From NYU Labs to Street Flyers The Price of Loving a Don Chapter 05
Luca’s expression went entirely blank for a second, a flash of utter shock darting through his eyes.
“What husband? What are you talking about?”
“No, you’ve only been gone for five years. How could you possibly be married?”
I couldn’t quite fathom his reaction, so I could only offer an awkward, polite smile.
“Don Luca, it hasn’t just been five years. It has been five whole years.”
“I’m nearly thirty now. Is getting married really that shocking? Haven’t you and your wife been married for a
long time too? It’s been almost eight years now, hasn’t it?”
My intention was simply to explain to Luca that my marriage shouldn’t come as a surprise.
But it was as if I had aggressively stepped on his sore spot. His eyes turned bloodshot, and his voice raised
automatically.
“How could that possibly be the same?!”
“Serena, you’re lying to me, aren’t you? How could you just suddenly get married? How could you marry
someone else?!”
His words were entirely nonsensical, carrying a desperate tone that made it sound like he was still deeply in
love with me.
But he had taken a wife long ago, so why shouldn’t I take a husband?
Watching the minutes tick away, I truly had no more time to waste idling around with him.
“Don Luca, regardless of what you think, I have indeed been married for a while now, and my husband and I
love each other very much.”
“I don’t want to bring up the past anymore, and I never planned on seeking revenge against either of you. For
old time’s sake, please stop disrupting my life. Let’s just go our separate ways cleanly.”
The words “go our separate ways cleanly” slapped Luca squarely across the face.
He never could have imagined that the exact words he had brutally thrown at me all those years ago would return to him in this exact place, delivered in this exact manner.
The boomerang of karma had finally struck him dead center.
He opened his mouth, appearing to want to say something more, but I no longer possessed the patience to maintain polite pleasantries. Clutching my flyers, I turned and walked away.
Once I reached the next busy.intersection, free from Luca’s interruptions, the flyers were distributed rapidly.
Even though I had exceeded the designated timeframe, my boss was generous enough not to dock my
wages.
As I took my money and prepared to head home, a sudden instinct made me look back. I discovered Luca
still standing by the roadside like a frozen statue under the blistering sun, entirely lost in thought.
“Serena!”
A shout from behind pulled me out of my thoughts. I spun around, and the moment I recognized the man
running toward me, a genuine smile spread across my face.
The man was my childhood sweetheart and current husband, Matteo.
Back when I was entirely driven to the wall, holding my mother’s ashes as I left the city to head back home, I
crossed paths with Matteo, whom I hadn’t seen in years.
At that time, I had just recently emerged from my vegetative state, reduced to nothing but a bag of bones.
Although my mother had bought back my physical life, she had taken my spirit with her when she died. I was moving through the world like a living corpse, ready to rot away silently in the dirt.
It was Matteo who saved me. He didn’t know what I had endured, but he could see that I was actively withering away. For the sake of our childhood bond, he resigned from a job that had finally started taking off and chose to stay in our hometown with me.
Later, when the loan sharks tracked me down to our door, he cleared out his entire life savings to pay off half the debt, giving me a crucial room to breathe.
In Luca’s eyes, the current Serena was lowly, common, like a decayed flower trampled into the mud.
But what he failed to realize was that if it weren’t for Matteo, the person named Serena would have ceased to
exist long ago.
My mother spent three years buying me a second life, and Matteo spent five years keeping that life intact.
Falling in love with him was the most natural thing in the world.
Filled with pure joy, I threw myself into Matteo’s arms, the exhaustion of the entire day instantly evaporating
into thin air.
“Didn’t I tell you that you didn’t need to pick me up today? I could have walked back by myself.”
“I know you’re just looking out for me, but your work is even more exhausting than mine. I want you to get
some rest too.”
Matteo’s eyes filled with deep tenderness. He opened a sun umbrella with one hand while drawing me tightly
against his side with the other.
It was the peak of summer, and even the slightest physical contact usually felt stifling and sticky. Yet, pressing against Matteo’s warm chest, I felt nothing but an overwhelming sense of peace.
“It’s my fault. I’m not successful enough to make real money, forcing you to come out and do part-time work
in this brutal weather.”
“Serena, promise me today is the absolute last time. I’ve already saved up enough money. By the end of this
month, we can clear the remaining debt your mother left behind all at once. You’ll never have to work this hard again.”
True love is a constant feeling of tender inadequacy, a sentiment beautifully illustrated by Matteo.
Unlike Luca, he hadn’t hit the genetic lottery. He wasn’t born the son of a Don, inherited nothing of the staggering wealth or power that normal people could never hope to touch.
But for my sake, he was willing to pour every ounce of his strength into fighting, ready to drag me out of the
abyss even if it killed him.
My eyes grew slightly damp as I looked up at him, smiling.
Just as I was about to speak, a male voice, cold as sheets of ice, abruptly pierced the air.
“Since you know damn well you’re useless, you should give her her freedom.”
“A man like you doesn’t deserve to be within a mile of Serena!”
