Page 62 of Brutal Vows

“There’s more.” I lick my lips anxiously, my foot tapping wildly against the floor.

“More?” Vitali breathes out, his voice tinged with pain. “What more can there be?”

Biting my lower lip, I think of the best way to tell him, but I decide to go with ripping the band-aid off and getting it over with.

“Salvatore is your biological father.”

The words linger in the air, hanging heavily like storm clouds before a downpour. Silence follows my exclamation, a dense and palpable hush that wraps around us. The room seems to hold its breath, the atmosphere so still that it feels as if time itself has paused, suspended in a moment of unyielding tension.

Then the office explodes.

Vitali roars with pain, his voice echoing like a wounded beast through the room, as his hand crashes down on the desk with a thunderous bang. Papers flutter, pens clatter and roll, and a glass tumbles, its contents spilling in a spreading pool. I barely manage to snatch the laptop in time before it too becomes a casualty in the chaotic storm, threatening to plummet to the floor.

“Motherfucker!”

It takes him several minutes to wrestle back control over the seething anger boiling within him. His fists clench and unclench, his jaw tightens, and his breaths come in sharp, ragged bursts. Gradually, the storm inside him subsides, leaving behind a lingering tension in his muscles and a faint heat in his cheeks, as he works to steady his racing heart and calm the turbulent emotions threatening to overtake him.

“Do you think Salvatore knows?” Dario asks after Vitali has regained his composure.

I nod. “Without a doubt,” I say. “He was there at the hospital, too.”

Dario huffs. “Explains why you look so much like your father. No one has ever questioned if you and Antonia were his children.”

It is a devastating blow to realize that the man who raised you as his own would have known that you weren’t his. Even worse for that same man to realize who the true father was. His own brother. Aurelio would have had tolook his cheating wife in the face day after day and be reminded of what she did and with whom.

“There’s more,” I whisper sadly. Vitali gazes down at me and my heart breaks at the sadness I see in his eyes. “And—I don’t know how to tell you this.”

A lump forms in my throat as tears prick sharply at the corners of my eyes, ready to spill over my cheeks. My heart pounds relentlessly, and my palms grow clammy with anxiety. What if he despises me once he hears the truth I’ve uncovered? Will he turn his back on me? The uncertainty of his reaction tightens my chest, and I can barely imagine the expression on his face when I finally reveal everything.

Vitali crouches in front of me, his presence a comforting anchor. One hand rests gently on my thigh, offering silent support, while the other tenderly cups my cheek, his touch as soft as a whisper.

“It’s alright,piccola cerva,” he assures me gently, his voice a soothing balm. “Whatever it is—it will be alright.”

I draw in a long, shaky breath, holding it in my chest for what feels like an eternity before releasing it slowly as if letting go of a weight.

“I’m so sorry, Vitali.” My voice wavers, and my lower jaw trembles like a leaf caught in a breeze.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs, his thumb tenderly wiping away the tears trickling down my cheek. “Just tell me,amore mio.” His words are a gentle coaxing.

Swallowing hard against the bitter bile rising in my throat, I feel more tears spill over, cascading down like a relentless river. “My father is the one who killed your grandfather. He was the hitman.” The confession hangs heavy in the air, a dark cloud of truth.

Dario and Vitali exchange a look of disbelief, their eyes wide with shock. “That’s impossible, Gia,” Dario statesfirmly, his voice tinged with incredulity. “The hitman was Mario Valdoni. He was caught and confessed.”

I shake my head, determination hardening my resolve, and bring up the transcripts on the laptop that Megumi had meticulously kept. The screen glows with detailed records of the hit, each line a testament to the tangled web of deceit.

“Mario Valdoni was a patsy,” I explain, my voice breaking with emotion. “He took the fall for a payment of over three million dollars to an offshore account that was later funneled into a life insurance policy for his three daughters.”

“Holy shit,” Dario breathes, his eyes wide as he scans the intel, the reality sinking in. “This details everything.”

“There’s something else you need to see.” My voice is steady, but a storm brews inside of me. I pull up another screen, a new layer of betrayal. “And you aren’t going to like it.”

The two of them squint at the bank statements displayed on the screen, each line a chilling confirmation of my words.

“This can’t be true.” Vitali shakes his head, baffled. “There has to be another explanation.”

“It’s not.” Clearing my throat, I clench my jaw tightly, the truth a bitter pill I must force down. “And there’s more.”

Dario sighs heavily. “Of course there is. Let us have it.”

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