Chapter 40 40

Chapter 40 40


"What are you doing here?" Isabella sucked in a shocked breath as Giovanni took his mouth from hers. She turned around in his arms to meet his gaze, her glacier blue eyes blinking rapidly in shock and relief.

"Saving you," Giovanni said tersely. He had one arm around her waist and the other steadying his gun. The mask was on, but she saw the tautness in his recessing jaw, how his amber eyes darted here and there. “Chiara rang Moretti as soon as you'd gone. Told him about the painting. I realized it was a trap."

The accusation landed on Isabella like a punch. Chiara had betrayed them. Had endangered all their lives.

"Silas—" Isabella began, trying to peer through the smoke for Silas.
"Is handling it. Come on."

Giovanni walked through the smoky gallery with assurance, as if he could see beyond the confusion. He held Isabella to him, using his body as a shield from the gunfire that still echoed at the front of the building. They hit the back door and Giovanni let it fly on open, subtlety wasn't his thing.

They barreled down the alley as several more of Moretti's men turned the corner. Isabella watched them lift their weapons, saw the train of their faces.

Giovanni did not hesitate. He aimed and fired three shots in quick successive, and two men went down at once. The third dove for cover. Giovanni pushed Isabella behind a garbage bin, his body in front of hers.

"Stay down!" he ordered.

The ensuing gunbattle was short and savage. Giovanni was lethal business anyway she had seen the man in action, but never this way. Every shot was precise. Every movement calculated. He fired from behind the dumpster, dived back to cover before incoming fire was able to reach him, and darted off to another spot.

Isabella beheld him, but not the man with whom she was wedded for revenge. She saw the 16 year old boy who outlived his family’s slaughter. Who became dangerous because danger met him early. Who weaponized his grief ’cause no one ever taught him to heal.

But when the shooting was over, four men lay on the ground. Giovanni was unhurt but still panting. His adrenaline and exertion had his chest heaving. He looked back at Isabella, eyes wide behind the mask.

"Are you hurt?" His hands were on her at once, searching for injuries with a solicitousness that bore an odd contrast to the savagery he’d just displayed.

"No, I—"

She did not get to finish. Giovanni yanked her to him, his hand snarling in her chestnut hair, the other pressing her so tight against him. For a second they simply stood, in a filthy alley of violence and destruction, clutching one another like life rafts.

Isabella pushed her face into his chest, and rested it against his pounding heart. He was warm and solid and alive. They were both alive. Somehow, impossibly, they had survived.

Giovanni led her to a safe place, an apartment in an area of the city that Isabella didn’t recognize. The building was old, unremarkable, the sort of place that people walked past without even looking. They went up three flights of stairs, Giovanni looking back over his shoulder every minute.

Only when they were inside, the door locked and bolted, did he relax a little. With hands that trembled faintly, he tore his mask off.

His expression was strained with stress. The scars on his brow and cheeks were raisined on his skin. His amber eyes seemed morph almost gold in the low light—wild with some emotion Isabella couldn’t quite place. Fear, maybe. Or rage. Or something else entirely.

“Let me look at the drive,” he said.

Isabella handed it over. Her fingers grazed his, and she felt the shake in them. He was as unsettled as he pretended not to be.

They perched on the threadbare couch while Giovanni fired up his laptop. The apartment was minimally appointed, obviously intended merely as a place to hang your hat for the time being. But it felt safe, removed from the chaos outside.

Giovanni plugged in the drive, and together they watched her father’s confession. Isabella had already viewed it once, yet again with Giovanni by her side was another experience entirely.
She watched everything as he reacted. The way his jaw tensed when Lorenzo told him about the blackmail. How his fists would clench when Lorenzo spoke of the surveillance photos of young Isabella. The way his eyes had shut momentarily when Lorenzo said the name Moretti.

When it was over, Giovanni had sat for a long time speechless. He sat glumly in front of his blank laptop screen as if it held answers he desperately sought.

"He done it to save yer life," he at last spoke. His voice was hollow, empty. “Moretti threatened you, and your father killed my family to protect you.”
"I am sorry," Isabella whispered. The words sounded clumsy, but she didn't know what else to say.

"For what?" Giovanni looked round at her. "You were thirteen. You did not know. You had no part in it."

His fists were tight on his thighs. “He's been lying to me for fourteen years. Using my grief. My rage. Making me his weapon as he enjoyed my vengeance. And I—"

His voice broke. The sound of it was coarse and painful to the ear. "I trusted him. Loved him like a father. And he was the one that also had my real father killed.”

Isabella leaned in, rolling off the couch to kneel by his chair. She had to be on his level, he had to see her.

"Giovanni—"

"I have killed three humans for him," Giovanni said. His voice was hollow, haunted. "Marco Bellini. Paulo Rossi. Antonio Greco. I killed them believing it would avenge my family. But I was just tying off Moretti's loose ends. I am the same as your father. Worse, because at least Lorenzo was defending someone he loved. I was just—"

"Stop," Isabella interrupted firmly. She leaned forward and lifted his chin with her hands, making him turn his eyes to face hers rather than the ghosts within his head. "And your family was killed when you were sixteen. Moretti manipulated a traumatized child. That is not your fault."

"Is it not?" Giovanni asked bitterly. "I chose revenge. I chose to hunt them down. I married you to punish your father. Every choice was mine."

“Every decision was made by a boy who never had the opportunity to heal,” Isabella countered. Her thumbs brushed over his cheekbones and the raised lines of his scars. “A lad whose grief was weaponized by someone he trusted. Giovanni, you are also a victim.”

I'm a killer, Giovanni said, tonelessly. "Just like your father. Just like Moretti. Just like—"

Isabella kissed him.

She did not plan it. Not thinking ahead whether it was appropriate or right or too soon. She just wanted him to stop ripping himself apart. Wanted him to see himself as something other than a weapon or a monster.

Giovanni froze for a heartbeat. He sat bolt upright with astonishment. Then he was kissing her back, fierce and hungry and a little bit broken. His hands gripped her waist, lifting her into his lap. Her fingers ran through his black hair, which felt soft and thick between her fingers.
This kiss was not at all like the soft one she'd given him in his study after kissing his scars. That was gentle, tender, offered a way of comfort. This was raw and intense. Fourteen years of grief and rage, and loneliness spilling into the space between them. It was messy, imperfect and it was just what they both needed.

They separated, both panting and Giovanni leaned his head against Nattie’s. His eyes were closed, his breath uneven.

“This is nuts,” he said.

"Probably the worst," Isabella agreed. Her hands were still locked in his hair. She couldn’t seem to force herself to let go.

"You are Lorenzo Vinci's daughter."

"You killed my father."

"We are both damaged."

"Completely broken."

"This cannot work."

"It should not work."

But neither of them pulled away. Giovanni's hands seized her waist. Isabella inched nearer, the space between them all but gone.

Giovanni’s phone rang, and the spell was broken like a hammer to glass. He swore softly in Italian and drew it from his pocket. Isabella slipped off his lap with great reluctance, shivering at the sudden absence of his body heat.

'Yes,' replied Giovanni, all his face darkening with what he heard. Isabella gazed at the change, the veiling of a naked man by a fully clothed formality that served as a Don’s mask despite no covering over his face. His jaw set. His eyes went cold. His whole posture changed.

"Understood," he said finally. "We will be there."

He ended the call and turned to Isabella. His face was tight with strain.

"That was Silas. He and the rest of them left. But Moretti knows we've got the evidence. He has called a meeting. All the major families. All his allies. He’ll spin it, say that we are liars, evidence is made up.”

"Can he do that?" Isabella asked. Dread curled in her stomach.

"He's been on the job for fourteen years," said Giovanni, his voice grim. He rose, moving about the small living room as if he were a caged animal. "He is a master manipulator. Without corroborating evidence, without witnesses—"

“Is it not sufficient, my father’s own confession?”

“It’s the word of a dead man.” Giovanni's hands clenched into fists. “Lorenzo was lying to protect you, frame Moretti, pin it on someone else”

He whirled to face her with his amber eyes. “There is one person who could be of aid to us. One argukmeant from the start, who knows what really happen to Moretti."

"Who?" Isabella in quired, though she already had a pretty fair idea.

Giovanni’s face was grim, and something that could have been shame flitted across it. "Dante De Santis. The enemy I have been attempting to take down for fourteen years. The only one who might be able to prove Moretti is guilty.”