The words landed heavy.
I swallowed, my throat tight. “And you?” I asked quietly. “You’re wearing a ring.”
His gaze dropped to his hand. He turned the band once, twice, as though feeling its weight for the first time all over again.
“I was forced to marry Elena Orlov eleven months ago.”
He exhaled slowly.
“The Orlovs needed something permanent. They knew I could still betray them—because they failed to wipe my memories. They believed I would tell Dmitri the truth and undo the lies they planted in his head after stripping him of his memories.”
His jaw tightened.
“So they bound me by blood. Once I married Elena, once she carried my child, my loyalty would be split—between her, her family, and my boss, Dmitri.”
His fingers stilled on the ring.
“And the worst part,” he said quietly, “is that it’s working.”
I nodded slowly. I understood too well.
Another marriage forged in obligation. Another life bent around survival instead of choice.
Giovanni pushed off the railing, the stone scraping softly beneath his palms. “Be careful,” he warned. “Seraphina watches everything. If she decides you’re a liability—”
“I know,” I cut in. “She’s already made that clear.”
If I stayed here any longer, I would crack—and that was a luxury I could not afford.
“Why did you come back from Greece pretending to be someone you’re not?” he asked out of the blue, his accusatory gaze making it sound as though I were the cause of everything.
My pulse spiked.
“Do you think I’m blind like Dmitri?” he went on. “That I didn’t see through the ‘Pen’ act the moment you walked back into this house? You deceived him again. You kept his own son from him.”
Each word struck with precision.
“You watched him mourn you,” Giovanni said, voice low and lethal. “Every single day. You watched him punish himself for every cruel word, every failure. You watched him believe you were dead—and you said nothing.”
Silence stretched between us, thick and dangerous.
“That isn’t just unfair,” he finished. “That’s cruel.”
The accusation hit—but I didn’t flinch.
Instead, I stepped closer.
Close enough that he could see the fine tremor in my hands, the scars I didn’t bother hiding anymore.
“Cruel?” I echoed, voice sharp as broken glass. “You want to talk about cruelty? Let me remind you of what he did. When Dmitri first forced me to marry him, he humiliated me in front of his men. Told me I was fat, useless, disgusting. Body-shamed me until I couldn’t look at my reflection without gagging. Every day felt like an inspection. I wasn’t a person. I was a thing to be controlled, measured, and discarded.”
My chest heaved.
I forced the next words out, teeth gritted against the tremor in my throat. “After our first sex—he abandoned me. He locked me in a dark room until I scratched at the walls, trying to remember the sky. And when I got pregnant?” My voice broke, but I pressed on, raw and burning. “He forced me to terminate it. Ordered it like it was nothing. Not even a flicker of hesitation. You saw it, Giovanni. You watched while he dismantled me, brick by brick. So don’t stand here and lecture me about fairness. Dmitri doesn’t deserve to know about a child he tried to erase before it even drew breath. Thank God you intervened that day—or Vanya wouldn’t exist.”
Giovanni’s jaw worked silently.
He looked away, gaze fixed on the chandelier, the light fracturing across the marble like shards of memory I didn’t want to confront.