Their Four-Person Test, My Unopened Parachute Chapter 11

A month later, the court handed down its final verdict.

Celeste was sentenced to life in prison for murder, with no possibility of parole.

Having had no advance knowledge of the murder plot, Luca and Nico were convicted as

accessoriesafterthefact and on multiple counts of falsifying evidence and obstructing the investigation. They received seven and fiveyear prison sentences respectively.

Celeste’s family tried to pull strings to overturn the verdict, but nothing changed the outcome.

Damian personally ordered the Moretti legal team to pursue the case to the end. He also used the family s business network and underworld connections to cut off several business lines the Romano family had

relied on.

Within two weeks, the Romano family’s business collapsed completely. Celeste’s father killed himself over crushing debts, and her mother was committed to a psychiatric hospital.

Their once-glamorous circle of four went up in smoke after one absurd “desensitization game.”

And Damian himself went completely mad.

He stepped down as Don Moretti, sold off most of his personal assets and established a large trust fund, all

its proceeds going to women’s and children’s aid organizations.

The man who had once been the arrogant, invincible king of the underworld was now nothing but skin and

bones.

His hair turned completely white in the span of a single month. He was hunched over like a seventy-year-old

man.

When the first snow of winter fell, the skydiving base at Gorge Four still had its suspension order posted.

A black helicopter sat alone in the wind and snow.

Damian wore a thin black overcoat, cradling my rosewood urn in his arms.

He brought only one pilot who had been with the family for years. He left even his bodyguards on the ground.

The helicopter rose again.

One thousand meters.

Two thousand meters.

And finally, it stopped at twenty-five hundred meters.

The exact height from which he’d pushed me that day.

The cabin door opened, and the biting wind rushed in.

Below the clouds lay the granite gorge, blanketed in white snow.

Damian stood at the open door, looking down into that abyss.

No parachute on his back. No safety gear of any kind.

Only the urn in his arms, and the misshapen silver bracelet hanging around his neck.

“Avery…”

The wind and snow whipped through his white hair.

“That day, when you fell… you must have been so cold.”

“When you called my name, why didn’t I turn around?”

He lowered his head and pressed a gentle kiss to the urn.

“I came too late. I’m sorry.”

“This time, I’ll jump with you.”

He took one last look at the urn in his arms, closed his eyes, and leaped into the wind and snow.

The black overcoat vanished into the white clouds in an instant.

I floated at twenty-five hundred meters, watching it all.

Damian, do you truly believe this can make amends?

What you took from me can never be fixed with a simple apology.

The world fell silent. The blizzard swallowed every sin and every cry.

My soul turned into specks of faint light, scattering slowly on the wind.

In this life, there was no coming back.