Dawn breaks pale and gray over the estate, painting the world in shades of ash and pearl.
I haven't slept. Not even close. My body still burns from the library, from six hands and three different kinds of hunger that I can't seem to shake no matter how hard I try.
So I escape to the garden, hoping the cold morning air will clear my head.
The estate grounds are different at this hour—quieter, softer, dew clinging to every surface like scattered diamonds.
I follow paths I remember from my maid days, muscle memory guiding my feet while my mind drifts somewhere far away.
I find the hidden corner I used to retreat to during lunch breaks. A stone bench surrounded by overgrown roses, tucked behind a crumbling wall where the gardeners never bothered to prune.
I used to eat my sandwiches here, hidden from the house, pretending for a few stolen minutes that I belonged somewhere beautiful. That I wasn't just the help.
I sink onto the cold stone and close my eyes, breathing in the scent of damp earth and fading blooms. Alone. Finally alone.
"Couldn't sleep either."
My eyes fly open. Santo stands at the edge of the overgrown roses, watching me with those pale green eyes that always see too much.
He's in workout clothes—gray shirt darkened with sweat, clinging to muscle I try not to notice. The tattoos on his forearms are visible, dark ink against tanned skin.
"How did you find me?" I ask, pulse jumping despite myself.
"I run this route every morning." He gestures vaguely toward the trees behind him. "Saw you heading this way. Wasn't sure if you wanted company, but..."
He shrugs, something flickering across his face. Surprise, maybe. Then something softer, almost like relief. "You looked like you could use someone who wasn't going to demand anything."
He doesn't wait for an invitation. Just crosses to the bench and sits beside me, leaving a careful distance between us.
The silence that settles isn't like the charged tension with Matteo, or the weighted calculation of Luca's presence. It's something else entirely.
Comfortable. Almost peaceful.
"This was my spot," I say quietly, not sure why I'm telling him. "When I worked here. I'd eat lunch here and pretend the roses were mine."
"I know." He catches my surprised look and offers a small smile. "I saw you sometimes. Through my window. You always looked... peaceful. Happier than when you were inside the house."
The admission startles me. He noticed. He watched. But somehow it doesn't feel like surveillance—it feels like something gentler. Like he was curious about the girl who disappeared into the garden every day at noon.
My eyes drift to his forearms, to the ink I've tried not to stare at since the first day I met him. "Your tattoos," I hear myself say. "Will you tell me about them?"
Santo looks down at his arms like he's forgotten they're there. "You really want to know? Most people just assume they're decoration. Mafia aesthetic."
"I'm not most people."
Something shifts in his expression. He extends his left arm, turning it so I can see the designs clearly.
"This one," he points to a stylized eagle clutching arrows, "is from my time in special forces. Two years before the family pulled me back. Said they needed me here more than the military did."
"You were in the military?"
"Surprised?" His smile is wry. "Everyone is. Luca's the strategist, Matteo's the charmer, and Santo... Santo just shoots things."
The bitterness in his voice is unmistakable. "But yeah. Two years. Best and worst time of my life."
He moves to another tattoo—a delicate rosary wrapped around his wrist, beads rendered in precise detail.
"This one was my grandmother's idea. She said I needed God's protection if I was going to do the devil's work." A soft laugh. "She wasn't wrong."
"And these?" I point to a series of dates inked along his inner forearm, the numbers small and stark.
His jaw tightens. "Those are... personal."
I don't push. Some stories aren't meant to be told to someone you barely know, even if it feels like we've known each other longer than we have.
"What about you?" Santo asks, turning to face me more fully. "Any hidden tattoos I should know about?"
"Just the invisible ones." The words come out before I can stop them. "The kind your family leaves on you."
His pale green eyes search my face, and I see recognition there. Understanding.
Santo proceeded slower, like he was pulling the words from somewhere deep.
"Being the youngest means you're always trying to catch up. Always proving yourself. Luca runs the empire—he was born for it, trained for it since he could walk. Matteo handles people, relationships, the social machinery that keeps everything moving. And I just..."
He stares at the roses instead of me, jaw tight. "I handle what they don't want to. The dirty work. The things that need doing but aren't glamorous enough for the heir or charming enough for the prince."
"Santo…"
"They see me as the spare," he continues, bitter laugh escaping his throat.
"The backup plan. The one who's there in case something happens to the important brothers. I've spent my whole life trying to prove I'm more than that, and you know what? I'm not sure I ever will."
The weight in his words hits me somewhere deep.
I know that feeling—the constant striving, the never being enough, the sense that no matter what you do, you'll always be defined by what your family needs you to be rather than who you actually are.
"I understand," I say quietly. "Being the thing your family trades away. The currency they spend when they're out of options."
Santo's eyes snap to mine.
Something raw passes between us—recognition, understanding, a shared wound that doesn't need explanation. We're both the expendable ones. The ones who were supposed to sacrifice without complaint.
He turns to look at me fully, pale green eyes searching my face like he's seeing me for the first time. The air shifts, thickens, and suddenly the comfortable silence becomes something else entirely.
Something charged with possibility.
He leans closer, and my breath catches. His hand rises, fingers brushing my jaw with devastating gentleness, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
The touch is electric, tender, nothing like Matteo's demanding grip or Luca's calculated control.
My heart pounds. My lips part.
Then he stops.
His hand falls to his lap, curling into a fist like he's physically restraining himself. The loss of his touch leaves me cold despite the warming morning.
"When you come to me, it'll be because you want to.” Santo says quietly, voice rough with something I can't name.
“Not because I took advantage of a sleepless morning when you're still reeling from what my brothers did to you. Not because you're confused or overwhelmed or looking for comfort in the wrong place."
He holds my gaze, and I see the effort it costs him. The restraint.
"I won't be like them, Gianna. I won't just take."
He stands. Hesitates for a moment like there's more he wants to say, words balanced on the edge of his tongue. But he swallows them down, gives me one last look that makes my chest ache, and walks away.
I watch him disappear into the morning mist, leaving me alone with the roses and the dawn and the ghost of a kiss that never happened.
And the unsettling realization settles into my bones: Santo Moretti might be the most dangerous of them all.
Not because of what he takes.
Because he makes me want to give myself willingly.