Chapter 1

ELENA POV

The door closed, and Luca’s footsteps quickly disappeared down the hallway.

I braced one hand against the entry table as another spasm tightened through my stomach. Cold sweat ran down my temples while I searched the drawer for my medication and swallowed two tablets.

The pain did not ease.

After several minutes on the floor, I called a car and went to St. Catherine’s Medical Center.

The Valdieri family had funded the private hospital for years. One call from Luca would have brought a specialist to the entrance, but I contacted no one. I registered in the public emergency wing and accepted a chair in the corner of the infusion room.

The medication had begun to dull the pain when hurried footsteps sounded in the corridor.

“Where is the doctor? She’s hurt.”

I opened my eyes.

Through the glass partition, I saw Luca carrying most of Sofia’s weight as he brought her into the emergency wing. Two guards stopped outside while a physician hurried forward.

Sofia clung to Luca, her face pale and her eyes wet. A shallow scrape marked her lower leg. The wound was less than two inches long and had barely bled.

“Luca, it hurts,” she whispered. “What if it leaves a scar?”

“It won’t.” He lowered his voice. “The doctor will take care of it. I’m staying with you.”

An hour earlier, he had paused at our front door after noticing how pale I looked.

I had told him my stomach condition was acting up and that medication would help. He had accepted the answer because Sofia was already crying through the phone.

The doctor cleaned her scrape and covered it with a small bandage. Luca watched the entire procedure before removing his coat and placing it around her shoulders.

I studied them through the glass and felt almost nothing.

Perhaps disappointment eventually became too familiar to hurt.

When the doctor finished, Luca helped Sofia onto a bench near the infusion room. Only a frosted panel separated us.

Her breathing had steadied. She held Luca’s car keys and ran her fingernail along the leather keychain attached to them.

I had made it three years ago, shortly after Luca became Don. Meetings and internal challenges had kept him awake for weeks, so I spent my evenings learning how to work with leather. I pressed the initials E and L into the surface before giving it to him.

Luca had fastened it to the keys of the car he used most often.

Now Sofia’s nail scraped across the initials.

“This is old,” she said. “Why do you still keep it?”

Luca glanced down. “I’m used to it.”

“The stitching is coming apart, and the letters look childish.”

She pulled at a loose thread. One side of the leather split open.

Luca did not stop her.

“If you dislike it, I’ll replace it before you ride with me again.”

Sofia looked up at him, and her expression brightened.

“Really?”

“Of course.”

She leaned closer. Luca hesitated, then shifted so his shoulder shielded her from the cold air blowing through the corridor.

I took out my phone and opened my conversation with the director in London.

My visa is approved. I’ll be on the four o’clock flight tomorrow and can report to work the following morning.

The reply arrived almost immediately.

Welcome aboard. Have you completed your work with the Valdieri organization?

I have one final authorization to surrender tomorrow morning. Nothing will be left unresolved.

I sent the message and locked my phone.

A nurse removed my IV and warned me to return if the pain became severe again. I thanked her, pressed cotton against the needle mark, and left through the opposite corridor.

At the corner, I glanced back once.

Luca remained beside Sofia. She was still playing with the damaged leather keychain while he called for their driver. He never realized that I had been sitting less than twenty feet away.

Outside, the night wind cut through my coat. I opened the list on my phone and crossed out the final number: twelve.

For seven years, I had given Luca twelve chances to choose me.

He had used every one of them.