My chest hitches as real tears start falling. Of course. Of course Jino blames me. I'm the outsider, the unknown variable, the catalyst for catastrophe.
This is it. The moment when even Giovanni's stubbornness can't withstand the weight of family obligation. They'll put me on a plane with a new identity and a stern warning never to return.
"No!" The word bursts from me with such force my voice breaks. I stomp my foot like a child having a tantrum, the sound echoing in the concrete room.
I march over to the hook on the wall and slam the key back onto it with enough force to make my palm sting.
"No!" I yell again, louder this time. "I'm staying. The game is still going. Change the fucking rules, I don't care."
Giovanni stalks toward me, covering the distance in three long strides. His hands grip my shoulders, fingers digging in,and he actually shakes me. "What is wrong with you!" It's not a question but an indictment. His green eyes are wild, face contorted with frustration. "You don't belong here!"
The words hit like a physical blow, breaking something loose inside me.
"I DON'T BELONG ANYWHERE!" I scream, my voice raw and ragged, tearing from someplace so deep it feels ancestral.
Before either man can respond, I wrench myself from Giovanni's grip, dash into the tiny adjoining room, and slam the door with enough force to rattle the walls.
13
The door reverberates. A cheap, hollow sound. Not a proper ending to the revelation that has altered the entire architecture of this moment.
I watch the vibration fade from the hinges. The girl has sealed herself away as if wood and metal could separate her from consequence. As if consequence acknowledges barriers.
Giovanni killed Rico.
The words form in perfect, orderly sequence in my mind, each one a verse in a ritual I never consented to perform. I taste copper in my mouth, blood from where his fist split my lip earlier. Now I understand why that fight carried such desperation.
Giovanni killed Rico LaRiccia.
Not in sanctioned violence. Not as ordered execution. Over a woman with wild eyes who thinks slamming a door is a declaration of sovereignty.
I turn from the sealed door to look at Giovanni. My cousin. The man I thought I understood. Blood of my blood. Member of the order. Now something different. Something incorrect.
"What the actual fuck do you think you're doing?"
The words emerge measured, precise. My control is my discipline—has always been my discipline. Even as the room tilts with implications so vast they threaten to drown us both.
Giovanni sighs. His mouth opens, then closes. His eyes turn inward, seeking alibis from a better version of himself that doesn't exist in this room.
Silence hangs between us, a failed confession.
I wait. Patience has always been my sacrament. I've waited through beatings, through torture training, through the slow drip of hours when targets refused to appear. I've waited through the shallow breathing of submissives who thought they could outlast me.
I've waited through death.
I can wait through Giovanni's hesitation.
But something inside me shifts, a tectonic movement beneath still waters. This isn't merely personal weakness—this is apostasy against everything we were raised to believe.
Everything we swore to uphold.
This goes much further than just a family murder.
"If Rico is dead, who’s that man on the other side of the world, partying on the beach? He's all over my fucking stories. Women in his lap, friends doing shots, beach life, night life?—"
Oh.
I shake my head, grunting out a laugh. "It's a deep fake, isn't it?"