to go.” My voice dropped. “I have to.”
Antonio studied me for a moment. Then nodded once.
“Ci pigliamu ‘stu bastardu schifusu.”
(We’ll get that sleazy bastard.)
After going over our game plan for the meeting and the best route to deliver the goods, he walked out with Santino.
I sat there, letting the silence settle like fallout. I poured myself a drink. The cigarette burned between my fingers—twitching with the need to steady themselves.
I’d started smoking again after Roxanne left. It was like part of my resolve had gone with her. I let the smoke burn through the ache in my chest. Exhaling slowly. Watching it curl towards the ceiling.
I opened the drawer. The blue velvet box sat inside—her letter tucked beneath it. I picked it up. I hadn’t read it. Not yet. Even touching it felt like betrayal—of my anger, of my pride and I dreaded it.
Antonio had insisted a hundred times. But I couldn’t bring myself to open it. Still, I hadn’t thrown it away. Despite the anger. Despite the betrayal.
I took a deep breath. And opened it. I read the letter.
My heart pounded so hard I thought it might split open.
The world numbed. Her words weren’t just ink. They were knives.
Each sentence cut deeper, hitting places I thought were long dead.
Then read it again. I reread every word. Slowly. Like scripture. Like a wound being opened again.
To Marcello,
I don’t know how to begin this, so I’ll start with the truth…
I lied to you.
Not with words, but with silence. I let you believe I was someone I wasn’t, and I let myself believe I could be that woman—just for a little while.
You already know I have a daughter. She’s the reason I breathe, the reason I fight, the reason I took this time for myself.
I was in a marriage that had long stopped feeling like love. The conversations were hollow, the silences louder than ever. But I stayed for her. Not for him. Not for the vows. Just for the one person who still made me feel like I mattered.
I should have told you sooner. I should have trusted you with that part of me. But I was afraid. Afraid that once you saw the full picture, you’d turn away. And maybe I was right.
You made me feel seen. Desired. And for ten days, I let myself live in a world where I wasn’t just a mother, or a wife, or someone who was trying to hold on to her sanity.
I was just… me. And you made that version of me feel beautiful.
I didn’t come to Italy with the intention of finding someone. Someone who could make me forget the weight I carried.
I came to escape. To breathe. To remember who I was before everything got so heavy that it became difficult to breathe.
And then you happened.
I know you’re angry. I know you feel betrayed.
But please know this: I never used you. I never played you.
I just didn’t know how to tell you that the woman you let into your world, introduced to your family, was already claimed by a life she didn’t know how to leave.
You said I was real. And I was. With you, I was more real than I’ve been in years.
I’m leaving the necklace with this letter. Not because I don’t want it. But because I want you to know that what I valued most wasn’t the emeralds—it was the way you looked at me when you offered them.
Thank you for the most unforgettable ten days of my life.
Hope you have it in your heart to forgive me.
Hopefully, someday, when we’re older and wiser, our paths will cross again.
-Roxanne
Each line cracked something open inside me. Her daughter. Her silence. Her guilt. Her truth.
And then I remembered she hadn’t said she was married that day—she’d said she had a husband. And now I understood the difference.
I rubbed her name with my thumb. Picked up the surveillance file the informant had delivered.
Looked at her pictures. Her face. Her eyes.
The way she looked at me like I was the only man in the world.
No photograph should have had the power to undo me—but hers did. And her voice still rang in my ears.
I may have fallen too fast… I’m officially fucked.
I closed my eyes.
I hadn’t touched another woman, didn’t want to. Hadn’t stopped thinking about her. Even without trying, she had me hooked onto her. There was something strange that even I didn’t understand that drew me towards her. Even now.
Antonio had told me the day she left, “You’ve aged twenty years in two days.”
I looked like hell. Miserable—and everyone around me could see it. I had become angrier and would get mad over the smallest of things. All the anger I couldn’t aim at her spilled onto my people.
But she had called. Even if by accident. And she had spoken. Even if not to me. And now, I knew. She hadn’t forgotten. She hadn’t moved on. And neither had I.
I read the letter again, absorbing each word. I felt betrayed—but not by her. By the world that taught her to shrink. By the silence that made her believe she had to lie to be loved.
And I was angry at myself—for not seeing the truth sooner.
I sat in my office, the emerald necklace glinting under the low light. Her words burned into me like ink on skin.
You said I was real. And I was.
I closed my eyes. She was gone.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I paced the villa, the letter folded in my pocket, the necklace untouched on my desk.
Her voice echoed in my ears—like a ghost, or worse, like temptation dressed in memory.
It hollowed me out. I thought about the life she returned to.
About the man who hadn’t fought for her.
And then I called Santino. I had to know everything. Who she was, the people in her life. The skeletons she kept buried.
I didn’t care about principles anymore. Didn’t care about her boundaries. What she made me feel had already cost me my judgment. I just needed to know about the woman who had tormented my thoughts for months had almost said she loved me. Almost. And that was enough to unravel me.
I needed to know her—not the version she gave me, but the one she hid. The one she protected. I wanted to know what made her cry when no one was watching. What she feared. Who she trusted. Who or what she ran from.
I wanted her truth, even if it came from someone else’s mouth. Not the curated version. The version she’d never meant for me to see. The raw one. The one she buried beneath duty and shame.
I didn’t care where it came from. I didn’t care what it cost.
Because I was already hers. Even if she didn’t want me anymore. Even if it came at a cost.
Because I couldn’t stop.
Not now. Not after that letter. Not after her voice. Not after she ruined me.