All Chapters of Five Years After Breaking Up, the Don Begged Me Back: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

I got dressed and dragged my aching body out of the wedding venue.Passing through the colonnade, I caught a glimpse through the window of the reception hall, the whole spectacle still in full swing.The floor was marble. The estate had stood since the seventeenth century. The alliance between two of Sicily's great families had dominated the Palermo headlines since yesterday morning.The beautiful bride on the arm of the handsome groom, raising glasses to the gathered bosses. They looked like they belonged together.The Luca who'd once proposed to me with a copper button he'd found at the docks, and that same man had just picked up the ancestral Morello signet ring and slid it onto his real bride's finger.I'd seen that ring once. When he was nineteen, he'd dug it out of his father's belongings box, held it in his palm, stared at it for a long time, then put it back. He said when he got married, he'd put it on my hand himself.I touched my ring finger. I could still feel the cold of t

The clinic was behind a laundromat. You had to walk through a corridor of hanging white sheets to get in. The owner didn't ask names, didn't write receipts; he just drew a line on the chalkboard on the wall. One more. Another one came in.Inside the black-market clinic, I rolled up my sleeve. The old doctor worked the length of my thin arm until he finally found a vein that would take the needle. Bright red blood ran down the tube and away from my body. The collection bag was already past what it should hold, and the cold was settling into my bones in waves.Half an hour later I walked out with cash and made it to the hospital before the billing desk closed."This isn't enough.""I know. I'm going to figure something out. Please, just give me two more days."I'd lost count of how many times I'd had to bow my head these past years. Begging had become second nature.At the end of the corridor was Rosa's room. I stopped in the doorway for a moment and watched her sleep. I couldn't stay.I

Watching Rosa lying there, so small and so frail, I would have given anything to trade places with her. Let it be me in that bed. Let it be my heart that was failing.Visits were capped at ten minutes. I barely got a look at her before I had to leave.Standing up from the bedside, my legs gave out. A nurse caught me."Rosa is now first on the transplant list. The fifty thousand you paid last time just covered the existing debt. The surgery and post-op costs, you still need to pull that together as soon as possible.""Thank you, Doctor. I understand."Coming out of the ICU, Luca was waiting at the door. His eyes were red. He held up a document."Anna. What is this? Why didn't you tell me?"I picked up the report he'd shoved at me and looked at the number on the page. Paternity probability: 99.9%. Stamped with the Morello family forensics institution's red seal.The paper was thick and official, the kind only used by institutions. The corners were printed with a small scale, the symbol o

Before Luca woke up, I went to check on Rosa.By the time I came back, he was already awake and halfway across the room looking for me.When he saw me, he crossed the floor and pulled me in before he'd even gotten his shoes on. "I thought you left."I could hear the edge of something wounded in it. "Rosa's here. Where would I go?"He'd put the earpiece back in. When I talked, he still watched my lips.So many things had made sense after that. The new scars. The earpiece he never removed. The way he watched mouths instead of eyes.I hadn't seen any of it.Luca. We've both had it so rough."I've already talked to Elena about the divorce. She's on board. We'll have the paperwork done soon.""Anna. Can we start over?""I know these five years have been hard on you. I'll make it up to you and Rosa, everything I have."The fever still hadn't fully broken. His eyes were webbed with red, and when he looked at me, his eyelids drooped heavy at the corners, like a big dog that'd been left out too

I couldn't hear the other end. But it wasn't hard to guess what was being said. It wasn't a call to offer blessings.I didn't want to listen. Luca reached out and took my hand.Fingers interlocked."Don. I'm not a child anymore. I know what I'm doing.""And you don't have the power over me you had five years ago.""Before we talk, I need you to know, I'm not leaving Anna. Not now, not ever.""Never."It felt, for a moment, like that copper button was back on my finger. Like I was looking at the boy from five years ago.Luca ended the call."Anna. Will you come back with me? Meet the Don?"I started to pull my hand back. He held on."We're from different worlds. We can't—""But we found each other, didn't we?" Luca pulled me toward him, brought our joined hands up and pressed them against his chest. "We found each other, and we fell for each other. That puts us in the same world.""Luca. Aren't you in pain?"The scars. The ear that needed a machine to do what ears should do on their own