????MAFIA POSSESSION ????????
( HIS ADDICTION ????)
BY, ROYAL DIADEM ❣️
CHAPTER 31
Copy and have your life shortened ????
CAROLINE CRADLED a cup of orange juice and leaned back in the less thancomfortable diner chair. The TV across the restaurant showed a flattering
picture of Bruno Moretti.
The closed captions informed the world thatbillionaire playboy philanthropist, Bruno Moretti, pa-ssed away last night.
The news anchors expected a statement from the president regarding hisfather-in-law. The fate of the company was outlined in his will and should
continue smoothly under the leadership of Bruno’s oldest son, Giovanni.
Caroline looked down at her cold, under salted scrambled eggs andshifted in her seat. The photo on the screen didn’t look like the man she shot
last night. He looked reasonable and approachable and friendly.
The BrunoMoretti Caroline knew looked half-crazed and completely capable of killing
a man in cold blood. The news anchors said nothing about the cause ofdeath, but Caroline still felt responsible. She shot him. There should be
some morbid pride to that. She, little ol’ Caroline Wells, ace reporter, tookout the biggest mafia boss in New York City. But there was no pride. Just asick sort of guilt that she felt in the back of her throat. She nudged her plateaway. She wasn’t hungry,
and the eggs weren’t as good as Luca’s anyway.
She’d driven out to the same town the cabin was in. She figured if itwas safe enough for the Morettis to hide out here, it was safe enough forher. Though it didn’t seem like anyone would be looking for her. She justneeded some time to collect herself before she went back to real life. Sheneeded to get a handle on her emotions in order to pretend that everything
was normal. She didn’t feel normal. She hadn’t felt normal since she metLuca at the cafe weeks ago.
And going back seemed wrong somehow. Shehad been hoping that waking up without Luca would inspire a miraculous spurt of monotony that would help her transition back into her regular life,but no such luck. She woke up cold and alone with the image of Bruno
Moretti bleeding out into the carpet at the forefront of her mind.
This little diner had been a spur-of-the-moment decision since the hotelwhere she was staying didn’t have breakfast and she wanted some eggs. But
once she sat down, she realized this wasn’t what she wanted. She wantedexactly Luca to set a plate of food in front of her,
prepared how she liked it,without saying anything, because he just knew what she needed. She wantedeverything to be simple again like it had been in the awkward in-betweenwhere she wasn’t quite his prisoner, but she wasn’t quite more than that.
Before she killed his father. Before he told her to go.
A waitress wandered up and set Caroline’s check on the table. “Are youCaroline Wells?”
Caroline nodded and sat up straight, still cupping her orange juice inboth hands. “Yes.”
“Here. I’m supposed to give this to you.” The waitress offered a cardand Caroline accepted it with a confused expression. “Can I get you a boxor anything?” the waitress asked with a gentle nod at Caroline’s plate stillfull of eggs.
Caroline smiled apologetically. “No, thank you.”
The waitress nodded and hopped along to the next table. Caroline
looked at the card in her hand. A crisp, clean envelope with Caroline’sname scrawled across the back in blue ink. She to-re it open and pulled out awhite card, premium cardstock with gold leaf embossed on the corners.
Inside, the same neat handwriting in blue ink. Luca. She didn’t need to readthe signature at the bottom to know. How did he know where she would be?
She looked around the diner, but she didn’t see him. He must have people,
she supposed. But still… He used to watch her, monitor her. There wa-ssomething creepy in that if she squinted at it, but more than anything, shefelt a comfort that he was keeping track of her. He would protect her like aguardian angel or something.
The mental image she conjured of Luca withfluffy white wings and a halo brou-ght a smile to her face. Unless he wrote a
thousand of these letters and gave them to every diner in the state of NewYork, but that didn’t seem likely. Luca was nothing if not efficient. Hewouldn’t waste his time like that.
She looked back at the note. His handwriting fit him. Clean, clear,concise. No excessive swirls or flourishes, but an elegance in the slant of the letters. A heavy lean on the vertical down strokes, lighter on curves like
‘o’ and ‘s’. She could almost hear his voice in it.
“Caroline, I hope this finds you well. I’m sure you are aware of myfather’s pa-ssing, and I want to a-ssure you that it was not your fault. I neverwant to make the same mistakes as my father, and I couldn’t bear the
thought of you living like my mother did without the peace that comes withthe truth. You needed to be free, and I did promise I wouldn’t lie to you. Idon’t make promises lightly.”
Caroline stopped reading
and looked back up at the TV, which hadmoved on to a story about a wildfire on the west coast. Her throat felt tightand her eyes felt misty. She hadn’t realized, not really, that he actually didlove her. He chose her in the end.
He killed Bruno the way Bruno killed herfather, but Luca told her. He gave her the truth, as he always had. He kept
his promises. He didn’t want Caroline to end up like his mother who livedher life thinking she was a murderer. Her heart swelled because she wouldhave. It would have eaten away at her and he knew that. He knew she
needed the truth, and he cared enough to give it to her.
Her mother always said, ‘to be known is to be loved’ and Carolinehadn’t understood that as a child. But now she was beginning to.
Luca knew
her more intimately than anyone else. He understood her psychology andknew how she liked her eggs.
She glanced at the eggs on her plate, pale and cold. No salsa. No love.
The note continued, telling her that he’s still watching, looking out forher safety, but that he’s letting her go. He will leave her be. “I look forwardto reading your articles and I’ll be cheering when you win the Pulitzer
Prize. Yours, Luca.”
She re-read the ending a few times. “Yours, Luca.” He didn’t sign hislast name. He didn’t want her to a-ssociate it with him. And ‘yours’. She
wondered in what sense he meant it. He wasn’t still her lover. Definitely nother boyfriend. Maybe he meant that if she ever found herself in trouble, hewould help her. Or that if she needed a reference for a new job or
something, she could put his
name down.
She traced her finger over that single word; ‘yours’. She liked thepossession it gave her. That in some way he still belonged to her. She drankthe rest of her orange juice and the memory of Luca’s rare smile warmed
her inside. But he was letting her go. The finality in the way the note was written implied that he didn’t expect to see her again. A clean cut, the sort
that healed the fastest.
She picked up her check and took it to the counter to pay for heruneaten eggs. She left a generous tip for her waitress and smiled to herselfas she walked outside into the early summer sunshine. But something heavylingered in her chest. Not guilt and not quite gloom, but something. Shelooked down at the note in her hands, the clean blue pen strokes blurring
together. Shouldn’t freedom feel better than this?
TBC