Chapter 35 35

Chapter 35 35
Chiara's Decision

Chiara had been watching. For weeks now. Watching Isabella question Giovanni's revenge. Watching Giovanni waver. Doubt. Soften. To see fourteen years of determined sense knocked off-balance by Lorenzo Vinci's daughter. It made her sick. Made her furious. Made her want to scream. She recalled the night she’d found Giovanni after his family had been killed. She had been nineteen. Working for his father already. Learning the business. She recalled the call coming in. The panic. Racing to the house.

She remembered finding Giovanni. Sixteen years old. His throat slit. Scrabbling along the floor to his brother’s side. Addressing him despite his dying. Never mind that he ought to be dead by now. She remembered holding him. Palm\[IMG\]/Sit\]ting hands on his throat to stanch the blood. Calling for help. Assuring him that they were going to fix it. Promising him revenge. She recalled years that came afterward. Building him up from nothing. Then, when he was ready to die, giving him a sense of purpose. By his side in every hunt. Every kill. Every step toward vengeance. Being his constant. His rock. His most loyal soldier.

And now Isabella appeared. And suddenly all of that was up for grabs. Suddenly Giovanni was looking at the daughter of the man who accursed his family with something other than hate. Suddenly he was soft. Vulnerable. Human. In a world that he literally could not afford to exist in. Things that could get him killed. Chiara discovered herself in the garden one night. Smoking. One she’d learned years ago on high-stakes missions. When kills went wrong. When plans fell apart. She was so wrapped up in her contemplations she never heard him coming until he spoke.

"Troubled, my dear?" His voice was gentle. Concerned. Chiara turned. Immediately defensive.

"I am fine." She inhaled on her cigarette again.

"You are not," Moretti said. He just took a seat on the bench of stone next to her without bothering to ask. “Here you have given up your life for a man, and this is the reward? That must be difficult. Painful even."

“He’s not in love with her,” Chiara said sharply. "He is just confused. Distracted. Isabella is manipulating him. Making him doubt everything. But it is temporary. He will remember who she is. What her father did. He’ll exact his revenge and then it will be finished.”

"Will he?" Moretti asked. He leaned back. Relaxed. "Because to me right now, Giovanni has completed revenge. He is tired. Conflicted. Doubting everything he believed for fourteen years. And then Isabella gives him a reason to stop. To exist as something more than a weapon of vengeance. To be human."

He paused. Let that sink in. “And that leaves you where, exactly?” Chiara's hands clenched.
"What do you mean?"

“I mean," Moretti said carefully, "that you have constructed your entire life on Giovanni's revenge. Around being his right hand. His most trusted soldier. His partner in all of this. But what happens once revenge is exacted? When Giovanni passes on that? When he lives a completely different life. One preferably that Isabella is in and not you?”

“That’s just not going to be the case,” Chiara said. But her voice wavered. She couldn’t really believe it.

"Will it not?" Moretti leaned forward now. "He is already protecting her. Already defending her choices. There it is, beginning to no longer regard her merely as Lorenzo's daughter. And you. Loyal, dedicated Chiara. You are being pushed aside. Made to stand by while the daughter of the man who packed up Giovanni’s wife and child and ruined his family steps into your role at his side.”

Chiara looked at the cigarette in her hand. Watching the stream of smoke through the night air. "What are you saying?"

“I'm telling you," Moretti held out his hands, "Maybe it's time you thought about yourself. Your own power. Y’know, your own purpose aside from following Giovanni’s shadow. Instead of waiting for him to notice you the way you want to be noticed.”

He turned to face her fully. "You are brilliant, Chiara. Ruthless when you need to be. Capable. Intelligent. You might run your own company? Command your own respect. Build your own empire. But as long as you cling to Giovanni, because all you are is waiting for him to see something in you other than a soldier second best is all you will ever be. Second choice. The one on which he leans, and never loves.”

“I don’t want to lead my own organization,” Chiara said. Her voice was quiet. "I want—" She stopped. Could not finish.

"What do you want?" Moretti asked gently. Like he genuinely cared. Chiara could not answer. Because the impossible was what she wanted. She wanted Giovanni to look at her. Not as his loyal soldier. Not as his childhood friend. Not as the woman who had helped him build his empire. But as a woman. She preferred him to give her a look like the one he was starting to give Isabella. With warmth. With softness. And with something that could be love.

She wanted fourteen years of devotion to be something more than partnership. More than friendship. She wanted him to choose her. But he never would. She had always known that. Had accepted it. Until along comes Isabella, and pretense becomes impossible.

“I want what I cannot have," Chiara whispered finally. Moretti nodded. As if he had such an answer in mind.

''Maybe it's time to have a new want. Something achievable. And gives you power — rather than keeping you sitting on the sidelines pining for occasional scraps of attention from a man who sees you as a sister if he notices you at all. Who will never see you the way you want to be seen.”

"What are you proposing?" Chiara asked. Part of her had known from the second Moretti walked in. From the time he began this conversation. Moretti's smile was calculated. Predatory.

"I want to team up with you. You and me. we take Isabella out of the equation. Permanently. We bring Giovanni’s attention back to his Revenge. Back to what matters. Before Giovanni’s doubts erect their invasive roots and bring ruin, when Dante De Santis is just a whisper in the wind booted at Vera this time we do away with him. And then—" He paused. Let the silence build. "Then we remove Giovanni."

Chiara's head snapped up. "What?"

"Giovanni is weakened," Moretti said blandly. As if he were talking about the weather. "Distracted. Questioning everything. He has become a liability. To himself, and to the organization he created. But you and I, we could take his outfit. His power. His resources. His territory. Build something stronger. Something that didn’t come with the burden of his family’s trauma. Something that actually makes sense."

Chiara stood abruptly. "You are insane. Giovanni is my friend. My partner. I would never—"

"Is what?" Moretti interrupted. He stood as well. "Your friend? Your leader? The man you love who does not love you in return? Wake up, Chiara. Giovanni is using you. He has always been using you. You've given him fourteen years of your life, and what has he ever done for you? Nothing. Now he is dumping you for Lorenzo Vinci's daughter. The daughter of the man who killed his family. Well, doesn't that just say everything about how little you matter to him?”

Chiara's mind raced. Betray Giovanni? Impossible. She could never. Would never. Except. She contemplated seeing him with Isabella. About the way that he’d look at her. About being sidelined. Over fourteen years of devotion -- for nothing. About always being second. Always having to be the soldier, not the woman. I would never sell Giovanni out,” she said. But her voice lacked conviction. Even she could hear it.

Moretti straightened his jacket. "You will think about it. Don’t feel like you have to decide right now. But think about it carefully. Because you know, deep down inside, that I am right. You already know that Giovanni is picking her and not you. The only issue is whether you’re OK with that, whether you watch them together for the rest of your life or do something about it. Whether you seize your power.”

He walked away. His footfalls receding along the garden path. Leaving Chiara alone with thoughts she never wanted to think. With a choice that scared her. By realizing that perhaps just, Moretti was right. Perhaps she should stop hoping for Giovanni to notice her. Time to stop being faithful to someone who would never love her in return. Time to choose herself for once in her life instead of always choosing him. But could she betray Giovanni? Would she act as Moretti’s, to — what was it Clara had said? — hurt him that way? The man to whom she had already devoted her very life? The little boy she’d rescued fourteen years before? She did not know. And nothing scared her more than uncertainty.