Chapter 2: The Secrets That Built a Prison
Chapter 2: The Secrets That Built a Prison
The biopsy was scheduled for the following morning.
Hours before the procedure, Anna woke to find Luca staring out the window.
"You've been awake all night."
"I wasn't tired."
"You were terrified."
He didn't deny it.
Instead, he quietly asked,
"Do you know why I never talked about my past?"
Anna looked at him.
For three years, she had begged to hear the answer.
"My father," Luca began, "used love as weakness."
He spoke slowly, as if every sentence weighed a hundred pounds.
"When I was twelve, someone kidnapped my mother to get to him."
Anna held her breath.
"They tortured her for two days before we found her."
His voice barely rose above a whisper.
"She died believing my father would save her."
Silence filled the room.
"My father told me something at her funeral."
Luca closed his eyes.
'Never love anyone enough that your enemies can use them.'
"I believed him."
Anna finally understood.
Every bodyguard.
Every secret.
Every emotional wall.
Every sleepless night.
He hadn't been protecting himself.
He had been trying to protect her.
"You thought loving me would get me killed."
"I knew it would."
"So you pushed me away."
"I thought distance would keep you alive."
Anna's tears finally fell.
"You never gave me the chance to choose."
Luca nodded.
"I know."
"And now?"
He looked directly into her eyes.
"I'd rather spend one honest year loving you than twenty empty years pretending I don't."
Before Anna could answer, nurses arrived to take her for the biopsy.
As they rolled her bed toward the elevator, Luca walked beside her the entire way.
When the operating room doors closed...
May you like
For the first time since he was a child...
Luca Marino prayed.
