Five Years After Breaking Up, the Don Begged Me Back

Luca ejected the memory card from the camera and pressed it into my palm, then pointed at the AV console in the reception hall.

"See that? Plug it in. Let it play all the way through. Then you get your money."

My hand shook around the card. The girl I used to be would never have believed any of this was possible.

The hospital calls kept playing in my head like a broken recording. I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood.

I pushed past Luca and walked toward the console. The event staff shot me confused looks. I plugged the card in.

"Anna. You sure about this?"

Luca's voice cut through from behind me. My finger hovered over the play button, trembling.

I didn't care what happened anymore. I needed his money.

I closed my eyes and pressed it.

The screen didn't show what I expected. Instead it switched to a cheerful wedding march, the Morello and De Luca family crests embroidered across the projection.

Luca looked at me with flat, dark eyes. "You haven't changed at all. You'll do anything for money."

"How did I ever love you? I can barely stand to look at who I used to be."

He'd set me up again.

"Luca, you promised me money."

"Did I?" He held my gaze with something close to contempt. "You promised you'd never leave me."

He'd brought up something five years old. My eyes burned.

"When you left, did you think about this?"

I grabbed his sleeve, trying to hold on. "I had reasons back then—"

"You think I'm still eighteen? That you can fool me again?"

He pulled his arm away without hesitation, like pulling back the last thread of hope I had.

He'd changed. The Luca standing in front of me had fully taken the reins of the Morello family, the undisputed ruler of a sizable piece of Sicily. He wasn't the boy who'd fixed boats with me in Palermo's old harbor anymore.

There was a faint scar on his right hand, running from the base of his thumb all the way to his wrist. I knew which year it was from. I knew why. His watch rested over one end of it, an IWC with a black dial, nothing like the cheap Seiko he'd worn five years ago.

"Don't expect a single euro from me."

The line of his back as he walked away was absolute. His steps fast. Too fast for me to ever catch up.

Marco walked me out. I had no choice but to leave the estate.

I sat on the stone steps outside the iron gate, no way forward and no way back.

I made one call. "Paolo. I need you to help me again."

"Didn't you come in just a couple days ago? Can your body even handle it?"

"I'll be fine."