The Mafia's Undoing-Chapter 28: Choosing Sides

The silence between us stretched for roughly thirty seconds, and I thought she wouldn’t say anything until she finally looked me in the eye.

"Why are you only telling me this now?" she whispered. "After all these weeks, I believed you’d betrayed me? After I’d been working so hard to move on with my life, to learn how to exist without you?"

"I know the timing is-"

"The timing is shit, Tony!" She turned her face away from me and pulled her hands through her tangled hair. "Let me think you’d used me. Let me hate you. Let me cry myself to sleep every night, wondering how I could have been stupid enough to fall for someone who didn’t feel the same way."

"I do love you. I’ve always loved you-"

"Do you have any clue what you put me through?" She turned her face away, her tears flowing. "I lost everything because of you. My job, my reputation, my identity. And then I tried to rebuild. I finally began to feel like maybe I might survive this when you appear out of nowhere and tell me it was all a lie?"

"Katherine-"

"Do you think I’d fall into your arms? Do you expect me to thank you for giving your life for me while I suffered?" She shook with anger and pain. "That’s a decision you made without me. Without even asking what I wanted. You’re no different than all the other men who have sought to control my life.

"I was trying to protect you-"

"I didn’t need protection. I needed a partner!" she cried. "I needed someone who trusted me enough to tell me the truth and let me make my own decisions. But instead, you played God with my life, and now you expect me to forgive you?"

Before I could answer, before I could tell her about the death threats and the hitmen and the fact that I was still trying to protect her, the apartment door opened.

Luca Torrino swaggered in with takeout bags as if he owned the place.

"Forgot the egg rolls-" He trailed off, realizing I was there. "Marvin. Didn’t realize we had company."

He put the food down on the counter with a familiar air, then turned to Katherine’s side. Protéctive. Possessive.

"Is everything all right, Bella?"

Bella. Italian for beautiful. An endearment that spoke of intimacy, of a relationship that had progressed beyond professional courtesy.

"He has a key."

The words came out flat, dead. "You gave Luca Torrino a key to your apartment.

"That’s none of your business." Katherine’s face turned red.

"The hell it’s not!" The anger I’d been containing burst forth. "Letting him into your home, into your life, giving him access to you like - ".

"Like what? Like he has any claim on me?" Katherine moved towards me, her own anger matching mine. "You’re going to be married, Tony. You’ll be standing at an altar in three weeks, promising yourself to another woman. So, yes, I did give Luca a key. Unlike you, he’s been honest with me. He’s been there when I needed him, and he’s not asking me to wait for him while he marries another woman!"

"She’s right, Marvin." Luca’s voice was calm, nearly empathetic. "You made your choice. Let Katherine make hers."

Something in me snapped. "Stay out of this, Torrino. This is between me and-"

"And me." Katherine squeezed between us. "I’m not a prize you two can fight over. I’m a person who has made a decision. And Tony?" She turned to me, her eyes full of pity. "You’re too late."

The words hit like bullets.

I was too late. After all I’d given up, all I’d suffered through, the agonized days of watching her with another, I’d torn myself apart in trying to protect her - all for nothing.

"Katherine, there are things you don’t know. Threats against you, real ones-"

"Stop," she held up her hand. "Just stop. I can’t do this anymore. Whatever threats exist, whatever noble reasons you have, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re engaged to Victoria. And it doesn’t change the fact that I’m moving on."

"With him." I looked at Luca, at how he was standing too close to Katherine, his body language screaming quiet familiarity. "You’re choosing him?"

"I’m choosing myself."

Katherine’s voice remained calm despite the tears in her eyes. "And right now, that means asking you to leave." 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

I should have left. I should have just walked out with what little dignity I had left. But I couldn’t stop looking at her apartment - the takeout boxes Luca had delivered, the crumpled invitation to her wedding she had tossed on the floor, and her position between us, like she was sheltering him from me.

"I love you," I spoke with rough words. "I know I fucked everything up. I know I made choices that have ruined your faith in me, but I have loved you ever since you told me to go to hell in my club. Each day in this hellhole has been committed to keeping you alive. If it means you have to choose between me and Luca Torrino, then I will be grateful if you can live with this choice."

Luca’s expression shifted - surprise, or maybe recognition.

Katherine simply shook her head. "Love is not enough without trust. And I can’t trust you, Tony. Not now, after everything."

"Well, then I guess we’re done." I stepped towards the door, past Luca, past Katherine, past any hope of fixing this. "For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. About everything."

I reached the corridor before Katherine’s voice called out to stop me.

"Tony, wait."

I turned, hope flaring stupidly in my chest.

But she just looked at me with heartbreak across her face. "The threats against me. Are they real?"

"Yes"

"And the engagement to Victoria protects me?"

"According to my father."

She nodded slowly, processing. "Then don’t break it. Stay engaged to her. Keep me safe." Her voice cracked. "But don’t come here again. Don’t tell me you love me while you’re planning a wedding to someone else. Just... let me go."

The corridor tilted. She was weighing her options: safety over us - survival over love. Choosing just what I’d been picking all along.

"Okay. I’ll let you go." I left her there in the doorway with Luca Torrino standing behind her and her takeout dinner going cold on her counter, and I felt another part of my soul shatter. She’d made her choice.

And it wasn’t me.