Page 53 of Charming Villain

“You want to know the real reason I’m here?” He cocks his head. “It certainly isn’t to save you. Your disappearance from our family is actually a blessing, if you ask me.”

Every part of my body shakes; I can’t stop it. “Why are you here?”

“Because,” he says, voice lowering to a razor’s edge, “I want to watch you die.”

For a moment, my mind blanks. The corners of my vision darken and close in, black edges creeping toward the center of my sight. My father—my own flesh and blood—is standing in front of me, stating so casually that he wants to see me die. The man who should have protected me since birth now watches me with cold anticipation.

Giovanni sees my horror and feeds on it. “You ran away from Luciano Terlizzi, yes? But he’s been combing the state searching for you. I saw the mania in his eyes before he began his hunt—the desperate, unhinged look of a man possessed. You might think you left him behind, but that man is lost in you. He doesn’t even realize he’s in love, but I can see it plain as day.” The words slither from his mouth with cruel satisfaction.

My heart twists at the mention of Luciano, shame and something perilously close to longing tangling in my chest. Luciano’s searching for me. For us. Maybe… for our child. But my father is still talking, and each word slams me back into horror.

“I recognized the look in his eyes,” he says, lips curling into a bitter smile. “I know how men operate. They kill for love. Theyburnfor it. He was ready to burn for you.” His smile becomes something monstrous. “And if I want to destroy a man like Luciano, I don’t go for his business or his money. I go for the thing he can’t replace. I kill the thing that’s crept inside his chest and started beating in time with his own heart.”

I gasp, lungs tight. “No…”

“Oh, yes,” my father whispers. “I kill you. And when he arrives—because believe me, he’s on his way—he’ll find your body in a pool of blood. He’ll see the proof that he was too late. And do you know what that will do to him?”

Giovanni waits, savoring my reaction. My voice won’t come. My tears burn, scalding my cheeks. The room spins around me, reality collapsing into a single, horrifying moment.

“It will break him,” he says simply. “Maybe beyond repair. Maybe not. But either way, he’ll walk through life with the knowledge that I took his precious bride away while he was too busy playing vigilante.” Giovanni’s eyes gleam as he raises the gun, pointing it at my forehead. “After all, his family took you from me. This is only balancing the scales.”

His finger caresses the trigger with disturbing tenderness. “Poetic justice, wouldn’t you agree? He’ll carry your ghost like a chain, dragging it behind him through every empty day. Every night alone. Every breath without you.” The metal of the gun catches the light peeking in from the window. “And I’ll sleep soundly knowing that Luciano Terlizzi understands exactly what it means to lose everything that matters to him.”

My father branded Luciano, humiliated him, and left him for dead, and in turn, Luciano used me for revenge. I have been a pawn in both of their games, but Giovanni will have the last laugh. The symmetry of it all hits me with sickening clarity—my body is the battlefield where two men’s hatred has found its expression.

He steps forward, and I inch back until my spine presses into the wall. There’s nowhere left to go. My heart is pounding so violently that I think it might explode. “You don’t have to do this,” I manage, voice cracking. “What does killing me accomplish, really?”

“I just told you,” he says, impatience coloring his tone. “Pay attention. For once in your pitiful life, pay attention. This is what you get for being worthless. This is what you get for thinking you matter. Every minute of your existence has been a waste, Gianna. You were born a liability—soft, pathetic. You can’t even survive on your own in a place like this, can you? Hiding, trembling. Pitiful.”

My throat tightens, and I shake so violently it’s impossible to speak. Every word he says finds a home in my deepest insecurities, the ones that whispered all my life that I was unlovable, that I’d never be strong enough, that I was fundamentally flawed. He confirms them all, and it kills me. The worst part is how familiar his accusations feel—like he’s reading from a script my own mind wrote years ago, one I’ve spent so long trying to unlearn.

Giovanni’s eyes burn with cruel triumph as he narrows the gap between us, the gun now hovering inches from my face. “The only thing you ever managed to do right,” he says softly, “was become a weapon against Luciano Terlizzi. And now that purpose is done.”

My eyes squeeze shut. I feel the metal muzzle press lightly between my eyebrows. My entire body goes cold.This is it,my mind screams.It’s over. My father is about to kill me, and I have no escape.I try to have one last happy thought, but all I can think about is Luciano and the possibility that I’m pregnant with his child. A fleeting spark of regret scorches my insides. I left him. I walked away. I might be pregnant with his baby, and he won’t ever know for sure. He’ll find me dead before we get an answer, and he’ll spend the rest of his life haunted by what could’ve been.

Terror and guilt meld into one raw pulse of agony. I shouldn’t have run. I should’ve stayed and fought, should’ve told him the truth, should’ve trusted him to find the strength to love me the way I deserved. Now, I’m going to die alone as an afterthought to a father who hates me.

“I—I’m sorry,” I whisper to no one and everyone. Maybe I’m talking to the child I might be carrying. Maybe to Luciano. Maybe to the universe itself. They float into the darkness like dying stars, carrying apologies that will never reach their destinations.

Giovanni’s finger tightens on the trigger and my heartbeat explodes in my ears. I squeeze my eyes shut, bracing for the gunshot. The moment slows, every sense sharpening. I can smell the stale coffee from the chipped nightstand, hear the buzz of a flickering light in the distance, feel the scratch of the bedspread under my fingertips. I’m about to die. An odd sense of stillness overtakes me, a final acceptance.

And then the door slams open again—hard enough to rattle the walls. The sound is a thunderclap, shattering the moment. I jerk my head up, eyes flying open, hope and fear tangling in the same breath. My muscles tense, poised between the instinct to flee and the desperate wish that this violent interruption might somehow be my salvation.

Luciano stands in the doorway, breath heaving, eyes blazing with lethal intent. His silhouette cuts a stark figure in the dim light. He has his gun drawn and aimed squarely at my father. The sudden rush of relief in my chest is overwhelming. I want to sob, want to leap up and fling myself into his arms, but I’m paralyzed. The muzzle of Giovanni’s pistol is still pressed to my skin.

My father snarls, pivoting slightly to face this new threat, but he keeps me in his line of fire. “You’re too late,” he taunts.

Luciano’s voice trembles with raw fury. “Step away from her.”

The two men lock gazes, and for a moment, the tension in the room becomes unbearable. My father’s gun hasn’t moved. The metal still grazes my forehead, a hideous reminder of how close I am to death. I can feel my pulse hammering in my temples.

Giovanni’s lips quirk in a smile. “You hear him, Gianna? Your dashing hero is telling me what to do.” He keeps his eyes on Luciano. “He thinks he cansaveyou.”

Luciano’s face is a mask of rage. “Remove the gun from her head,” he orders, stepping forward.

Every nerve ending in my body screams as my father presses the muzzle harder against my brow. “Take another step, Terlizzi, and I’ll redecorate these walls with her brains.”

I see the flicker in Luciano’s gaze—a mixture of pure terror and seething hatred. He halts, gun still raised.

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