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Chapter 4

作者: AngelCat
The concern on Viola’s face hardened into coldness.

“What game are you playing now?”

“This isn’t a game.”

“I will withdraw from the succession ceremony and return the Moretti name to your father. From now on, whoever you choose, you will not have to consider me.”

Matteo’s smile stiffened.

“Leon, don’t be impulsive. Everyone knows you’re supposed to become Viola’s husband. If you suddenly walk away, what happens to her?”

“Isn’t this what you always wanted?” I looked at him.

“The consigliere’s seat. The obsidian ring. The place beside her.”

Before Matteo could answer, Viola gave a cold laugh.

“Fine.”

“If you insist on seeing the worst in everyone, I have no reason to protect your feelings any longer.”

In front of me, she took Matteo’s hand.

“I was already planning to announce at the succession ceremony that he is the man I love.”

“As for you, I have only ever loved you as family.”

While she spoke, her gaze never left my face, as though she would not stop until I finally broke.

I only let out a long, quiet breath.

For the first time, the future had changed.

“Congratulations.”

Then I said, “I hope you get everything you wanted.”

Viola’s grip tightened so suddenly that Matteo winced, but she did not release him.

I turned back toward the ward without looking at either of them again.

The succession ceremony went ahead that evening.

Viola wore the black ceremonial dress of the new boss and received the ruby signet in the family chapel.

She named Matteo her underboss and publicly acknowledged their relationship.

Shock rippled along both sides of the long table.

Everyone waited for me to erupt.

Instead, I walked to Mr. Moretti and placed my father’s brass token on the table.

It was proof of the Moretti family’s blood debt to the Vitas.

Its bearer could make one demand in his lifetime that the family was forbidden to refuse.

“I don’t want territory, a seat at the table, or a marriage contract.”

“I want only the freedom for my grandmother and me to leave Port Aspera. From this day forward, the blood debt between the Vita and Moretti families is settled.”

Mrs. Moretti’s eyes filled with tears.

Mr. Moretti closed his eyes for a moment, then picked up the token.

“I grant your request.”

“But wherever you go, this will always be your home.”

Mrs. Moretti removed a small key from the chain around her neck and placed it in my palm.

“This belongs to the house your parents left behind in the Old Quarter. We kept it for you.”

She moved to embrace me, then stopped when she saw me step back.

“I’m sorry, Leon.”

“We always said you were our own son, yet we treated the last generation’s sacrifice as permission to decide the course of your life.”

I closed my hand around the key. For the first time, I did not call her Mother.

“Thank you for taking care of me all these years.”

I did not argue. I simply left the obsidian ring with the token.

After the banquet, Viola stormed into my room.

More than half of it was already empty.

Her gaze went straight to my bare right hand.

“Where is the ring?”

“I returned it to your father.”

“That belonged to both of us!”

“No.” I closed the last suitcase. “It belonged to the life our elders chose for us in the name of gratitude.”

“Now it is free. So are you.”

Viola stood in the doorway, her voice tight.

“Where are you going?”

“North.”

“When are you coming back?”

I looked at her and remembered everything she had written in the Confessional of the Dead.

“I’m not coming back.”

She stared as if I had told an absurd joke.

“Leon, you’ve lived with the Morettis for twelve years. Where could you possibly go except here?”

“Anywhere.”

“As long as it is not beside you.”

I carried my suitcase past her.

Behind me, the door slammed hard enough to shake the frame.

Before dawn, a car arranged by Mr. Moretti took my grandmother and me to the north harbor.

I had not told Viola which ship we would board.

When the ocean freighter sounded its horn, Port Aspera still lay beneath a blue-gray fog.

I stood on deck and watched the old city shrink into a black speck on the horizon.

At that same moment, in the estate chapel, Viola received the ring I had left behind from her father.

The instant the obsidian touched her palm, a crack split its polished face.

Ten years of memories tore through her like a volley of gunfire that had arrived far too late.
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  • To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband   Chapter 8

    “Yes.”My answer was calm.Viola bent down and gathered the cookies one by one, returning them to the box.Mr. and Mrs. Moretti did not stay. Soon, Viola and I were alone in the dining room.“After Matteo was banished, he went to South America,” she began.“Two years ago, he was arrested for identity fraud and extortion. He will never return to Port Aspera.”“I sealed the White Cellar as well. The Old Customs House is now a school for the families of our fallen members.”When she finished, I asked only, “Why are you telling me this?”Her eyes slowly reddened.“Because I remember.”“On the day you left, I received every memory from the other timeline.”She spoke of the white transit pass she had withheld, the call bell unplugged beside my grandmother’s bed, and the fire in the White Cellar.One after another, she recited details known only to me and to the woman she had been ten years in the future.At last, she closed her hand around the broken ring. Her voice had gone hoarse.“Leon, I

  • To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband   Chapter 7

    After the freighter sailed beyond Port Aspera, a message from Viola appeared on my phone.It contained only one sentence.“Safe journey.”I looked at it for a few seconds before replying, “Thank you.”“This number will be disconnected today. If you need anything, contact Mr. Moretti.”Then I removed the SIM card, snapped it in half, and dropped it into the metal bin at the stern.The old harbor disappeared into the fog.My grandmother and I went first to Bergen. Six months later, we settled in Lisbon.The North Sea Mercantile Association kept its promise. I joined its legitimate marine insurance division, and it found a doctor to take over my grandmother’s care.No one there demanded that I love someone, protect someone, or surrender my life to someone simply because my parents had died.For the first time, I learned that a home did not need to be bound to a debt.The first few months were not easy.A ship’s horn could wake me in the middle of the night, my hand already reaching for th

  • To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband   Chapter 6

    The memories did not stop.When fire broke out in the White Cellar on the third night, Viola rushed to the Old Customs House.The guards told her that Leon had seized a lamp, started the fire, and died in the archive room at the deepest end of the cellar.Matteo held her and begged her not to look at the body.“Leon cared about his dignity more than anything.”“Don’t let the way he looks now destroy every memory you have of him.”The future Viola shook from head to foot, but for the first time, she refused to listen to him.She pulled back the white sheet.There was no soot in Leon’s lungs.Wire had cut deep wounds around his wrists and ankles. Six of his ten fingers had been broken, and a needle mark remained on the side of his neck.He had died before the fire began.Viola sealed the Old Customs House and brought every guard on duty that night back to the estate for questioning.The truth came apart layer by layer.Matteo had diverted the family doctor’s car.Matteo had unplugged the

  • To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband   Chapter 5

    Viola saw another version of herself.In that world, Leon had never left.He still checked every ledger for her, memorized every shipping route, and stepped between her and the first bullet whenever an assassin came.She had loved Leon once.But that love had always been tangled with her parents’ orders, the family’s expectations, and a blood debt that could never be repaid. In time, it began to feel like suffocation.That was when Matteo drew close.He never spoke of duty, only desire. He never reminded her what kind of boss she ought to become; he only told her how beautiful she looked when she fired a gun.After their first peace talks in Sicily, they kissed on the rooftop of the hotel.When she returned to Port Aspera, she gave Leon the saint’s medal she had picked up casually from the same shop. The medal Matteo had engraved for her with his own hands remained hidden against her heart.She basked in Leon’s absolute trust while surrendering herself to the thrill Matteo offered.She

  • To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband   Chapter 4

    The concern on Viola’s face hardened into coldness.“What game are you playing now?”“This isn’t a game.”“I will withdraw from the succession ceremony and return the Moretti name to your father. From now on, whoever you choose, you will not have to consider me.”Matteo’s smile stiffened.“Leon, don’t be impulsive. Everyone knows you’re supposed to become Viola’s husband. If you suddenly walk away, what happens to her?”“Isn’t this what you always wanted?” I looked at him.“The consigliere’s seat. The obsidian ring. The place beside her.”Before Matteo could answer, Viola gave a cold laugh.“Fine.”“If you insist on seeing the worst in everyone, I have no reason to protect your feelings any longer.”In front of me, she took Matteo’s hand.“I was already planning to announce at the succession ceremony that he is the man I love.”“As for you, I have only ever loved you as family.”While she spoke, her gaze never left my face, as though she would not stop until I finally broke.I only let

  • To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband   Chapter 3

    I stared at the screen until the only sound I could hear was my own heartbeat.“How did he die?”The older Viola seemed unwilling to remember.Only after night had completely fallen did her answer arrive.“After the succession banquet, his grandmother died.”“Leon decided Matteo had killed her. He stormed into the council chamber with a gun and nearly shot him.”“I had no choice but to strip him of the family name and lock him in the White Cellar beneath the Old Customs House.”“No choice?” I asked.“He had lost control.”“And the evidence showed that he sold the North Shore warehouse routes to the police. By family law, he should have been executed on the spot.”Cold sweat gathered in my palms.“Why did his grandmother die?”“A heart attack.”“Matteo only went to deliver a wedding invitation. While he was there, he told the old woman that he and I were the ones truly in love.”“She couldn’t accept it. They argued.”“You believed him?”“Matteo wouldn’t lie about something like that. He

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