I Was His Precious Until She Came Back Chapter 06
My brothers had wanted me dead, and I panicked at the thought of failing them for a second time.
I scrambled up and tried to run.
My body betrayed me. After two steps, pain buckled my legs, and I fell.
“Lucia!”
An alarmed cry reached me before I landed in a strong embrace carrying the long-forgotten scent of blue cornflowers.
In my daze, I remembered a childish wish from my sixth birthday.
I loved blue cornflowers and everything connected to them.
That year, I wished for a brother who smelled like my favorite flower.
That same evening, Victor and Nico commissioned a custom blue-cornflower cologne.
From then on, both of them carried the scent I loved.
When Clara arrived, she said she was allergic to blue cornflowers.
The cologne they had worn for more than a decade and all the blue-cornflower fragrances in our home vanished into storage.
I never received another blue-cornflower accessory.
Smelling it again after six years felt unfamiliar.
So unfamiliar that my nausea worsened.
Nico’s anxious voice sounded beside my ear.
“Lucia, tell Nico where it hurts, okay?”
Victor hurriedly examined me too.
“Lucia, we searched for six years and finally found you. Please don’t frighten Victor.”
I stared in surprise. Found me?
Had my brothers truly searched all these years?
Yet they had been the ones who once asked in anger and disappointment:
“Lucia, will you die in Clara’s place?”
My brothers were both my guardian stars and my wishing stars.
Year after year, they granted so many wishes for me.
Then they made their first request: they wanted me to die.
I had thought it was wonderful that after receiving so much from them, I could give them the one
thing they requested.
That night, I slipped from the house and exchanged myself for my adopted sister.
When the kidnappers threw me into the ocean, I expected to die.
Instead of waking in a storybook heaven or hell, I opened my eyes in a hospital.
I was terrified that returning alive would bring nothing but anger and disappointment.
I could not face my brothers’ disappointment.
Everyone had been right: I was a useless idiot.
I could not even die properly.
I’m sorry, Victor. I’m sorry, Nico.
Lucia was too stupid to fulfill her brothers’ wish.
I pulled the IV from my hand and slipped out of the hospital.
I planned to find an empty place and quietly die.
On an isolated road, I found Matteo unconscious with a raging fever.
His forehead burned, and after I gave him water, he caught my hand and refused to let go.
Matteo cried in his sleep, wounded, bitter, and unwilling to surrender.
He reminded me of Victor after our parents died and rival factions circled the Valenti organization like predators.
Victor acted strong all day and cried in secret at night.
Because Matteo resembled him, my heart softened. I could not endure his tears or pain.
I spent my last money begging someone to buy medicine for him.
A kind stranger gave us bread, and my brothers had said sick people were especially weak.
Although I was hungry, I broke the bread into tiny pieces and placed all of them in Matteo’s mouth.
He woke after a day and a night.
Delighted, I circled him and hurriedly offered him the final piece of bread.
“Eat. You’ll get better faster.”
The man who had just opened his eyes studied me for a long time.
“What’s your name, and why are you out here alone with no family looking after you?”
I thought of the brothers who wanted me dead and pressed my lips together.
“My name is Lucia.”
“I don’t have a family.”
I did not tell him that I had planned to die before finding him.
Matteo’s eyes remained empty for a long moment before his lips curved.
“I don’t have a family either. Why don’t we become one?”
My eyes widened.
Other than my parents and brothers, was I allowed to have another family?
