Sold To The Mafia's Boss

Chapter Thirteen: After the Silence

Carmela's POV

The silence in the suite felt heavier than the gunshots had. Giovanni closed the door behind us with a soft click that echoed in my ears longer than it should have. I stood in the middle of the room, arms wrapped tightly around myself, still shaking, my whole body still braced for a sound that wasn't coming. Somewhere outside, I could hear muffled voices — his men, sweeping the grounds, checking every angle they should have checked before I ever stepped outside at all.

My mind kept replaying the sniper attack, over and over, refusing to let me settle — the sudden crack of the shot, the glass exploding inches from my head, the way Giovanni had thrown himself over me before I even understood what was happening. One bullet. That was all it would have taken. And it had missed by sheer luck, the kind of luck that didn't feel like something I could count on twice.

What if the next one didn't missed? What more was coming? When would this stop… or would it ever stop, or was this simply the price of loving a man like Giovanni Damiani?

Giovanni watched me for a long moment, then walked over and gently took my hands. His touch was warm, careful, but I could see the hurt still lingering in his eyes from the words I'd shouted at him earlier, words I didn't fully regret even now. There was dried blood on his knuckles I hadn't noticed before — not his own, I realized, but from wherever he'd been when the shot rang out, from whatever he'd done in the seconds after to make sure it didn't happen again.

"You should take a shower," he said quietly. "Wash the glass off. I'll have food brought up," he said gently, as the simplest thing he could offer me right now was routine, something ordinary to hold onto after a day that had been anything but.

I pulled my hands away. "I don't want food. I want this to end. The lies. The attacks. All of it." My voice sounded like someone else's, thin and worn down in a way I barely recognized.

He exhaled slowly and sat on the edge of the bed, running a hand through his hair, and for a moment he looked less like the man who controlled every room he walked into and more like someone just as tired of all of this as I was. "I have already told you most of it. Your father came to me because Don Moretti wanted you dead. I accepted because it protected you… and because I didn't want to be forced into marrying Valentina. That's the truth." His voice was steady, but there was something underneath it now, something that sounded almost like he was bracing for me to walk out the door anyway.

I laughed bitterly, fresh tears burning my eyes. "Safe? You say safe? Do you know what I have been going through in this house? You turned me over to a killer! My own father — a killer!"

I was sobbing now, chest heaving with every breath, the words coming out broken and uneven, months of swallowed fear finally spilling out of me all at once. "I thought I was saving our legacy. I thought the debt was real. But it was all a lie. Everything was a lie!"

Giovanni stood up and pulled me into his arms. I didn't fight him this time. I was too drained, too hollowed out by everything the day had taken from me — the gunfire, the truth about my father, all of it collapsing into one exhausted, trembling mess. His embrace was strong and steady, one hand stroking my back while the other cradled the back of my head like he was trying to hold every piece of me in place at once.

"I know you're hurt," he murmured softly against my hair. "I know you feel betrayed. But I swear to you, Carmela, everything I've done since you came here has been to keep you safe. Even when it meant lying to you." His voice caught slightly on the last word, the closest thing to uncertainty I'd ever heard from him.

I sobbed against his chest, fists clutching his shirt, my whole body still trembling from the adrenaline that hadn't fully left me. The sniper attack kept flashing behind my eyes every time I blinked — how close I had come to dying today, how close I probably still was, every single day I stayed inside this world. I thought of the glass raining down, the sound before I even understood what it was, and how Giovanni's weight had covered me before my mind had even registered danger.

Giovanni tilted my chin up and kissed me. It started soft, almost apologetic, the kind of kiss that felt like it was asking permission rather than taking anything. I kissed him back slowly at first, still shaking, until something in both of us gave way at the same time and the kiss deepened into something neither of us tried to hold back anymore. His hands moved down my body carefully, like he was checking that I was actually still whole, still there, still breathing, mapping every place the glass could have caught me and finding nothing there but skin. We stumbled toward the bed together, unhurried despite the urgency underneath it, clothes coming off between kisses instead of all at once.

This time it wasn't just passion — it was something closer to relief, two people making sure of each other after coming too close to losing it. He moved with me slowly, his eyes locked on mine the entire time, whispering my name against my skin like it was the only thing steadying him too. I clung to him, my fingers pressed into his shoulders, letting the closeness between us drown out the terror still ringing in my ears from earlier. For those few minutes there was no Don Moretti, no Valentina, no father waiting somewhere with a truth I still hadn't fully forgiven — just the two of us proving to each other that we were both still breathing.

Afterward, as we lay tangled together, breathing hard, Giovanni held me close, his fingers gently tracing slow patterns along my skin, like he was trying to memorize the fact that I was still there. Outside, I could hear the low murmur of his men still moving along the grounds, their voices carrying faintly through the walls — a reminder that even here, even now, we weren't as alone as this room made it feel.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "For all of it."

I didn't reply right away. I just pressed my face into his chest and closed my eyes, listening to his heartbeat slowly settle back into something steady.

But even in his arms, the questions wouldn't stop. How many more attacks would there be? How many more times would I barely escape death? Would this nightmare ever end, or was this simply my life now — waiting in the quiet between one bullet and the next, learning to love a man whose world had already tried to kill me once before I'd even fully understood what I'd walked into?