She’s in there, perched on the chaise by the window, a book in her lap, her face soft in the golden glow. The sight of her, so serene, so untouched by the chaos in my chest, ignites a fury I can’t contain. I stop in the doorway, the photo trembling in my hand.
She looks up when I enter, her mouth curving faintly, the kind of small smile she gives easily these days. I don't return it.
What is this?” I growl, my voice low, a blade honed to cut.
I thrust the folder toward her, the paper crinkling as she takes them, her brows drawing together. “You, with Vittorio, at his bar. Months before we married. And your name, tied to the money Renato stole from my father. Explain it.”
She looks down at the papers. I watch her eyes track the photo, numbers, the dates, the places where her name sits neatly alongside the accounts.
“You are tied to the money your father stole from mine,” I say. “Half a million euros. Do you know what that looks like to me?”
Her lips part, but no sound comes. Her hands are frozen, and her silence is a knife twisting in my gut.
“Say something,” I demand, my voice rising, the anger breaking free like a flood. “You sat with him? You helped him fund Renato’s betrayal, knowing what it would cost me?”
She says nothing. The silence stretches, and the more it does, the harder it gets to keep my voice even. “You could explain this. Right now. You could tell me why your face is in that photograph and your name is in those accounts. But you sit there like you owe me nothing.”
She looks away. That is answer enough.
“Do you know what this looks like to me?” My voice is sharp, cutting through the space between us. “You, sitting in front of Greco in one of his bars. You, tied to stolen money. You lied to me the day I asked you about him. You lied when you couldhave given me something I could use to end this. And now I am supposed to believe you are innocent because you sit there looking at me like your silence is an answer.”
Her lips press together, her eyes unreadable. She signs, barely moving her hands. I cannot tell you.
I stare at her, and something cold moves through me. “You cannot, or you will not?” My voice drops lower. “Do you have any idea what that makes me think? That maybe this whole quiet, broken act is just that. An act. Was that just a ploy to make me pity you, to let you slip under my guard?”
Her eyes glisten, a tear slipping down her cheek, but I’m too far gone, the betrayal a fire consuming me. “Did you connive with Renato and Vittorio to get to me? To weaken me from the inside while I was grieving my father? Maybe you have never been as powerless as you want me to believe. Maybe you and your father and Greco have been playing a long game, and I am the mark.”
Her eyes snap back to mine, a flash of something like disbelief in them, but it is gone too quickly.
“Tell me I am wrong,” I say. “Look me in the eye and tell me you did not sit in that bar knowing exactly who he was. Tell me you have not been keeping me close so you can feed him whatever he wants to know. Tell me you did not help your father rob my family blind.”
Her hands stay in her lap. Still.
“You have been sitting in this house, in my bed, letting me protect you, letting me trust you. Letting me believe you were mine while you have been playing me all along.” My chest tightens, the fury and something colder mixing until I can hardly tell them apart.
She shakes her head once, but it is small.
I press on, the words landing heavier than I mean them to. “What about when you told me you loved me? Was that also a lie? Was that just part of it? Letting me think I had something real with you while you were keeping his secrets?”
Her fingers twitch, as if she might sign something, but she doesn’t.
“You let me love you,” I say, my voice low, sharp, unrelenting. “You let me give you every piece of myself while you kept this in your pocket. While you sat across from me knowing you were hiding something that could help me take down the man who has been circling my family for years.”
She looks at me then, and there is something in her eyes I cannot name. Not guilt. Not quite hurt. Something else entirely.
I want her to speak. I want her to deny it so forcefully that I feel like a fool for ever doubting her. I want her to fight me, to demand I take it back. But she just sits there, her silence wrapping around her like a wall.
“Nothing?” My voice is low, but the weight behind it is sharp enough to cut. I lean forward, closing the space between us until there’s nowhere for her to look but at me. “After everything I have given you, after every time I have stood between you and the people who would see you destroyed, you cannot give me that?”
Her fingers curl against her knees, slow and deliberate, as if the motion itself is the only thing keeping her still. She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t sign. The silence stretches, heavy enough that I can hear the steady tick of the clock on the wall.
A muscle in my jaw pulls tight. She could end this with one answer. One truth. Instead, she sits there as though she is made of stone.
The knock at the doorway slices into the tension, but it does not break it.
“Gio.” Tomasso’s voice is clipped, no room for hesitation. “We have movement on Greco. It’s urgent.”
I do not look away from her. My voice is colder when I speak. “We are not finished.”
