Chapter 34 Limits on the Island

Chapter 34 Limits on the Island

Giulia stepped off the plane with the feeling that she had left some part of herself behind in there. Maybe the little control she still pretended to have. The breeze coming off the sea wasn’t strong, but it carried a salty scent that clung to her skin along with the uncomfortable realization that there was nowhere to run here. That was what an island was. A beautiful horizon and zero way out.
She looked around without seeming to. White house, modern lines, too much glass, a pool that blended into the ocean. Nothing about the place matched the word torture, and that was exactly why it unsettled her more. Men like Vicenzo didn’t need damp basements to do what they wanted. They could turn any paradise into hell. She knew that. She had heard the stories.

He walked ahead, hands in the pockets of his still immaculate dress pants, as if they hadn’t just crossed a plane, a time zone, and a wedding that had been more war than celebration. A staff member approached, head lowered, said something in Italian and received a handful of short orders in return. Giulia caught just enough: no one enters the house until he says so.
Great. So that was it. Her, him, and every demon hanging on invisible walls.

“Are you going to stand there?” his voice cut through the air, impatient.

Giulia took a breath, lifted her chin, and moved. She passed him without touching, as if even a centimeter of contact could give away what she wasn’t ready to admit, not even to herself. She walked down the wide hallway into the main living area, feeling the cold floor under her feet, the faint echo of her steps.

“Nice,” she said, because saying something was better than letting the silence swallow everything. “It suits your ego.”

He made a sound that might or might not have been a laugh.

“You think you know me too well, Giulia.”

She turned her head slowly, meeting his gaze, that look that seemed to peel back layers she didn’t even know she had.

“I grew up with men like you.” She shrugged. “You’re not exactly a new puzzle.”

Vicenzo didn’t reply. He just took off his jacket and dropped it over the back of a sofa without caring about order, which for some reason caught her attention. He was too methodical for that. Maybe he was more tired than he let on. Maybe this trip wasn’t just strategy. She pushed the thought away before it gained weight.

“The bedrooms are upstairs.” He tilted his chin toward the staircase. “Explore, if you want. Just don’t leave the property without telling me.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Since when do I have to tell you to breathe?”

“Since everyone wants to use you to get to me,” he shot back, without softness. “And since you still haven’t learned to measure your own value as a target.”

Her stomach twisted slightly. Not because of the concern itself, but because of the way he said “everyone,” as if he included himself. Maybe he did. Maybe he considered himself her most dangerous enemy, and that wasn’t exactly wrong.

“Relax, Ice Heart,” she said, the nickname laced with quiet venom. “I’m not going to throw myself into the sea to make your job easier.”

He held her gaze for a second longer, as if weighing whether it was worth answering. It wasn’t. He turned his back and headed toward a side door that looked like an office. End of conversation. Or pause.

Giulia was left alone in the living room. The silence there was different from the silence on the plane, less technical, more alive. There was the distant sound of waves hitting rocks, the call of some bird she didn’t recognize. She took another deep breath, ran a hand through her hair, adjusting a strand that wasn’t even out of place, and went upstairs.

The main bedroom looked like a magazine spread. Huge bed, light sheets, an entire wall of glass facing the sea. The kind of place that in any other context would mean refuge, rest, a real honeymoon. She walked to the glass, pressed her hand against it, feeling the cool surface. The reflection showed a face that looked older than twenty-four, as if the last few months had stripped layers of youth away.

Honeymoon.

The thought almost made her laugh.

She stepped back, moved around the room, opened a door, found the closet. More doors, the bathroom, more luxury. No blades in sight, no chains, nothing that matched physical punishment. That should have reassured her. It didn’t. Her mind knew that for a man like Vicenzo, sometimes the worst torture was the kind that left no marks on the skin.

She went back into the bedroom, dropped the suitcase on the bed, unzipped it automatically. The folded clothes smelled like home, like another life. She picked up a piece without really seeing it. The fabric slid through her fingers, and suddenly it wasn’t fabric anymore. It was blood.

A door slamming.

She blinked.

The bedroom vanished.

The sound of the door came back whole, as if it were right in front of her. The hallway of the apartment she had shared with Luca appeared too fast, narrow walls, yellowish light. She heard her own voice and his, overlapping, unable to make out the words. Something about money. Something about risk. Her hand held a kitchen knife, the worn handle familiar. She remembered grabbing it for… what? To cook? To defend herself? The line between the two felt too thin.

“Giulia, look at me.”

Luca’s voice came through clearly at one point in the memory. She looked. His eyes were too wide, too worried, his hands raised—not in attack, but in an attempt to calm her down. His chest rose and fell fast. There was something in the air, a desperation she couldn’t tell if it was hers or his.

“If they find out about this…” he started, but the sentence cut off, like torn tape.

She saw her own hand trembling, the knife catching the light. A step. The image jumped. Now there was blood on Luca’s shirt. Dark red spreading, growing. She tried to see the exact moment the cut happened, but it was like trying to focus on a blurred photo. She couldn’t. All she saw was the result: blood, failing breath, his hands moving to his chest.

Giulia took a step back in the island bedroom, almost tripping over the rug.

Her heart raced, her vision still mixed with the hallway of that old apartment. She pressed a hand to her chest as if she could hold her heart in place, feeling the thin fabric of her dress stick to her damp palm. The metallic taste that came with the memory lingered for a few seconds, even though there was no blood smell there, only salt and expensive perfume soaked into the curtains.
“Shit,” she whispered to no one.

She dropped onto the edge of the bed, shoulders sinking, elbows on her knees, hands tangled in her hair. She was shaking. Not like someone who had watched a sad movie, but like someone who had woken up in the middle of a crime and didn’t know if she had been the perpetrator or the witness.

She knew one thing: the memory was there, just broken, badly cut. And the more she tried to piece it together, the more her brain glitched.

“You had the knife. You saw blood. You argued with him.”

The three sentences looped in her head like a tired judge’s accusation.

Giulia took a deep breath, stood slowly, testing if her legs could still hold her weight, and went to the bathroom. She turned the tap all the way on, shoved her hands under the water, then splashed some on her face. The water running down her skin helped push the memory back into that foggy place where it had lived for months.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Dilated eyes, paler skin than she liked to admit, hair slightly out of place. Nothing a good performance couldn’t fix.

“You’re not going to lose it here,” she told her reflection, jaw tightening. “Not in the house of the man who wants to see you bleed.”

She dried her face, adjusted her dress, took another deep breath, and left the room.

Exploring the house felt like both curiosity and strategy. If Vicenzo thought the island was his, that was his problem. She was going to map every corner of that place. You never knew when it might come in handy.

She went downstairs calmly, her heels marking a rhythm that helped organize her thoughts. The living room was empty, the office door closed. Sunlight poured in from the terrace, hitting the sea. She crossed the room, pushed the glass door open, and stepped outside.

The view was indecently beautiful. Ridiculously blue sea, a strip of private sand, some rocks. The pool stretched toward the edge like it wanted to compete with the ocean. Giulia rested her hands on the railing, feeling the warm metal, letting her eyes wander.

She walked along the side of the house, found a staircase leading down to the beach. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching and went down. The sand gave under her heels, so she slipped them off without ceremony, hooked one on each finger, and started walking near the water.

The sea came and went, wetting her feet up to her ankles. The contrast between the cold water and the warmth of her body helped calm the remaining tremor. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, listening only to the waves, and for a moment she almost managed to pretend she was there on vacation. Almost.

She took a few more steps and, without warning, another fragment of the past hit.

A door slamming.

His voice, louder now.

“They’ll come after you, Giulia! Don’t you understand?”

Something hitting the floor.

She opened her eyes, back on the beach, her chest tight.

“Great. Now I get wind-sponsored flashbacks,” she muttered, kicking the water, soaking the hem of her dress.

She turned to head back and stopped. At the top of the stairs, Vicenzo stood there, arms crossed, watching.

He didn’t speak right away. Just stood there, taking up space with that presence that always seemed too big for any setting.

“I thought you said it was better if I didn’t leave the property,” she said, lifting a sandy foot to show she was still “inside.” “Still on the edge.”

“And I thought you were more afraid of me than of the sea,” he replied, stepping down one stair, then another. “Good to know I’m losing ground.”

She climbed halfway up, not backing down, stopping one step below him, leaving her a few inches shorter. Perfect. He liked that. She didn’t.

“If I were afraid of you, Vicenzo, I wouldn’t have signed that contract,” she narrowed her eyes, watching his reaction. “Fear is a luxury. All I have are bad choices.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close.

“You really think you chose anything?” he asked, tilting his head. “You showed up at my door desperate. I just gave shape to your downfall.”

She felt the hit and didn’t step back. Straightened her shoulders, wiped sand off her hand on the side of her dress.

“And you think that makes you strong?”

He didn’t answer immediately. His dark eyes moved over her face, lower, then back. Giulia felt his gaze brush her skin like a touch and hated the shiver that followed.

“I don’t think I’m anything,” he said at last. “I am what the world made me.”

She laughed, short.

“Too dramatic for a man who launders money in a luxury resort.”

“And you’re too dramatic for someone who almost killed her own boyfriend.”

The ground vanished for half a second. She gripped the railing harder than she meant to. The accusation wasn’t new, but there, alone, with the water drying on her skin, it felt heavier.

“‘Almost’?” she forced her voice steady. “I thought for you I was already guilty, no quotes needed.”

He stepped down the last stair, stopping a step away from her. Salt, cologne, something that was just him. His shadow fell across part of her face.

“If you were sure of your innocence, you wouldn’t freeze every time you hear his name,” he said quietly, without anger. “You wouldn’t tremble when I say ‘knife.’”

Giulia held her breath for a second. He had seen it. Of course he had. He saw everything.

“Congratulations. Observant,” she shot back, exhaling. “Want a prize?”

“I want details,” he said immediately. “About the day Luca died.”

Her throat went dry. Her hands, still holding her shoes, tightened too hard, fingers digging in as if it were flesh, not leather.

“I already told you what I remembered,” she said, her voice lower than she wanted.

“You told me what was convenient,” he didn’t blink. “I want the rest.”

She laughed again, but there was no humor in it.

“You want me to invent a story that fits your need for revenge? That I can’t do. I deal in images. And mine have gaps.”

“Which gaps?” he raised his voice slightly, impatient. “You always repeat the same three scenes. Door, argument, blood. What are you running from?”

Giulia climbed one more step, until she was nearly at his height. Eye to eye, no room to look away.

“If I knew, do you really think I wouldn’t have used it against you?” she narrowed her eyes. “Or in your favor, whatever worked?”

He studied her, searching for a lie. She let him look. Let him see the exhaustion, the barely hidden fear, the guilt she didn’t know where to place.

“Then try to remember,” his voice dropped, but gained weight. “Now.”

She took a breath, irritated by the command as if it were that simple. Still, she closed her eyes. Not because he told her to, but because she was tired of running from her own mind.
Door slamming. Voices.

“You don’t understand, Giulia!” Luca.

“I understand they’re using you!” she, almost shouting.

Her hand in the kitchen drawer. The blade flashing.

Her chest tightened. She forced the image forward.

The kitchen. The counter. Luca turning away for a second. Her approaching with the knife, heart racing. He turns suddenly, hand reaching out.

“Give me that.”

“Don’t touch me.”

A shove. His body hitting hers. A strike she doesn’t know who started. Then blood.

Giulia opened her eyes, breath coming fast, like she had been running.

“That’s it,” she said quickly, as if afraid the fragments would slip away. “I remember grabbing the knife, I remember him trying to take it from me, I remember the impact… and then there’s already blood. There’s no middle. No moment where it goes in. It just… happens. And I don’t know if it was me, if it was him, if someone else was there.”

Vicenzo studied her in silence. She was close enough that he could see the faint sheen of sweat on her forehead, the dilated pupils, the slight tremor at the corner of her mouth. It didn’t look like acting. At least not bad acting.

“Why did you grab the knife?” he asked slowly. “To cut bread?”

She clenched her teeth.

“I was scared,” she admitted, reluctantly. “People were pressuring Luca, threatening him. I thought… if someone showed up at that door, I wasn’t going to be an easy target. That’s it. It’s not pretty, but that’s it.”

He tilted his head, as if trying to get behind her eyes and see what she saw. He couldn’t. That irritated him.

“Fear makes people make mistakes,” he concluded, half to himself. “And mistakes cost lives.”

“Fear also keeps people alive,” she shot back. “It’s what kept you alive in that orphanage, wasn’t it? Don’t start preaching now.”

His jaw locked at the mention of the orphanage. Giulia saw it. A point.

“The difference is I remember exactly who pulled the trigger,” he replied coldly. “And you keep saying you want the truth, but you don’t have the guts to face the possibility that it was you.”
She felt like he had pressed a finger into an open wound.

“And you keep saying you want revenge, but you’re terrified of finding out you’re sleeping with the wrong woman,” she fired back, without breathing. “Because then there’s no excuse left to keep me on a leash. What’s left then, Vicenzo? What’s left if I’m innocent?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. What came after that “if” was exactly what he had avoided thinking about from the start. If she were innocent, what justified everything? The contract. The humiliation. The marks he left on her to convince himself he was punishing someone, not giving in.

The answer came, dry:

“What’s left is that you’re the granddaughter of the man who had my parents killed. That would already be enough.”

She took a deep breath, her chest rising, fingers tightening even more around the shoes in her hand.

“And yet you married me under your last name,” she pointed out. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your logic is always fighting your actions.”