From NYU Labs to Street Flyers The Price of Loving a Don Chapter 03
I didn’t know exactly when it started, but Luca and Elena began growing closer and closer.
They became inseparable, going to the lab together, attending galas together, and even inviting each other out for private dinners and shopping trips.
Even when Luca bought gifts for me, he never forgot to pick out a matching one for Elena.
It made me uncomfortable, and I fought with Luca about it, but he merely dismissed it.
“Serena, Elena isn’t like you. At least you still have a mother, but she’s been completely alone since she was a kid.”
“I just feel sorry for her and want to treat her a little better on your behalf. She’s your best friend, after all!”
Right. She was my best friend, and she crawled right into bed with the boyfriend I loved with all my heart.
The day I discovered their affair, Elena had been admitted to the hospital for an illness.
I had been running around handling her paperwork and paying her medical fees, only to return to her room and find her and Luca completely naked, tangled up with each other.
My brain went entirely numb. I screamed hysterically while whipping out my phone to take photos.
Elena hid in Luca’s arms, crying as she begged for my forgiveness.
As for Luca, while there was guilt in his eyes, it was mostly eclipsed by a sense of profound relief, as if a weight had been lifted.
“Serena, since you’ve seen it, I won’t lie to you anymore.”
“Elena and I are together now. Let’s just end this cleanly.”
End this cleanly? What right did a cheater have to ask for a clean break?
I went completely mad, recklessly leaking those photos all over the internet.
I wanted them to be pointed at and condemned by thousands. I wanted everyone to know exactly how shameless and disgusting they were!
Ultimately, Elena couldn’t handle the venomous rumors and threw herself from a third-floor window.
She survived, but her jump triggered Luca’s psychotic retaliation against me.
He first used the excuse of wanting to talk things out to lure me to a rooftop. When I arrived, there were only several massive, burly men waiting for me. During the violent scuffle, I was shoved over the edge and fell from the eighth floor.
When I opened my eyes again, three years had passed.
From a few distant relatives, I managed to piece together fragments of what had happened during those three years.
To afford my medical bills, my mother worked herself to the bone to save every penny, borrowed from every friend and relative she knew, and eventually resorted to loan sharks.
She fell deathly ill from the exhaustion but refused to give up. She even tracked down Elena, dropping to her knees to beg for mercy.
She counted every single good deed I had ever done for Elena, detailing exactly how I had supported her financially, believing she could awaken Elena’s conscience and move her to pity.
But she was wrong. She was dead wrong.
Elena claimed she would help, but the moment my mother turned her back, she reported everything to Luca.
Luca claimed my mother was emotionally blackmailing them. Right in front of my mother’s face, he sneered that a wicked bitch like me deserved to die anyway.
My mother’s psychological defense completely shattered.
She died. She passed away just one month before I woke up.
Looking at my skeletal body and thinking about my permanently halted education, I held my mother’s ashes and wept until the world turned black.
I hated them so much.
I hated Luca, I hated Elena, and I hated the miserable couple who had utterly ruined my life.
But before I could even translate that hatred into action, Luca tracked me down yet again.
This time, he personally dragged me up to an eighteenth-floor rooftop, pushing me over the edge himself until half my body dangled precariously over the railing.
With the wind howling around me, I stared into the abyss of death. In that exact moment, all my hatred vanished, reducing itself to a single realization: I had to accept my fate.
My life was paid for by my mother’s own life. I couldn’t just die here. I had to survive.
So, I apologized to Luca, asked him for three hundred thousand dollars, and planned to completely cut all ties with our past.
Luca agreed. But just as I took the bank card he gave me, planning to move to another city to start over, Elena appeared.
Money truly changes a person.
The girl who used to have absolutely nothing no longer bore a single trace of the timid, cowering look from her days of poverty. Instead, she carried herself with elegance, poise, and quiet luxury.
She hadn’t come to catch up. She was there to demand the card Luca had given me.
“Serena, don’t blame me for being heartless.”
“It’s just that if you take this money today, someone else will use the exact same methods to extort Luca tomorrow.”
“Do you understand?”
