Chapter 64 Safe House
"He needs rest. Real rest. No more running, no more fighting, or he won't survive."
The doctor's voice was clinical. Detached. He'd seen worse than Cedric. Much worse.
Dr. Vasquez. Late fifties. Salt-and-pepper hair slicked back. Hands that moved with practiced efficiency. No questions. No judgment. Just work.
He packed his medical bag. Clicked it shut.
"Keep the wound clean. Change the dressing twice daily. If he develops a fever above 101, call me immediately." He looked at Gianni. "And keep him calm. Stress is as dangerous as infection right now."
"Understood."
Vasquez left without another word.
The penthouse was silent.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan. Lights stretching endlessly in every direction. Luxury that felt sterile. Empty.
Cedric lay on the leather couch. Fresh bandages wrapped around his chest. Pain medication making everything soft and distant.
Gianni sat in the chair across from him. Elbows on his knees. Hands clasped. Watching.
Always watching.
"This is my life now?" Cedric's voice was rough. Tired. "Running and hiding?"
"Temporarily. Until we neutralize Dante."
"And how do we do that?"
"I'm working on it."
Cedric's hand reached out. Grabbed Gianni's wrist. The grip was weak but insistent.
"No more secrets. Remember?"
Gianni's jaw tightened. He looked at their hands. At the way Cedric's fingers couldn't quite close all the way around his wrist.
"There's a reason Dante wants you dead specifically." His voice was careful. Controlled. "It's not just about punishing me."
"What reason?"
"You're my weakness." Gianni met his eyes. "As long as you're alive, I'm compromised. I'll choose you over the family, over the business, over everything. Dante knows that. So to get me back under control, he needs to eliminate you."
"Comforting."
"But there's more." Gianni's throat worked. "Dante has... information. About your father's death. Details I never told you."
The room temperature dropped.
Cedric's hand went very still.
"What details?"
Gianni looked away. Toward the windows. The city lights.
Anywhere but at Cedric's face.
"Your father didn't die because of the debt."
Silence.
Heavy and suffocating.
"What?"
"The debt was already paid off." Gianni's voice was flat now. Empty. "Three days before he died. I used my own money. Cleared it completely."
Cedric sat up. Pain flared through his chest. He ignored it.
"Then why..."
"He figured out who I was." Gianni's hands clenched together. "He saw me watching you one day after school. He was picking you up. He saw the way I looked at you. And he started digging."
"Digging how?"
"Private investigator. Cheap one. But effective enough." Gianni's knuckles went white. "He connected me to the Falcone family. Connected the timing of his debt payoff to my interest in you. And he put it together."
"Put what together?"
"That I'd orchestrated everything. The debt. The games. All of it. To get leverage over you eventually."
Cedric couldn't breathe.
"He threatened to tell you everything. To warn you away from me before we'd even really met." Gianni finally looked at him. His eyes were empty. Dead. "Before I could make my move."
"So you killed him." Cedric's voice was ice.
"No." Gianni shook his head. "I didn't kill him."
"But?"
"But I didn't stop it when I found out Dante's men were going to." Each word came out slow. Measured. Like pulling shrapnel from a wound. "Dante found out about the threat. About your father knowing too much. And he decided to handle it."
"Handle it."
"Make it look like the loan sharks did it. Send a message to anyone else who might talk."
Cedric stared at him.
"I could have intervened." Gianni's voice cracked. "I could have stopped them. Paid them off. Sent your father away somewhere safe. I had the power. I had the resources."
"But you didn't."
"No." A single word. Final as a coffin nail. "I chose not to."
The silence that followed felt like falling.
Endless and cold.
"Why?" Cedric's voice was barely a whisper.
"Because if he told you the truth, you'd never let me near you. You'd see me for what I was before I could make you see anything else." Gianni leaned forward. "I was nineteen. Obsessed. And I thought if I just had time, if I could get close to you without you knowing who I was, I could make you love me."
"So you let my father die."
"Yes."
"You let Lily find him."
"Yes."
"You let her go mute from the trauma."
"Yes." Gianni's eyes were wet now. "I let all of it happen because I wanted you more than I cared about any of them."
Cedric's hand pulled away from Gianni's wrist.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Like pulling away from something contaminated.
"Get out."
"Cedric..."
"Get. Out." His voice shook. "Right now. Get out of this room before I do something we'll both regret."
"You need someone here. The doctor said..."
"I don't care what the doctor said." Cedric turned his face away. Toward the wall. "I can't look at you right now. I can't... I just need you gone."
"Where do you want me to go?"
"I don't care. Another room. The roof. Hell. Just away from me."
Gianni stood.
He looked down at Cedric. At the rigid line of his back. At the way his shoulders shook with barely contained rage.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't." Cedric's voice was venomous. "Don't you dare apologize. Don't you dare try to make this better with words."
"I love you."
"You loved yourself more." Cedric still wouldn't look at him. "You loved the idea of having me more than you loved my father's life. More than you cared about Lily's childhood. More than anything."
"I know."
"Then get out."
Gianni walked to the door.
Stopped with his hand on the handle.
"For what it's worth, I would make a different choice now."
"But you didn't make a different choice then." Cedric's voice was hollow. "And we all have to live with that. The ones of us who survived, anyway."
The door closed.
Cedric was alone.
He stared at the wall until the city lights blurred together. Until he couldn't tell where Manhattan ended and his tears began.