Chapter 6 - The Truth Behind the Steel
Luca took another step forward, his hands trembling—hands that had executed syndicate bosses and signed million-dollar death warrants without a tremor.
"Don't do that," he choked out, his voice cracking. "Don't look at me like I'm a stranger."
"You are a stranger," Giana spat, her hazel eyes flashing with five years of buried rage. "In fact, you're worse than a stranger. You're the man who watched his pregnant wife bleed out on a marble floor while he ran to save his mistress and his money."
Luca winced as if she had struck him across the face with an iron bar. He closed the distance between them until he was standing just five feet away, towering over her, his broad shadow completely covering her.
"I didn't run to save Elena," Luca whispered, his voice desperate, begging. "Giana, listen to me—"
"I saw you, Luca!" Giana shouted, tears finally breaking through her cold mask, spilling down her cheeks. "I was begging you with my eyes! Our baby was kicking in my belly! And you turned your back on us! You grabbed her, you took the briefcase, and you left me to die!"
"THE BRIEFCASE WAS A DEAD-MAN'S SWITCH!" Luca roared back, slamming his palm against the wall beside her head.
The deafening echo bounced off the narrow corridor walls. Giana flinched, but she didn't back down.
Luca was breathing heavily, his face inches from hers, his silver eyes filled with a agonizing, torturous pain.
"Preston Stal didn't just bring guns that night, Giana," Luca gasped out, his eyes begging her to understand. "Three minutes before you came downstairs, my tech team intercepted an encrypted signal. Stal had rigged twelve charges of C4 into the foundation pillars beneath the mansion. The silver briefcase Elena was carrying... it wasn't financial ledgers. It was the frequency jammer."
Giana’s heart stopped. She stared at him, her mouth opening slightly. "What?"
"Elena was working with my brother’s old intel network," Luca explained frantically, tears glistening in his own eyes—a sight Giana had never seen in her entire life. "The mercenary holding the gun to her head was trying to smash the jammer. If that briefcase had hit the floor, or if Stal’s man had pressed the remote, the entire mansion—the stairs, the foyer, you, me, the baby, every soul inside—would have been vaporized in a microsecond."
Giana shook her head slowly, stepping back against the door. "No... no, you're lying..."
"I divested Stal's mercenary of his life, secured the jammer, and turned around to sprint up those stairs to get you," Luca wept quietly, stepping closer, reaching out a trembling hand to touch her face, though he didn't dare make contact without her permission. "And you were gone. There was only blood. Your blood."
He pulled a small gold object from his inner jacket pocket and held it out in his palm.
It was her wedding ring, worn smooth from five years of being turned over in his fingers every single night.
"I spent five years in hell, Giana," Luca whispered, his voice breaking completely. "I burned Preston Stal’s empire to ash. I killed every man who had anything to do with that night. I locked Elena away because looking at her reminded me of the moment I failed you. I didn't care about the kingdom. I didn't care about the money. I lost my wife and my child in the same hour."
Giana stared at the gold ring in his palm. The world seemed to spin on its axis, five years of hatred, grief, and self-preservation crumbling beneath the weight of a devastating, terrible truth.
He hadn't chosen his mistress. He hadn't chosen his ledgers.
He had saved the entire building from exploding, only to lose the one thing he was trying to protect.
Before Giana could process the crushing weight of his words, a heavy metallic sound rang out from the courtyard behind her.
The rear exit door burst open.
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Four men in heavy tactical gear stepped into the hallway, holding suppressed submachine guns. Standing behind them was a man with a heavy scar running across his throat—Dante Stal, Preston Stal’s younger brother.
"Well, well," Dante Stal sneered, raising his weapon. "Look what we found hanging out by the back door. The dead wife... and the broken Don."
