The grave. The cottage. The words carved into the wall.
My hands clench by my sides, palms sweaty.
The apology was his.
Giorgio’s.
The man who’s always in control.
But people don’t do things like that when they’re in control.
My throat works. “Why?”
Pain stirs behind his eyes before his gaze darts down the hall. He stands and extends his palm. “Get up. I’ll tell you, but not here.”
He helps me to my feet and leads me upstairs, his hand clenched firmly around mine. My mind jumps to worse-case scenarios.
What was he apologizing for?
Something to do with his mother?
My stomach drops. Did Sal order Giorgio to kill his mom?
The idea is so terrible, and frankly crazy, that it makes me draw to a sharp stop.
Giorgio said he also had ghosts that haunted him. Is his mother one of them?
I draw in a shaky breath. Realizing I’m no longer moving, Giorgio looks over his shoulder, and his expression darkens when he sees how freaked out I am.
“I’ll explain everything.”
“Okay.” My voice comes out like a croak.
No, Giorgio couldn’t have killed his mom. There’s no way. When he spoke about her, it sounded like she was really important to him.
He pulls me into his bedroom and locks the door. When he lets go off my hand, I shrink into the wall. “You’re scaring me,” I confess. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Giorgio stops in the center of the room, his broad chest rising and falling with steady, even breaths.
He rakes his fingers through his hair and says, “That cottage used to be the groundkeeper’s. My mother lived there when she was a girl.”
I wait for him to continue, my heart rapping against my ribs.
Walking over to the window, he links his hands behind his back. “When I was a child, she always told me she was happiest here. My mother regretted leaving her family behind to go to Naples. She married my father a year after she arrived in the city, had me another year later, and for the next decade and a half, she suffered from terrible depression because of what had happened to her.”
“What happened?”
“My first memory of my mother is of her crying while she rocked me to sleep. She cried a lot during my childhood. My father hated when she did it in front of him, so she’d hold her tears back until we were alone.”
My question hangs unanswered, but I don’t dare interrupt him. The words drip out of him slowly, as if he has to work for each one.
“She killed herself when I was fifteen. Hung herself in her bedroom while my father was doing his deliveries around the neighborhood. I found her like that when I came home from school. That morning, I could tell she wasn’t well, and I asked my father to wait at home until I got back so that someone would be there to keep an eye on her, but he didn’t. He left, and she ended her life.”
I cover my mouth with my hand. “Oh my God.”
Giorgio shakes his head. “She never blamed me explicitly, and in some way, I think she loved me, but it was the kind of love that eventually tore her apart.” His voice turns brittle.
I push myself off the wall and take a few tentative steps toward him. “Giorgio, I don’t understand. Blame you for what?”
When he doesn’t answer right away, I move closer and wrap my arms around his waist. I think he might push me away, but instead, after a moment, he drops one of his arms and places a palm to rest over mine. The fabric of his dress shirt brushes against my lips, and his familiar scent reaches my nose. I press deeper into him.
“She was violently raped.”
My eyes widen in horror. “By who?”
“Sal.”
He turns, and the movement forces me to drop my arms and take a step back. Late afternoon sun streams into the room from behind him, leaving his face cloaked in shadows.
“She was nineteen when it happened. She never fully recovered. My father knew she was unwell, but he didn’t care. He spent many years telling her when she was at her lowest that she needed to move on. That it happened to so many women, friends of theirs. ‘Look at them,’ he’d say. ‘They’re fine. Why aren’t you?’”
His face becomes a grimace. I realize then that Giorgio hates his father. Maybe as much as he hates Sal.
“I moved her body here after I bought the castello,” he says in a somber voice. “She was first buried in a cemetery in Naples. My father owns the lot beside her. I couldn’t stand the thought of him lying beside her one day, so I bribed someone to dig up the coffin, and I brought it here in secret. I wanted her to rest in the place she always considered to be her home.
“There’s no good way to say it, Martina, so I’ll be blunt. I didn’t deal with it well… Moving her here. I…lost it in that cottage. I was so angry. I just wanted to destroy everything in my sight. I was ashamed of who I was and the pain I brought her.”
My forehead crinkled. What pain? It sounds like Giorgio was the only one who cared about her.
“But—”
“I already told you I blame Sal for her death, but the truth is…I’m equally to blame.” He drags a palm over his mouth. “My mother never told me the details, but—” He expels a harsh breath though his nose. “Based on some of the things she said, I know the rape was brutal and horrible. She had to go to the hospital afterwards. A few weeks later, she found out she was pregnant.”
My heart stutters, and there’s this feeling of a rapid descent.
“Wha-what did she do?”
He takes a slow, deep breath and then lifts his tortured eyes to meet mine. “She kept it. You’re looking at the result.”
My belly turns as the horror of what he just revealed sinks in.
“Sal is…” I force the words past the dryness in my throat.
Giorgio looks down at the ground, his skin turning sallow. “My biological father.”
I open my mouth, but there are no words. No words to express even a fraction of what I’m feeling.
I’m frozen, glued to the ground as Giorgio gives me a bitter smile. “Now you know the truth about who I am. For my mother, I was a curse. A walking, breathing reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to her.”
The pieces fall into place. The words on the walls… He blames himself for what happened.
“The fact that she managed to hold on for fifteen years is a miracle,” Giorgio says, swiping a palm over the back of his head. “After what happened, Nino, the scumbag I call my father, did nothing to help my mother get justice. Instead, he accepted a bribe from Sal. He promised his silence in exchange for a promotion. We lived in the territory of the Secondigliano Alliance, but there was an intersection in the neighborhood controlled by the Casalesi. Nino is a vain man, Martina, and his vanity rendered him useless. He ran a tiny cigarette shop, barely scraping by, and he hated that lowly business with all his heart. When Sal offered to make him a submarine for the Casalesi, nothing could make Nino say no. Not even the knowledge that his wife was carrying another man’s baby. After I was born, he pretended I was his, but my mother told me the truth when I was ten. For years, I’d ask her why she looked at me like—” he breaks off and purses his lips.
I press my nails into my palms. “Like what?”
“Like she was staring at a stranger instead of her son. I’d catch her doing it every few days, and it scared me. I’d tell her she was doing it again, and she’d usually snap out of it. One day, I made her angry, and she told me she never wanted me. That my father wasn’t really my dad, and that the man who was, was an evil man. That I might turn out to be just like him.”
My vision blurs. “She shouldn’t have said those things, even when she was hurting. You were just a kid.”
He dismisses my words with a wave of his hand. “My mother wasn’t perfect, but I loved her. Finding out the truth didn’t change that. If anything, it made me respect her even more for the sacrifice that she made, keeping me. She didn’t live to see Sal get what he deserves, but when I found her cold, lifeless body, I made a promise to her that I would avenge her.”
Everything makes sense now. “That’s why you’re backing Dem. You want to play a part in taking down Sal.”
He averts his gaze. “Yes.”
“Does Dem know Sal’s your father?”
“No. None of the Casalesi are aware.”
“But this is why Sal traded for you, isn’t it?”
Giorgio scoffs. “He certainly wasn’t driven by any kind of familial affection. Sal has many bastards scattered around Naples. I was a young hacker working for the Secondigliano Alliance and I helped the Alliance pull off a deal that Sal’s men were also involved with. My skills caught Sal’s attention and it didn’t take him long to figure out who I was. When Sal told my old capo I was his son, the capo deemed me compromised. He’d probably have killed me if Sal hadn’t made it clear he was happy to take me off his hands. Ten thousand euros and a medic—that’s what Sal gave him in exchange. I didn’t have much choice in the matter. I had to accept my new boss if I wanted to keep my life. And so I did. I put on a convincing face for a long time, but there hasn’t been a day where I haven’t cursed that man’s existence.”
He exhales and drags his palms over his face.
“Sal deserves to die. Maybe when it’s done, I’ll have it in me to burn that cottage down to the ground. I haven’t returned to it since the day I buried my mother. It repulses me.”
Of course it does. It’s a physical manifestation of the guilt he’s been carrying all his life.
“You wrote you’re sorry, but you have nothing to apologize for—” I start, but he cuts me off.
“I do, Martina.” His voice is firm. “I brought my mother terrible pain while she was still alive.”
“You didn’t choose to be born,” I argue. “Yes, the circumstances were awful, but you were an innocent child. Your mother made the choice to keep you, to nurture you, despite what happened.”
“And she regretted it for the rest of her life.”
I step closer and take his hands into mine. “Even if she did, it’s not your fault. You can’t blame yourself for how she felt about her decision.”
His eyes lock on mine, and a soft breath escapes past his lips. He lifts his fingertips to my cheek. “I didn’t tell you this for you to pity me or to try to heal old wounds. I’m telling you so that you know exactly the kind of man I am.”
It dawns on me then that he thinks there’s something wrong with him. Because of the circumstances around his conception? Does he think I’ll push him away now that I know the truth? True, his father is a terrible man. Sal’s the reason my parents are dead. The reason Imogen is dead. But if anything, I feel closer to Giorgio now more than ever.
“And what kind of man is that?”
“Rotten,” he says softly, dragging his knuckles over my cheekbone. “I’m broken, Martina. I don’t know what it feels like to be whole.”
I grip his wrist, holding him in place. “How do you think I felt when you first picked me up? Back then, I could have said those same words about me. I was so broken, I was still messaging Imogen’s number even though it had been months since she died.”
Surprise flickers in his eyes. “You were?”
“Yes. Seems crazy, doesn’t it? That’s why when you took my phone, I nearly lost my mind. Sending those messages used to be the only thing that would help me get to sleep.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…”
I let go of him. “I hated myself, Giorgio.”
He clenches his jaw, clearly displeased at hearing that. “And now?”
“Now, I think even the most broken of things can be mended by the right pair of hands.”
The vulnerability that bleeds into his expression takes my breath away. He stares at me like he’s seeing me for the very first time, and that’s when I decide I like that look more than anything. More than the kisses, or the sex, or the way his hands feel on me. In that look lies the suggestion of a future. A tantalizing hint at what this could be if my time here didn’t have an expiration date.
“I crave you, Martina.” He slides his fingers into my hair and pulls me closer to him. “I’ve craved you from the moment I saw you, and I promised myself I’d carve that craving out of me. But the deeper I cut, the deeper you burrow. I’m afraid that if I don’t stop trying to rid myself of you, I’ll end up cutting out my own heart.”
“Then let go of the knife,” I say, my lips close enough to brush against his, “and let me mend you.”
He crushes his mouth to mine. His hands clutch me so tightly, it’s nearly painful, but I wouldn’t try to pull away in a million years.
A madness consumes us, erasing thoughts of consequences and complications. Nothing exists in the moment except for him and I. Everything else disappears.
He tugs my leggings over my ass and takes turns lifting my legs to finish stripping the material off without breaking the kiss. His tongue dances with mine, and his teeth graze against my bottom lip. When he bites down harder than usual, I jerk away and meet his eyes. “Is that punishment for not covering up that hickey earlier?”
Desire swirls in his wide pupils. “Not even close.”
“You’re the one who left it on me,” I say breathlessly as he lifts me, his hands cupping my ass.
“That’s because you are mine to mark.” He runs his tongue over my neck, sending shivers scattering over my skin. “Mine to fuck. However and wherever I want.”
Yes, please.
He presses my back against the wall, and I tighten my legs around his waist as he reaches around them to undo his belt.
When I feel his hard length pressing against my panties, I drop my head back, anticipation coiling inside of me. He grips my chin and forces my eyes back to his. “You will look at me while I fuck your tight, young pussy, piccolina.” He nudges my underwear aside and pushes the tip of his cock inside, stretching my opening. “Do you understand? You look away just once, and I’ll stop.”
I nod frantically. “I understand.”
He smirks. “Good fucking girl.” And then he thrusts all the way in in one smooth stroke.
My body shivers from that delicious fullness. “Oh God.”
He holds the backs of my thighs with an iron grip as he starts moving inside of me. He holds my gaze, and the force of his full attention reaches into the farthest corners of my mind, making the boundary between him and I blur. We become one.
My moans grow louder, more desperate.
He clenches his teeth and pumps faster, stretching me to my limits. My release starts to build, and as it does, my eyelids drift closed.
He rams into me once more and stops. “Look at me. I want to see your eyes as you fall apart.”
My blunt nails dig into his shoulders. I follow his command, and when my pussy starts pulsing around his cock, I moan his name.
“Fuck,” he groans. “Say it again, piccolina. I want you chanting my name as you come all over my cock.”
I sob as my orgasm crests. “Gio!”
He helps me ride the wave with his steady thrusts, but soon his own release overtakes him, and he sinks all the way inside of me, pressing his forehead against mine. “Cazzo, this place between your legs, it’s heaven.”
I breathe in his scent and shudder as his cock twitches inside of me. His fingers are so tight on my thighs, I’m sure I’ll have bruises tomorrow, but right now, my body’s oblivious to pain.
Around Giorgio, it sings with pleasure.
