Chapter 6: The Crack in the Armor
It happened on a Sunday afternoon.
Luca had been in town for nearly three weeks. He had kept his distance from the dangerous world he came from, something I hadn’t expected. No bodyguards. No late-night meetings. Just quiet days in our small town.
That afternoon, Lena fell while playing outside and scraped her knee badly. She was crying hard, and I was trying to calm her down when Luca appeared. He had been walking by and heard her.
Without asking, he knelt down in front of her.
“Hey, little one,” he said gently. “Let me see.”
Lena looked at me for permission. I nodded.
Luca carefully cleaned the wound with the first aid kit I kept in the bakery and put a bandage on it. His hands were surprisingly steady for a man who usually dealt in violence.
When he was done, Lena looked up at him with watery eyes.
“Does it still hurt?” Luca asked.
She nodded.
Luca hesitated for a second, then did something I never expected.
He leaned forward and gently kissed the bandage.
“There,” he said. “Now it should feel a little better.”
Lena stared at him for a moment… then threw her small arms around his neck.
My heart stopped.
Luca froze completely, as if he didn’t know what to do with the sudden affection. Slowly, carefully, he wrapped his arms around her and held her.
I watched them from the doorway, my vision blurring with tears I refused to let fall.
In that moment, I saw the man I had fallen in love with all those years ago — the man who could be surprisingly gentle when no one was watching.
But I also remembered the man who broke me.
Luca looked up and met my eyes over Lena’s shoulder. For the first time since he arrived, I saw raw, unguarded emotion in his face.
He was falling in love with his children.
And that terrified me more than anything.
Because if Luca Moretti decided he wanted his family back, he wouldn’t just ask.
May you like
He would fight.
And I wasn’t sure I had the strength to keep running.
