All Chapters of FORBIDDEN INTIMACY: Chapter 81 - Chapter 85

Luca's POVThe plane climbed higher and higher, its lights shrinking against the vast, indifferent expanse of the night sky. I watched it until it was just a faint glimmer, then a shadow, and finally, nothing at all. Lena left me. Everything I thought I knew, everything I'd built, everything I wanted... gone. Everything that had given my life meaning for the past year, just... vanished. It all left with that plane.I was alone again, standing on that cold, empty tarmac, but it wasn't the same as before. Before, I was just empty. Now, I was hollowed out, a shell of a man with a gaping hole where my heart used to be. It was worse than I ever thought.I stood there for what felt like hours, the cold air biting at my skin, but I barely felt it. The chill inside was far more profound. I stared up at the star-dusted sky, as if I could somehow will her back, pull the plane out of the sky and return her to me. But the sky remained silent, indifferent to my silent plea.I clenched my fist an

Luca’s POVThe heavy bag groaned under my assault. Jab, cross, hook. Jab, cross, hook. Each punch was an exhale, a release of the pressure building inside me. My knuckles ached, a dull throb that resonated through my forearms and up to my temples. It was a welcome distraction.Boxing, cigarettes, and paints became my strange, twisted trio of coping mechanisms. The ring, the sweat, the brutal rhythm of my fists against leather, the usual puff of smoke, the stroke of the brush. It was a cleaner way to burn the shit out.It’s funny, the things you find yourself turning to when you’re teetering on the brink. I'd box until my knuckles bled, smoke until my lungs ached, or… or paint. The painting was… different. God, how I loved it. And how much I hated it. My father, that cold-hearted bastard, had always sneered at it. 'A waste of time,' he'd called it. 'Unmanly.'He’d effectively beat the passion out of me for years. But my mother… she'd always understood. Always encouraged. She'll say "