Chapter 4
During our second year together, a deadly flu ripped through New Jersey. Three percent didn’t make it out alive.
My immune system was garbage. I got hit hard and landed in mandatory quarantine.
Burning up with fever, vision blurry as hell, when suddenly Luca’s face appeared above me.
I thought I was tripping. I clutched his hand, voice barely there.
“Luca… God, I missed you so fucking much.”
“Is this it? Am I dying without saying goodbye?”
I was only conscious for maybe ten minutes each day.
Luca Russo–the man who’d execute someone for showing weakness–sobbed over me like a child.
This hardened street soldier somehow bullshitted his way into the hospital as a “volunteer.”
He worked Ward A to Ward C until he found my name on the quarantine list.
I called him a stupid motherfucker for risking his life to be with someone as contagious as me.
But Lauca just growled, “Shut up,” and slipped that silver bracelet onto my wrist.
“Happy birthday, princess,” he said, voice like gravel
We were broke as shit back then.
We’d press our faces against jewelry store windows like hungry kids outside a candy shop.
I didn’t think I’d live to see another spring.
But the day Luca wished me happy birthday, cherry blossoms floated past my quarantine window
like pink snow,
Later, I discovered what that bracelet really was.
No More My Mafia Don’s Plaything–Now I’m Riding the V–Card Golden Boy
Chapter 4
Melted down from a protection charm Luca had since he was a little boy.
“Listen to me, Adora,” he’d said, eyes intense. “I’m fucking bulletproof. Nothing can touch me.”
“Your only job is to stay alive and happy. That’s it. That’s all I want.”
That silver bracelet had hung from my wrist for nine years.
Young Luca’s mark on me, branding me as his woman.
Back then, I truly believed with my whole heart our lives were fused together like that
silver–inseparable.
Safe and happy.
Luca to me was like this bracelet that no longer fit.
I clenched my jaw, yanking and twisting until my wrist was raw and bleeding.
Luca suddenly stomped out his cigarette, genuine panic in his eyes.
“What the FUCK do you think you’re doing?!” he roared.
I twisted my face, fighting back the flood.
Wasn’t he the one who asked what my decade was worth? Ten years of my youth–name your price,
he’d said.
I named it, and now he couldn’t handle the cost.
“Luca, let’s just pretend we never—”
“DON’T, FUCKING, SAY IT.” His voice dropped to that dangerous place that made grown men shit
themselves.
He lunged to silence me, but Grace tripped him up.
A ghost of a smile crossed my lips, a single tear escaping:
“-happened.”
With that final word, I threw the twisted bracelet into the koi pond.
Foo Biding the Y.com Calden Bow
Crimson and emerald ripples collided in the water.
Luca charged to the pond, dropping to his knees in the pouring rain, frantically searching for something he’d never find again.
Watching this man–this feared mafia boss–on his knees in the mud, I fought the urge to dive in after that worthless piece of silver, my chest splitting open.
What cruel joke was this? After everything he’d said, did some part of him still care?
Ten years with Luca flashed through my mind like a dying woman’s memories.
The pain was so complete I couldn’t even feel it anymore.
All to repay one “happy birthday” from a lifetime ago.
Hardly worth the price of admission
But Luca and me go matter how much any and screamed that we belonged together, our story had reached its final page.
A gentle rain fell around us
Walking away felt like sipping myself in half
When Lacs came after me, he had an umbrella in his scarred hands.
He stank of cigarettes, but his grip on my shoulder was the same one he’d used to guide me through gunfights
“Got in the car, Adorn. I’m adding you home.” Not a reguest–a command.
hant back back, but Grace splashed through a puddle toward us.
Hey bangs dripping wet, statit to that pale, delicate face–the picture of helpless femininity.
“air” she stumpered “are grom seallly leaving me here all alone?”
