Six Times A Fool, This Time, I’m Gone Chapter 02

Six Times A Fool, This Time, I’m Gone Chapter 02

The truth is, Luca Marino and I weren’t always like this.

When I first got together with Luca, Celeste Ashford didn’t even exist in my world. Back then, his eyes were only for me.

He’d put warm milk in my hand on cold winter mornings. He’d drive halfway across the city to pick me up when I worked late. I thought that was the love I wanted.

Then, two years ago, news of the Ashford family’s bankruptcy spread through the city. Celeste, who’d been avoiding trouble abroad, was forced to return. She crashed into our lives like a meteor.

That’s when I learned Luca was an orphan. He grew up under the Ashford family’s patronage. Every tuition fee, every meal, came from Celeste’s father’s pocket. In Luca’s heart, Celeste was never just an ordinary sister. She was a benefactor, a creditor, someone he had to repay with his life.

This debt of gratitude was like an insurmountable mountain. It meant Luca and I were doomed from the start.

The night Celeste returned to New York, Luca rushed out after getting a call. When he came back, his face was grim, but he didn’t say much. I vaguely heard him talking in hushed tones on the balcony, repeatedly saying, “I’ll figure something out.”

I had no idea what he was planning back then.

Later, I realized his plan was to trade his fists and bones for money.

Even though Luca was an orphan, he had a decent reputation in New York’s underground world. He grew up on the streets, and to protect himself, he had a beast hidden deep inside. Celeste’s return unleashed that beast again.

Despite her family’s downfall, she couldn’t shake her extravagant habits. Bags worth tens of thousands, jewelry worth hundreds of thousands—if she asked, Luca couldn’t refuse. But no matter how high Luca’s salary was, he was just an employee. How could he fill such a bottomless pit?

So, he changed.

I didn’t learn the truth until a month later. That night, I had terrible stomach pain and went to the emergency room alone. At the end of the hallway, I saw a man covered in blood, barely able to stand. It took me three full seconds to recognize Luca.

His knuckles were all split open, at least three ribs were broken, and his left eye’s pupil wasn’t focusing properly. As the nurse helped him into a wheelchair, his blood dripped onto the hospital’s white floor, leaving a long trail.

I stood at the other end of the hallway, trembling.

That was his first underground fight. The gray club controlled by the Bellandi family, where they signed death waivers. Win money, lose end up in the hospital, or if luck was really bad, the morgue.

That night, I broke down crying in the hospital hallway and broke up with him for the first time.

Luca, covered in injuries, dragged himself off the hospital bed and blocked the door to my rental apartment. He knelt on the cold ground, slapping his own face over and over, his eyes red. He said he couldn’t not repay the Ashford family’s kindness, that he just wanted to clear that debt completely, and that he’d never go again.

As he spoke, the wound on his forehead was still oozing blood, trickling down his nose into the corner of his mouth.

Then he collapsed at my feet.

In that moment, I thought he was going to die. The fear of losing my beloved gripped my throat like a giant hand, making me unable to even cry out. I held his unconscious body, telling myself: as long as he lives, as long as he wakes up, I’ll forgive him this one time.

He woke up. I forgave him.

But I never imagined my forgiveness would become a ladder, allowing him to climb over my boundaries again and again.

In the two years that followed, if Celeste wanted to travel, he’d fight. If Celeste wanted a limited-edition bag, he’d fight. When Celeste said her old friends all drove nice cars and she didn’t want to be looked down upon, he’d withdraw all the money he’d saved for half a year and step into that octagon again.

Every time he showed loyalty and gratitude to Celeste, he gambled with his life. And with each gamble, he used a dull knife to slowly carve away at me.

Every time he didn’t come home at night, I couldn’t close my eyes. I’d stay by my phone, afraid of a call from the hospital, even more afraid of a notification that wasn’t a call at all.

I gave up socializing, my career, everything I could have had. I trapped myself in this relationship, like a frog slowly boiling in water. By the time the water truly boiled, I had no strength left to jump out.

I took a deep breath and dragged my suitcase out of the apartment building.

Headlights swept across the road. A brand-new car pulled up, its body reflecting the dim yellow streetlights.

The window slowly rolled down, and Celeste Ashford’s face appeared in the driver’s seat. Her gaze swept over my suitcase, and a smile slowly formed on her lips.

“What, running away in the middle of the night?”

I looked into her eyes and smiled. “If I don’t leave, how can you move in?”

Celeste pushed open the car door and stepped out, walking towards me in the high heels Luca had bought with three months’ salary.

“Don’t make it sound like I interfered. It’s ridiculous.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her voice carrying a casual arrogance. “Luca willingly spends money on me. What can I do?”

She paused deliberately, tilting her head to observe me, as if enjoying an interesting scene.

“You’re quite pathetic, you know?” she whispered. “Once, when Luca was drunk, he told me that if I hadn’t been the high-and-mighty Miss Ashford, and he the poor boy my family sponsored, feeling the status gap was too wide to aspire to, he never would have settled for someone else.”

She curved her lips, her carefully made-up eyes devoid of warmth.

“So, don’t actually think of yourself as the lady of the house. If I really wanted to snatch him from you, where would you even be?”

The night wind blew, messing up my long hair.

I thought those words would hurt me. After all, it was five years of history with Luca. But strangely, hearing them, I felt nothing inside.

I just felt those five years of emotion were absurd.

I smiled faintly. “Then I wish your love lasts forever.”

My reaction clearly surprised Celeste.

Seeing me about to leave, she grabbed the strap of my suitcase.

“Wait, who said you could leave now?” Her voice rose a few pitches, a tone of undeniable command. “If you leave, Luca’s still in the hospital. I’m not good at taking care of people. You need to go take care of him.”

I looked down at her hand gripping my suitcase.

“Let go.”

Celeste didn’t let go. Instead, she pulled out her phone and video-called Luca. She adjusted her expression, and her voice became soft and wronged the moment he answered.

“Luca… did I make Seraphina angry again? I just wanted to show her the new car, but she’s insisting on leaving with her suitcase and won’t even go to the hospital to see you. I can’t stop her…”

On the screen, Luca, his head wrapped in bandages, leaned against the hospital bed, pale. Hearing Celeste’s words, he frowned, his voice carrying a familiar weariness. “Seraphina, what’s with the tantrum now? We just talked on the phone. Don’t make trouble for Celeste. Get to the hospital.”

I stood in the night wind, looking at that face I once knew so well, suddenly feeling he was so far away.

I wanted to just turn and leave. But then, I remembered what Professor Sterling had told me on the phone.

“The Iceland Arctic project has very strict security clearance. Tomorrow morning, you must submit your original passport and ID to the dean’s office to process the paperwork.”

And my passport and all my important documents were with Luca.

Because today was supposed to be our engagement party. My document pouch had been collected in his backpack last night.

That bag was on his bedside table in the hospital’s emergency room.

I looked at Luca on the screen, silent for a few seconds.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go to the hospital now.”