From NYU Labs to Street Flyers The Price of Loving a Don Chapter 02
Luca opened his mouth, seeming to want to say something, but it took him a long time to find his voice.
His voice trembled slightly, and his grip on the wheel tightened even more, the protruding veins twisting across his skin.
“Serena, when you left back then, you asked me for three hundred thousand dollars.”
“But the card I gave you actually had three million dollars in it. Was three million not enough to clear your debts?”
I froze for a second, looking at him in genuine surprise.
Three million dollars would have been more than enough.
But the problem was, let alone three million, I hadn’t even touched a single dime of that three hundred thousand.
“Is that so? Don Luca is truly generous. But that money belonged to the Greco family, so how could I have the nerve to use your money to pay off my family’s debts?”
“Time is ticking, and I need to get back to work. I won’t take up any more of your time, Luca. Please, don’t let me hold you up.”
With that, I clutched my flyers and walked toward a more crowded intersection, handing them out one by one to passersby.
As I passed a middle-aged woman, I held out a flyer out of habit. Instead of taking it, she shoved me back with full force. Not only did I hit the pavement hard, but the flyers scattered all over the ground.
“Are you blind? How dare you get close to me dressed in those rags! Do you have any idea how much this outfit costs? If you ruin it, you couldn’t afford to replace it!”
Since it was summer and my clothes were thin, my knee was immediately scraped raw, and my pants had a new hole in them.
It hurt so badly that I couldn’t stand up right away. Still, I just looked up and forced an apologetic smile.
“I’m so sorry. I’ll definitely be more careful next time.”
Watching the woman walk away while cursing under her breath, I let out a breath of relief, gathered the flyers one by one, and pushed myself up from the ground.
Suddenly, a hand clamped tightly around my wrist. I turned around to see Luca’s dark, icy face.
His eyes burned with rage, yet his eyelids were inexplicably red as he roared at me.
“Enough! Serena, just how much longer are you going to keep degrading yourself like this?”
“Are you a beggar? Letting people walk all over you without fighting back, all for a measly sixty dollars?!”
Hearing his classic let-them-eat-cake speech, I felt a wave of helplessness.
“Luca, sixty dollars might be nothing to you, but to me, it’s a whole week’s worth of groceries.”
“There’s no point in starting a fight over something so small.”
“No point?”
Luca stared at me in pure disbelief, his eyes so bloodshot they looked ready to bleed.
“Serena, all you have to do is ask. I will give you however much money you want. Can you stop being so pathetic?”
“You were a brilliant NYU graduate. Professors were fighting to have you on their teams. Every single research project you touched won an award without exception. You were the role model for every underclassman. Have you forgotten all of that?!”
Forgotten? How could I ever forget?
For a fleeting second, the memory of that girl—the golden girl, the absolute prodigy named Serena who I had buried deep in my mind—finally sparked back to life.
I grew up in Queens.
My father walked out on us, leaving my mother to raise me all on her own.
At sixteen, I received early admission to NYU.
During my freshman year, I met Elena.
Elena came from a broken home just like I did.
In fact, she had it worse. Her parents were both dead, and she had to scramble for part-time jobs just to cover her tuition.
When the financial pressure nearly forced her to drop out, I was the one who reached out to save her. I used my project prize money to sponsor her, and brought her home to eat with my family during holidays.
She was my only sister in New York.
I first met Luca when I was nineteen, during my exchange semester in London.
In a foreign country where everything was unfamiliar, I was constantly targeted and bullied by a group of local girls.
When I was at my most helpless, Luca extended a hand to me.
He was the heir to the Greco family, one of the five major mafia families in New York.
He would deliberately wait for me outside the classroom after lectures, instruct his driver to take the long route every morning just to pick me up, accompany me to meals, and even chase away my unwanted suitors.
Naturally, we fell in love.
When my exchange program ended, I was supposed to head back before Luca, but political instability and travel disruptions left me stranded in London.
Luca worried about me. Even though he knew it was dangerous, he threw caution to the wind and flew right back to be with me.
Three months later, the situation finally stabilized, and we booked our flights back to New York.
But the moment we arrived at the airport, we were caught in a sudden terrorist shooting.
Amidst the stray bullets, I threw myself in front of Luca without a second thought, taking three bullets for him.
Fortunately, those three bullets didn’t take my life.
Unfortunately, one of them shattered my wrist. I could no longer operate precise laboratory equipment or step foot into a research lab ever again.
The former prodigy girl was forced to stop right there before she could even make her mark on the international stage.
When I woke up in the hospital bed, Luca held me and wept for a long time, swearing he would make it up to me and that he would marry no one else but me in this lifetime.
I believed him.
After returning to New York, the very first thing I did was introduce Luca to Elena.
I thought she was my best friend, and that she would bless me and the man I loved.
But I was wrong. I was dead wrong.
