He Chose Her, So I Chose to Disappear Forever Chapter 05

He Chose Her, So I Chose to Disappear Forever Chapter 05

Bianca quickly sent an explanation.

[Elena, I’m so sorry. We were all playing cards at the club, and it got cold. Luca was the only one with an extra shirt, so he lent it to me. I got home too late and forgot to give it back.]

Everyone who had been there backed her up.

“We were all there.”

“She was just cold.”

“Luca was just taking care of someone under family protection. What’s the issue?”

I looked at Luca.

He explained, his voice urgent. “She was only wearing a dress. If she’d gotten sick on my watch, my father would have wanted to know why I couldn’t even take care of our own people.”

That was Bianca’s sharpest weapon.

She never had to admit she wanted my life. She just had to take one step forward, wrapped in the family’s protection, and everyone expected me to take a step back.

Things like that happened again and again.

The worst was when I went to New York for a port navigation project. Luca, Bianca, and a group of their friends spent the night in a private suite owned by the family.

In the early hours, following security protocol, the guards moved the protected individuals to the inner bedroom. Bianca could have slept there alone, but she insisted Luca stay in the same bed.

When I video-called him the next morning, I saw her lift her head from the pillow beside him. They were both fully dressed. There were guards right outside the door and other people sleeping on the floor.

To them, that meant nothing had happened.

I broke up with him on the spot.

After the project ended, I applied to stay on the East Coast. I had the skills, the clients, and I earned more than enough to support myself.

Luca flew to New York alone and waited outside my apartment building all night.

The man who could make a room full of armed men wait for his command stood in the rain until dawn, his phone lighting up with call after call, text after text.

[Elena, I swear, we just fell asleep. Nothing happened.]

Bianca had even chased me down, grabbing my arm and crying as she apologized.

“If you two break up because of me, I’ll never forgive myself.”

Everyone kept telling me, over and over, that they had all been there.

They were so brazen about it that I started to doubt myself. Maybe I really was being unreasonable.

In the end, I went back to Seattle with Luca.

Looking back now, it wasn’t forgiveness.

I just wasn’t ready to leave yet.