Chapter 35 Let’s See Who Breaks First

Chapter 35 Let’s See Who Breaks First


For a second, the two of them just stood there staring at each other, the staircase acting as an improvised neutral ground. The sea below kept crashing, indifferent.

Vicenzo was the first to break eye contact. He looked back toward the house, crossed his arms again, as if he needed to cover his own chest.

“The whole house is yours—except the exit,” he said, returning to that practical tone. “You can walk around, open drawers, snoop wherever you want. Just don’t touch my office.”

“Because you’re afraid I’ll find something that compromises you?” she shot back immediately.

“Because I still have something you don’t control,” he replied without thinking.

She gave a half-smile, the kind that cuts more than it comforts.

“Still,” she corrected.

He ignored the jab.

“Tonight, we talk for real,” he said. “No half-stories. No more of this ‘I don’t really remember’ bullshit. You want justice for Luca? So do I. Then you’re going to give me everything in your head. Even if it hurts you. Even if it hurts me.”

A chill ran up her spine. It wasn’t just the promise of interrogation. It was the even if it hurts me coming from him. From Vicenzo. She had never heard him admit pain as a possibility. That unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.

“And what if there’s nothing else?” she asked, her voice slipping into a tone she couldn’t fully control. “What if all I have are these broken pieces?”

He climbed the last step between them, stopping so close she felt the heat of his breath brush her skin.

“Then we break you a little more until something whole shows up,” he said quietly. “One way or another, tonight I start finding the truth, Giulia. And so do you.”

She held his gaze for another second, her heart hammering, then moved past him and climbed the rest of the stairs. She didn’t look back. She didn’t want him to see how much those words had shaken her.

When she reached the living room, she heard the office door open behind her. The sharp click of the latch, firm footsteps moving away. He was going to bury himself in reports, numbers, war strategies—because that was what he knew how to control. She, on the other hand, had to deal with a battlefield where the enemy was her own memory.

She walked into the kitchen, opening cabinets at random. Glasses, plates, nothing unusual. She opened a drawer. Cutlery. The sight of a knife gleaming there made her stomach tighten. She shut the drawer too fast, like she had seen a snake.

“Coward,” she muttered to herself, angry.

She stood there for a few seconds, her hand still resting on the closed drawer. The wood felt cold under her palm, but her skin burned. She took a slow breath, forcing the air in and out until the trembling eased.

She opened another drawer, deliberately. Wooden spoons, a wine opener, nothing threatening. She picked up the opener just to have something in her hands that wasn’t memory, turning the metal between her fingers, the repetitive motion helping her settle.

It wasn’t just about remembering. It was about what to do with the memory when it came back whole.

She leaned against the counter, ankles crossed, feeling the cold floor under her bare feet, and let her head fall back, staring at the ceiling. The weight of her last name, his last name, Luca in the middle, everything that had been torn apart along the way… it was all there in that house, floating in the air along with the smell of coffee that hadn’t been made and whiskey that hadn’t been poured yet.

“Every time I get close to the end of that memory, something pulls me back.”

The thought came with irritating clarity. Either it was fear, or it was protection. From what? From herself? From him? From Luca?

She closed her eyes again for a moment. Not to force the memory now, but to remember something else: Luca’s face laughing, before all that shit. The way he held her camera crooked, asking her to pose. The sense of peace he brought when he walked into a room. Guilt tightened in her chest like a hand.

“If you were here, you’d laugh in my face,” she murmured, opening her eyes. “You’d say I walked straight into the one deal you would’ve told me to run from.”

She pushed herself forward, put the opener back, closed every cabinet like she was ending the subject. Walked through the living room again, went upstairs, into the bedroom. The suitcase still open on the bed, clothes waiting. She changed out of the dress into something lighter—shorts and a plain t-shirt—tied her hair into a high bun, washed her face again, as if she could erase the look of someone cornered.

When she was done, she looked at herself in the mirror. That version of her looked more… raw. Less party, less makeup, less mask. Maybe that was better. If they were going to “talk without masks,” she might as well take it literally. He understood armor. She could try something else.

She sat on the edge of the bed, picked up her phone, saw the pile of notifications she didn’t dare open there: messages from unknown numbers, a few old contacts, a couple of missed calls from a number she recognized as the Salvatore family. She blocked one more without thinking. Those weren’t voices she needed to hear tonight.

For a moment, she considered texting Clara, asking for help with the technical side of memory—videos, audio, anything that could confirm or deny what she felt. But she remembered the unspoken rule: on that island, he had isolated the two of them on purpose. If she tried to bypass that, he would find out. And the last thing she needed was more ammunition in his hands.

She dropped the phone beside her, lay back on the bed, arms spread for a second, staring at the white ceiling. A weak laugh slipped out.

“Honeymoon,” she said, just to hear how it sounded out loud. “Only if it’s with the devil.”

The ceiling didn’t answer, obviously. But the house had a way of swallowing everything she said and giving it back as heavy silence.

Time passed in a strange rhythm. She didn’t know if it had been minutes or an hour. She only knew the sun was lower when the sound of the door downstairs slammed harder than before. Footsteps echoed up the stairs. Her body reacted before her mind: her stomach tightened, her breathing turned shallow.

She stood, adjusted her shirt, ran a quick hand through her hair like she was stepping onto a stage. It wasn’t that different. It was a performance. Two actors and a script neither of them had fully memorized.

The bedroom door opened without a knock.

Vicenzo walked in. He had taken off his tie, his shirt open two more buttons, sleeves rolled up to his forearms. Less CEO, more man—which for Giulia was worse, because it made everything more dangerous.

He pushed the door closed with his foot, took a few steps in, eyes sweeping the room before landing on her. No rush. He was the kind of predator who liked to measure the ground before moving.

“So,” he said simply. “Shall we begin?”

Giulia crossed her arms like a shield and leaned against the side of the dresser. She didn’t sit. She didn’t want to give the impression this was therapy. It wasn’t. It was interrogation. Maybe execution.

“You’re the one who wants the truth so badly,” she said, arms crossed, posture saying I’m not running, even if her body was on alert.

He moved to the middle of the room, keeping a distance that wasn’t exactly safe, but not invasive either. Not yet.

“I want facts,” he corrected. “Truth is what you use to convince yourself you’re not as guilty as you look.”

She tilted her head, jaw tightening, but kept her voice steady.

“You want to break me until I fit the story you already decided on,” she shot back. “Don’t pretend this is altruism for Luca.”

His eyes darkened slightly, but his mouth didn’t move. Only his hands, closing for a second as if gripping something invisible.

“Sit,” he said, pointing at the bed. Not a suggestion. An order.

Giulia raised an eyebrow.

“Afraid to stand at the same height as me?”

“I’m tired of looking down at you pretending you’re in control,” he snapped back without hesitation. “Sit, Giulia.”

She held his gaze for three seconds that stretched longer. Then, in a calculated move, she walked around the bed and sat on the edge, hands on her thighs, ankles crossed, like she was in a business meeting—not a trial.

He stayed standing in front of her, a few steps away. It annoyed her.

“Are you going to stand there posing as an inquisitor or are you actually going to participate?” she provoked. “My life wasn’t the only one that turned to shit that night.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. He stepped closer, close enough that his knee almost brushed hers.

“Good,” he inhaled, forcing calm. “Tonight, no masks. You said on the beach you remember up to the impact and the blood. I want it from the beginning. Don’t give me the edited version you told the first time. Give me the ugly parts too.”

Giulia leaned forward slightly, elbows on her thighs, fingers interlaced. She looked down at her hands for a second. They were the same hands from the memory. Hands with a knife, hands with blood. She swallowed.

“I went home angry,” she began, choosing her words carefully. “I had found out people were pressuring Luca over money. Because of you, your world, my last name. Everything mixed. I was scared and angry at the same time. He tried to calm me down, like he always did. That was the first time it didn’t work.”

Vicenzo didn’t move. Just a slight nod for her to continue.

“I grabbed the knife because…” she tightened her fingers, ashamed to admit it. “Because I wanted to feel like I had control over something. I wasn’t going to let anyone touch me or him without fighting back. Even if it was a stupid fight.”

She exhaled, laughing without humor.

“We argued. He said if I got involved, it would only get worse. That I didn’t know who he had messed with. That if I talked, they’d come after me too. I said I didn’t care, that I had lived with a target on my back since I was born. He tried to take the knife from me. We collided.” Her eyes drifted for a second. “And then there was just blood.”

Silence.

Vicenzo watched her heavily, searching for lies in the pauses, in the details. He didn’t find as many as he wanted. What he found was chaos.

“And you didn’t see anyone else,” he concluded slowly. “Didn’t hear anyone else. Just you, him, knife, blood.”

“If I were sure, I wouldn’t be replaying this for months,” she said, tired. “I don’t know if I stabbed him, if he ran into the blade trying to take it, if someone else was there… I just remember dropping to my knees and trying to stop a hole that wouldn’t close. That’s what I have.”

She looked up at him.

“If that’s enough for you to condemn me, then do it,” her chin trembled a millimeter; she held it. “Because I’ve condemned myself a thousand times since that day.”

Vicenzo took a long breath, filling his chest, then let it out slowly. His instinct wanted a simple verdict: guilty. Guilty was comfortable. It would allow him to turn everything he felt into hatred, end of story. But the breaks in her voice, the way her hands trembled even when she tried to stay steady, the way the memory came too fragmented to be a weapon… none of it matched a cold-blooded killer.

He stepped back, like he needed space to think, ran a hand through his hair, irritated with himself.

“It’s not enough,” he admitted. “Not to clear you, not to bury you.”

She let out a weak laugh.

“Welcome to my hell.”

He ignored it, but his gaze softened by a degree.

“Tonight, we go deeper,” he said, and she almost protested, but he raised a hand, cutting her off. “I’m not talking about torturing you until you invent an answer I want to hear. I’m talking about pulling out everything your brain is hiding. Even if I have to relive that night with you, step by step.”

She frowned.

“You weren’t there, Vicenzo.”

“I’ve been there since the day Rafael called me saying Luca took a knife to the chest,” his voice came low, hard. “I just don’t know from which angle yet.”

He stepped back again, as if ending the session for now, and moved toward the door. His hand rested on the handle, but he paused before turning it, not looking at her.

“Walk around the house,” he said, more neutral now. “See if any place pulls out memories you’re not letting surface. Tonight, you tell me. No filter.”

“And if I don’t remember anything else?” she asked, her voice coming out thinner than she wanted.

He turned his head just enough for her to see his profile, the sharp jaw, the dark eyes.

“Then we’ll find out if your brain is protecting you… or if your guilt is lying to you,” he replied firmly. “One way or another, Giulia, tonight I get closer to the truth than I ever have. And so do you.”

The handle turned, the click sounded too loud in the quiet room. He opened the door, left without looking at her again, and pulled it shut behind him. The sound left something in the air, like a sealed pact.

Giulia stood there for a few seconds, eyes fixed on the wood of the door as if she could see through it. Her breathing was still fast, but her chest no longer hurt just from fear. There was something else there now, a twisted, almost sick expectation of finally stopping living trapped inside a half-memory.

She let herself fall back onto the bed, arms open, staring at the ceiling once more. The recessed lights, the perfect white, all of it felt distant. What felt close was his promise echoing in her head.

Tonight, no masks.

Tonight, step by step.

She closed her eyes, felt her heart pounding against her ribs, like it wanted to escape.

“Fine, Ice Heart,” she murmured into the empty room. “Let’s see who breaks first.”

Outside, somewhere in the house, a glass door opened, letting in the sound of the waves. The day slowly faded over the island, painting the sea in darker tones. The house breathed with them, stretching time until night.

And when it came, Giulia knew, neither of them would walk away from that conversation the same.

And that was exactly what terrified her.