Ruin Me,Mafia King

Chapter Twelve:What He Isn’t Saying

Chapter Twelve

What He Isn’t Saying

Gianna’s POV

Evening settled over the house without much warning. The light outside the windows turned gray, then darker. I stayed in the room they’d given me, but I couldn’t sit still for long. I opened a drawer, closed it. Picked up a glass from the side table, set it down again. Walked the length of the carpet twice, then stopped near the window like the view might have changed.

It hadn’t.

Something felt off in a way I couldn’t name yet. Not the usual weight of being watched. Something closer. Like the air in the halls had shifted while I wasn’t looking.

I left the room.

Downstairs the lights were lower. Voices carried from the direction of the study, then cut off the second my footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs. A door closed farther down the hall—not slammed, just firm. When I turned the corner, Lorenzo was already walking away, tablet under his arm. He glanced back once, nodded like he’d expected me, and kept going.

I didn’t call after him.

The study door was half open. A screen still glowed inside, casting that same dull blue across the table. Files sat in a loose stack near the edge. One of the folders wasn’t fully closed. A photo stuck out just enough to catch my eye.

I stepped in.

The photo was clearer than the last one. Same woman. My mother. Younger than I remembered, standing near a low brick building with a faded sign I couldn’t fully read. The date written on the back was only a few months after the attack that was supposed to have killed her. Next to the photo, a single page listed a name I didn’t know—Marcus Hale—and a short note: Present at clinic. Possible intermediary.

My fingers tightened on the edge of the table. The paper crinkled under them.

So he’d been telling the truth about the clinic. About her still being alive after everyone said she was gone. But the name was new. And the way the file had been left out felt less like an accident and more like something that wasn’t meant for me yet.

I heard the floorboard near the door before I heard his voice.

Zayden didn’t pretend surprise. He just walked in, closed the door partway behind him, and looked at the photo still in my hand.

“You found it,” he said.

“You left it where I could.”

“I left it where it was. You came looking.”

I set the photo down carefully. “Marcus Hale. Who is he?”

Zayden didn’t answer right away. He crossed to the screen, tapped it once, and the map from earlier reappeared—same red pins, same blank stretches between territories.

“Someone who helped her disappear,” he said finally. “Or someone who made sure she stayed gone. We’re still deciding which.”

“You knew about this and didn’t tell me.”

“I knew pieces. Not enough to hand you something half-formed.”

“That’s not your call.”

He turned then, fully facing me. The light from the screen put half his face in shadow. “It is—until I know what that name does. Whether it gets you closer to her… or gets you killed.”

I held his gaze. I wanted to push harder. The words were there. I just didn’t say them.

“No more half answers,” I said. “If I’m staying in this house, if I’m following your rules, then I get the truth when it shows up. Not when you decide I’m ready.”

He studied me for a long second. Something shifted in his expression—not soft, not angry. Just assessing.

“You’re asking for more than information,” he said. “You’re asking me to treat you like you’re already in this.”

“I am in this. You put me here.”

Before he could answer, the door opened wider. Lorenzo stepped in, phone in hand, expression tighter than usual.

“Gate,” he said. “Two cars. Not Monroe plates this time. They stopped short of the cameras, then turned around. Someone’s testing how close they can get.”

Zayden’s jaw tightened once. “How long?”

“Ten minutes ago. We’re already tracking the plates.”

Lorenzo’s eyes flicked to me, then back to Zayden. He didn’t ask what I’d been doing in the study. He just waited.

Zayden nodded once. “Keep the east path clear. Double the watch on the service road.”

Lorenzo left. The door stayed open this time.

The room felt smaller with the news sitting between us. The photo of my mother still lay on the table. The name Marcus Hale sat on the page. I couldn’t stop looking at it.

I didn’t pick the photo back up. I didn’t demand the rest of the file either.

Zayden watched me a moment longer. “You’re deeper in than you were this morning.”

“I know.”

“And you’re still here.”

I looked at the map again, at the pins clustered near places I used to think were safe. At the blank spaces where people moved without names.

“I’m still here,” I said.

That was all it meant. Nothing more.

Outside, somewhere past the wall, the night kept its own silence. Inside the house, the quiet felt different now—heavier, like it was holding more than it showed.

I stayed where I was.

The photo lay untouched between us, like neither of us was ready to claim it.

No one moved for the door.