Chapter 5

When I walked out of the office, I heard a commotion outside.

I walked over instinctively and saw Lorenzo in the middle of a fight with another middle-aged man while Fiore stood to the side, her eyes red and bloodshot and looking extremely pitiful.

I caught wind of the whispers and gossip from the colleagues around me.

"This is one of our old clients we've been working with for decades! All he did was just tease Fiore a little, and the Don ended up beating him to a pulp like this!"

"The Don also immediately brought video surveillance proof to save Fiore regarding the database issue just now. He really is so fond of her! Do you think they're going to be getting together soon?"

"Oh, my heart! This is so romantic! I'm shipping them both together!"

I stood away from the crowd, watching as Lorenzo kicked the middle-aged man to the ground, completely passed out.

Fiore then tugged on his arm and said tearfully, "But Don Caputo, he's our biggest business partner for the dock project!"

Lorenzo turned around and looked at her with such tender eyes I'd never seen before. It made him look like a complete stranger to me.

"He never should have touched on you. You're my bottom line. So what if the Famiglia loses a supply chain? Anything is worth it as long as it's for you."

My heart felt like it was being squeezed in my chest. It hurt so much that I couldn't even breathe anymore.

I recalled the last time I'd accidentally dripped a single drop of water onto a contract.

It hadn't caused any losses or issues in the end, and I'd even taken care of it as quickly as possible. However, Lorenzo lost his shit over that and yelled and berated me in front of the entire office for a whole hour.

I always thought that he was someone who always prioritized the Famiglia's profits over anything else, but as it turned out, it wasn't like that. He just never thought I meant anything to him after all.

I turned around to leave without looking back.

Lorenzo turned around to stare at me just then, as if by clockwork, but all he caught was my back silhouette leaving determinedly.

He didn't know why, but right at that moment, he felt a sudden ache in his chest as his heart thumped wildly for a second.

…

Over the next few days, I proceeded to hand over my job and duties and packed up, watching the entire company celebrate Fiore's promotion as if I were nothing but an outsider.

Vincenzo would always come home every night. He probably realized that something had changed about me and thus began putting in a little more effort to woo me.

He would ask me where I wanted to go on a trip and what I wanted to do. He even brought up the one time I casually mentioned I wanted to try pottery and try out some of the food trucks that had opened up in the alleys.

I had wanted to try pottery for a long time, but because Lorenzo found it dirty and disgusting, he refused to keep me company.

I had also wanted to try the food trucks for a long time, but Lorenzo said that the food was unsanitary and refused to even touch them.

But now, Vincenzo was telling me that he was willing to come with me.

I knew that these were just instructions from Lorenzo. After all, the official announcement for Fiore's promotion hadn't been made yet, so they were probably worried that I'd find out something fishy about it and cause a ruckus that would eventually harm Fiore.

That was the main reason why he told Vincenzo to keep my emotions in check to "stabilize" me.

Yet, for some reason, I still went along with it and followed Vincenzo out.

We spent the rest of the night taking pottery classes. He held my hands in his as we shaped the vases with the clay on the wheel.

We had some spicy food from the food trucks afterward. It was so spicy that I couldn't stop crying. He fumbled around trying to hand me some water and wipe the food stains from my mouth.

We even managed to catch a slow, artistic film in the cinema, with Vincenzo holding my hand throughout the movie without falling asleep impatiently like he used to last time.

Around dawn, while walking past a 24-hour convenience store, my gaze had simply lingered on the hot cocoa option for a short while, but Vincenzo noticed and immediately went in to queue up and buy it for me.

I stood at the side of the street, watching his tall, lean figure mingling in the crowd, looking just like a regular boyfriend.

I felt a dull ache in my chest.

It would have been great if only all of these were real.

It would have been great if I had never heard their conversation in the office the other day.

Just then, someone slung their greasy arm over my butt and breathed alcohol all over me.

"Hello, precious. Wanna come drinking with me?"

I screamed and tried to run away from him, but the drunk pervert grabbed me by my wrist and refused to let go.

He was so strong that I simply couldn't shake him off, no matter what I did.

The passers-by all turned to look at us in shock, but nobody stepped up to help me.

Just then, Vincenzo rushed up toward us, kicking the drunkard off and shielding me behind him, his eyes cold and fierce like a predator.

"Stay away from my darling!"

The drunkard then got into a huge fight with Vincenzo, but he was no match for him. However, the drunkard suddenly grabbed a brick from the roadside and struck Vincenzo in the head with it.

Blood gushed out immediately, and some of the warm, sticky blood even splatted onto my face.

Vincenzo fell to the ground at once.