Chapter 3

I headed to the flower shop alone.

When Liliana Castellani, the employee I had hired to run the shop in my stead, saw me, she was rather surprised.

"Boss, what brings you here today?"

This flower shop had been a gift from Luca. He had been worried that I would be bored, so he had opened this shop for me to kill time.

At the time, he had said, "Vera, once I step down as Don, we'll run this shop together, just the two of us, until old age takes us."

Yet, the number of times he had come to the shop could be counted on one hand.

Answering Liliana's question with a random excuse, I found a spot to sit down.

A short while later, Liliana started giggling at her phone screen.

Curious, I asked her what she was giggling about.

Liliana handed me her phone while telling me about a post she had seen online.

"Boss, take a look at this post. The man is so handsome and is a perfect match to this gorgeous beauty! They're just so sweet together!"

The screen was rather bright, so it took me a second to adjust to it. When I could focus again, I saw, to my surprise, that the post was actually about Luca and Elena!

The photos were a little blurry, clearly showing that they had been taken in secret.

Nobody in the comments section knew their real identities, and some even asked if they were actors filming for a movie.

Nonetheless, I immediately recognized them at a glance.

The background showed a dock. The two had just successfully completed a mission and were standing amidst the lingering smoke and flames.

Luca had one hand cradling the back of Elena's head. Upon noticing that someone was sneakily taking photos of them, he had immediately pulled her to his chest, thereby concealing her face and identity.

The comments were all the same, praising the two for being a match made in heaven.

It would seem that Elena hadn't deceived me—all those photos she had shown me were real.

Luca had feelings for Elena, and that was why he kept making excuses not to marry me. That was also why he was always taking her along on his missions.

Everything he had done was to create opportunities for him to spend more time with Elena alone.

I scrolled down a little, realizing that there were many videos of them. They were all grainy and blurry, but I was still able to recognize that they were Luca and Elena.

In fact, I even found a familiar name among the people commenting on the posts—a Made Man of the family.

He had commented, "I know those two in real life, and they truly are perfect for each other. However, there's a third party that keeps trying to get in between them. She keeps clinging to the man and following him everywhere."

It didn't take long for someone to respond to his comment.

"Are you serious? Is she that shameless?"

"Of course, I'm being serious. She's been pretending to lose her memories, but even when her trickery was exposed, she wasn't ashamed. She can't compare to that woman in the videos at all! Besides that, we once privately asked the man about what he thought, and he personally told us that he likes that woman in the videos so much more."

Unable to bring myself to continue reading, I returned Liliana's phone. My eyes were a little damp, but I forced the tears back. At that moment, the weakest, softest part of my heart seemed to hurt a little less.

Just then, my phone vibrated with a message from Luca.

"I've pushed aside all family matters for this weekend to spend time with you."

Immediately after that, a voice message was sent, and in the background, I could hear a female voice saying, "Luca, how about we go to that new restaurant tonight?"

Within seconds, the voice message had been recalled.

Luca didn't even explain a thing. He simply typed out and sent me a new message.

I stared at my phone screen, feeling nausea churning in my guts as bile rose up my throat.

At the same time, the doctor I had been seeing for my memory loss condition called me to come in for a follow-up.

I was silent for so long that it took the doctor calling my name several times before I snapped back to my senses.

"Alright, I'll head over now."