The daisies arrive without ceremony, clutched in Marco's hand like he stole them from someone's garden.
"I know I've been a monster." He stands in our bedroom doorway, three feet of careful distance between us. His cheek still bears the pink line from where I cut him with the champagne bottle two weeks ago. "The pressure, the jealousy—it made me insane."
I study him from my position by the window, cataloging the differences. His hands hang loose at his sides. His shoulders curve inward, defensive. Even his voice has shed its sharp edges.
"You're in love with my father." He says it without accusation, just stating a fact. "I know because you look at him the way my mother did."
The truth of it steals my breath. I could deny it, but what's the point? He's already seen what I've failed to hide.
"Yes." The admission falls between us like a stone into still water. "But it doesn't matter. He doesn't—he would never—" I let the sentence die, protecting Salvatore with half-truths. "I know it's pathetic. Falling for someone who still grieves his dead wife."
Marco's laugh is bitter but not cruel. "You think he doesn't notice you? My father notices everything. But you're right about one thing—you'll never be her. No one will ever be Joana Caruso in his eyes."
The words cut deeper because they confirm what I already know.
"She barely knew I existed, you know." His voice drops. "She had eyes only for him. I'd bring home perfect grades, trophies, anything to make her look at me. But it was always Salvatore this, Salvatore that. Even when she was supposed to be spending time with me, she was watching him."
The pain in his voice is so naked it makes my chest ache. This is the wound that festered into the violence he became.
"I'm sorry," I say, and mean it. "That must have been incredibly lonely."
"I want to be better, Lucia. I know that sounds like bullshit after everything, but I mean it." He sets the daisies on the dresser with the careful precision of someone handling explosives. "I'll sleep in the guest room. Just... let me try."
My body stays coiled, ready to fight or flee, but something in his eyes looks genuinely broken.
"Why?" The question escapes before I can stop it.
"Because destroying you will just make me more of what I already am—his disappointment." His honesty lands with unexpected weight. "And I'm tired of being that."
He leaves without waiting for a response, and I'm left holding my breath, waiting for a violence that doesn't come.
The days that follow feel like walking through a house made of glass—beautiful but ready to shatter at the slightest pressure. Marco keeps his distance, sleeping in the guest room as promised, leaving for his business dealings without demanding kisses or grabbed wrists.
And in his absence, Salvatore and I steal moments like thieves. His study during the afternoons when Marco's out collecting debts. My room when Marco drinks himself unconscious in the living room—though even that happens less now. Sometimes just passing in hallways, loaded looks that contain entire conversations compressed into three seconds of eye contact.
The exhaustion hits me in waves now, this bone-deep tiredness that sleep doesn't cure. Tonight, I find Marco in the library, a first edition of Hemingway open in his lap. The surprise of it—Marco reading instead of drinking—makes me pause in the doorway.
"The Sun Also Rises," he says without looking up. "My mother used to read it to me when I was young."
I enter cautiously, perching on the arm of a chair across from him. "I wouldn't have pegged you for a Hemingway fan."
"I'm full of surprises." His mouth curves into something that might be a smile if it reached his eyes. "Did you know I studied literature at Columbia before my father decided I needed to learn the family business instead?"
The revelation reorganizes my understanding of him. For a moment, I see the man he could have been, intelligent and thoughtful, discussing books in coffee shops instead of breaking bones in warehouses.
"You remind me of her sometimes," he says suddenly, his gaze still fixed on the pages. "The way you move through this house like you own it."
The observation is so subtle, so carefully neutral, that I almost miss its undertone.
Is that a threat or am I spiraling?
"Joana destroyed him, you know." His voice stays conversational, but underneath runs a current of ancient hurt. "Made him weak. Before her, my father was unstoppable. After her death, he's just a man going through the motions, clinging to her ghost."
He closes the book. "Would you like to know how she died?"
The question hangs between us, loaded with significance I can't quite grasp.
"The story everyone knows is a tragic car accident." He stands, moving to the window where moonlight turns his profile into sharp relief. "But that's not the truth. She killed herself with pills. In their bed. Didn't even leave a note.'"
The revelation hits like ice water. I think of Salvatore crying over her photograph, the depth of his grief suddenly taking on new dimensions.
"He found her and tried to save her, but she'd been gone for hours." Marco's reflection in the window looks hollow. "He's never slept in that bed since until recently."
The implication lands like a punch—Salvatore brought me to the bed where his wife died.
"When you fought back with that champagne bottle," Marco says softly, "that was the first time in my life I really respected a woman."
He turns from the window to face me directly, and there's a rawness in his expression I've never seen before.
"It's fucking terrifying, Lucia. This feeling. I think I might actually love you, and I don't know what to do with that." He laughs, but it's all broken edges. "Is this what it feels like? To care about someone enough that destroying them would destroy you too? Because if it is, I understand why my father went insane when she died."
"Marco—" I start, but he cuts me off with a raised hand.
"I know you don't love me back." His voice stays steady, almost clinical in its self-awareness. "But maybe that's fitting. Maybe this is my punishment—to finally understand what I've been destroying all these years, right when it's too late to fix it."
"I don't want to destroy anyone," I say, the words scraping my throat raw.
He laughs softly, the sound like leaves rustling over a grave. "That's what she said too. Right before she wrapped him so tight around her finger that he forgot how to breathe without her permission."
I study his face, searching for the angle of his confession. There's calculation there, buried under the pain, but I can't quite parse its direction. The feeling of wrongness intensifies, like watching storm clouds gather on a sunny day.
The next morning, Salvatore calls me into his study, but his usual controlled demeanor carries an undercurrent that makes my skin prickle.
"Marco's requested to handle the Torresi deal." He doesn't look up from his contracts, but I see the tension in his shoulders. "It's a major operation. He wants to prove himself."
"And you're considering it?" The unease crawls up my throat like bile.
"He's been different lately. More focused, less..." He pauses, searching for words. "Perhaps my son is finally growing up."
The words should be hopeful, but they land in my stomach like stones. This new Marco—sober, thoughtful, strategic—frightens me more than the violent drunk ever did. At least that version was predictable in his chaos.
"Salvatore," I start, but stop immediately.
What am I supposed to say? That I have a feeling?
"What is it?" He finally looks at me, and the concern in his eyes almost breaks my resolve to stay silent.
"Nothing." The lie tastes bitter. "Just... the Torresi family has a reputation for complicated negotiations."
His brow furrows slightly, but before he can question me further, Marco appears in the doorway, wearing a suit that finally fits him properly.
"Father, Lucia." He nods to each of us with perfect courtesy. "I wanted to go over the Torresi proposal one more time. Make sure I understand all the angles."
As he spreads documents across Salvatore's desk, I watch this new version of Marco perform competence and feel my unease crystallize into certainty.
But certainty of what?
I have nothing but the crawling sensation under my skin, the primitive alarm that says predator even when everything looks safe. And in this world of men and their measurements, my female intuition might as well be fairy dust.