Chapter 3

Gianna POV Half an hour later, I stood outside Ciro's private room on the third floor of the clandestine clinic.

The hallway smelled of bleach and iron—a scent that had, over five years, become the smell of dread.

My hand hovered over the cool silver door handle, a frantic beat hammering against my ribs, a trapped bird.

From inside, Matteo's harsh voice filtered through the thin gap in the door.

He was pacing, berating Ciro with a heavy dose of reality, his heavy footfalls echoing on the tile.

"Was draining the entire wedding fund for Lucia's armored car a fatal mistake?" his voice, laced with disbelief, cut through the quiet.

"You've pushed her too far this time," Matteo warned.

"She might actually walk away for good tonight."

Matteo reminded him of my unwavering loyalty over the past five years.

He pointed out it was a loyalty the entire Family respected—something Ciro was blindly throwing away.

Ciro went quiet for a moment, the silence stretching thick and heavy.

When he finally answered, his voice dripped with arrogant certainty.

"She won't leave," he said.

He truly believed our bond was an unbreakable chain he could drag through the mud forever.

"Her heart is too soft," he boasted to Matteo.

He claimed all he had to do was bow his head, bleed a little on the floor, and I would forgive him just like always.

Matteo sighed heavily, the sound full of a weariness that seemed to have settled in his very bones.

He questioned the twisted nature of Ciro's devotion to Lucia.

"How do you expect to manage two women in this violent life without one of them ending up destroyed?" he asked.

Ciro's tone hardened with his usual Enforcer grit.

He stated that Lucia's Capo father was ruined, and he had sworn a blood oath to protect her.

He called it a debt he owed, a chain he willingly wore around his neck.

Softening his voice to a patronizing drawl, Ciro added that I was a reasonable woman.

He claimed he would compensate me after the wedding, buying me something nice to make up for the empty bank account.

He insisted I would eventually just have to accept his eternal obligation to Lucia.

Suddenly, Lucia yanked the door inward, her face a mask of petulant irritation. She must have sped back to the clinic the second our video call ended.

"Why are you lurking at the door like a rat?" she demanded.

The conversation inside the room violently cut off.

I pushed her aside and stepped inside.

Ciro's head snapped toward the doorway, his eyes widening.

He tried to sit up, wincing in pain as his bandaged ribs protested, opening his mouth to explain away what I had just heard.

I raised a hand, cutting him off before a single lie could spill from his lips.

"Save your breath," I said.

"I have heard enough of your lies to last a lifetime."

The air, thick with the smell of antiseptic and decay, seemed to part for my words. I did not raise my voice; I let the sentence cut through the room's oppressive stillness like a scalpel.

All the color drained from Ciro's battered face.

He reached a desperate hand out toward me, begging me not to make a scene in front of Matteo.

"I swear on my life, this is the last time," he swore, using the exact same words he always used.

I let out a dark, humorless laugh that echoed off the sterile walls.

"Exactly how many 'last times' does a Soldier get before he ends up in a grave?" I asked.

The carefully constructed excuses he offered withered in the sterile air. Every night spent staring at a dark ceiling, every jolt of fear at a late-night call—these things now took on a palpable weight, and I hurled it at him.

"You never intended to sever ties with Lucia," I said, the realization landing with cold certainty. "You were merely testing my boundaries, trying to force me into a sick, twisted arrangement where I play second best forever."

Ciro's expression fractured.

His mouth opened and closed, but he had no defense against the absolute truth.

My eyes burned, but the heat remained behind them, a dry and searing pressure.

I condemned him for forcing me to live in terror for five years.

I told him about staring at the ceiling every night, waiting for the Consigliere to call and tell me he was beaten to death in an unsanctioned pit.

"Did you ever once think about the woman waiting for you in the dark while you bled for another woman's purse?" I asked.

Desperate, Ciro raised his voice, his chest heaving under its wrappings.

He swore he was lethal enough to always survive, that he always walked away from the blood-sports victorious.

I scoffed, a bitter sound of pure disgust.

"Do you plan to keep bleeding for your precious Princess even when we have children?" I asked.

Ciro fell dead silent.

His eyes dropped to the linoleum floor, entirely unable to meet my gaze.

Disgusted by the hollow shell of the man before me, I withdrew my attention completely.

I turned to the bedside table and demanded he hand over his black tactical bag.

He froze, confusion masking his panic.

"Why do you need it?" he asked.

I stepped forward, my posture rigid, and demanded it with absolute authority.

Matteo, sensing the heavy finality in the room, quickly grabbed the bag.

He bypassed Ciro and handed it directly to me.

I ripped the zipper open, my hands remarkably steady.

I extracted my passport and my Syndicate ID, shoving them securely into my coat pocket.

I dropped the bag on the floor and walked out without a single backward glance.

The next morning at nine o'clock sharp, I stood in Dr. Wagner's secure office.

The paperwork for Don Gabriel's facility sat in a neat stack on the mahogany desk.

Dr. Wagner looked at me gravely, his hands folded atop the files.

He warned me that once the papers were filed with the Family, there was no turning back.

I looked him dead in the eye, my posture straight, my resolve like tempered steel.

"I'm ready," I told him.

I picked up the heavy gold pen. The nib scratched across the paper, the sound of ink seeping into fiber the only noise in the quiet office. With that single, dark stroke, I drew a line between myself and the last five years. Somewhere across the city, I knew, Ciro was still lying in that clinic bed, utterly convinced I would walk back through his door. He had no idea that the silence he was hearing was the sound of me vanishing.