Giovanni POV:
I had encouraged her to get the fish and chips we were on the coast if she didn't get seafood it was practically a crime. I had gotten her to speak and remember her mother, trying to get her to see that this hellbent spiral into pain wasn't what she would have wanted. Now she had returned to her resolute silence, simmering before me as we waited for our food.
"I think that Guilia was involved," She finally said aloud, looking out at the sea.
I stopped, I had long speculated the same, Guila had far too much satisfaction in her eyes when we were at that restaurant. The girl was highly egocentric, she wouldn't dare believe her mother was right about anything.
"What makes you think that?" I asked her.
"I read the police report you'd found the first one," She explained.
In my investigation I had come across an initial police report, her mother hadn't been found at the grocery store but across the street battered, the first cop who came was a rookie and hadn't been met to be there. Not five minutes after he arrived and called for backup to a homicide, a superior appeared and the whole thing was swept under the rug. The young cop had kept his initial report of the body, hoping it would see the light of day, when I came knocking he was all too willing to hand it over so that the truth might win out. Though I was determined to see that happen it wouldn't be in a court of law.
"She was there for no reason her car behind an abandoned building, it makes no sense but it looks like a convenient place to meet," She explained. "I think-" she huffed in a breath, convincing herself to tell me, "I think it was Guilia or someone pretending to be Guilia. My mother had spent the better half of her life staying away, keeping me safe. She wouldn't go into a creepy abandoned warehouse for fun,"
"It's possible," I agreed.
She shifted in her seat, I know that part of her in all of this wished I would find that somehow, someway, her family wasn't at fault. That by some miracle of god, they were all innocent being forced to do these horrible things, never having hurt a soul. She had gone from losing the only family she'd known, to being greeted back into the fold, to sitting upon the decaying mass of lies that had built her world. I don't blame her at all for wanting to go back, but I owed her the truth, someone in this world did.
"I want to know," she kept her eyes fixed on the waves crashing on the shore. "I need to know,"
She fixed her face and kept her tears in as the waitress brought us our food the steam rising off of them as we sat in the cold.
"I understand it, this deep need to get justice for what your mother endured, for all the lies, for them attempting to use you," I listed of the smallest speck of the infractions they had committed against her. "But I want you to be able to live after this, we are closer than I have ever been to bringing him down but I won't help you if you intend to destroy yourself in the process," it wasn't a pleading statement, it was unwavering and solid. She could attempt to argue but she was smarter than that.
She ate her fish dipping her fries in the sauce, not looking at me or acknowledging what I had said. We finished the meal in the same silence and walked back, I saw her counting the cost in her mind, figuring out a way to get what she wanted, to plunge further into this suicide mission.
Unlucky for her I wouldn't let that happen, we got back to the house and she scurried up the stairs away from me. I wouldn't push my luck and went down to the library to read, I meant what I said no work this weekend, and if I wanted her to survive this I feared I might have to lead by example.
I got the fire going and found myself lost in a tale of battles, fighting against an evil King. I looked up at every sound hoping she had come to find me, talk to me, agree that she had to slow down.
It wasn't until the sun began setting that she opened the door causing it to creak in the silent room and pull my attention towards her. The library a pale blue all around with windows facing the ocean sat at the very back of the house.
She stepped back clearly not wanting to be caught by me, but she knew I had seen her. She stepped into the room walking closer and pretending to look at books. I studied her instead, her grey lounge pants and her white cable knit sweater, she had started relaxing somewhat. The way she had her hair braided to keep it out of her face, and how she slunk closer and closer not choosing a book.
"You stare a lot you know," She eventually spoke.
I smirked in response not speaking, giving her a taste of her own medicine.
She sighed coming over to look out of the window, avoiding me I saw her fiddle with the cuffs of her sweater as she got up the courage to say what she had to say.
"I can't let this go," She confessed. "I can't let them get away with this," She choked out a sob turning away and covering her face, hiding her tears from me.
I set down my book going to her and letting her bury her face in my chest. I rubbed the back of her hand and placed my other hand on her back. "I 'm not asking you to walk away, I just don't want you burning up in the flames,"
She cried softly until she unwound her arms from herself and held onto me. She stayed there for a while pulling herself together, then she stepped back and nodded. I smiled in acceptance, I didn't like it took so much heartache to get her back on the rational path, but I had to protect her. I had found that caring for her was the main thing keeping me going, no longer driven purely by pride and hatred.
I sat back down in my chair grabbing my book, she sat down on the armchair resting her feet on my leg and joining me. I didn't argue at all, would I have preferred her to be completely in my lap, did I long for the line we refused to cross to dissolve, would I wish for nothing more than to have her smiling in my lap instead of pulling her back together for all the horror she had uncovered.
Eventually, we found ourselves hungry and we made our way to the kitchen. She picked out some tomatoes and spinach and I grabbed some chicken. The rhythm we had unmatched, I knew what she was thinking, she knew where I would move. Some people search their whole lives for this.
We danced around each other cooking our meal, the quiet that enveloped us far warmer than the one had before. Like magic, it was the unspoken tension teasing us. She trusted me, and I would protect her. She would warm my soul, and I would fight the demons.
I chuckled to myself at how melodramatic she would find me if she could hear my inner monologue. We sat down to eat and poured us both a glass of wine.
"Thank you Gio," her eyes finally held their tenderness again, I realized then I couldn't live without her.
We went back to the city our minds made up. We would take him on, take him down, but she wouldn't succumb to the madness, I would die before I let that happen.