Chapter 10

Luca's POV

At exactly eight o'clock, a knock sounded on time—three knocks, neither light nor heavy.

I put down the pen in my hand. At this moment, the ashtray on the desk already had four or five cigarette butts accumulated in it.

I actually don't smoke often, only when I'm waiting for someone do I smoke one after another.

Like waiting for a traitor to reveal themselves, or waiting for a person I've been waiting for fifteen years to finally knock on my study door.

"Come in," I said loudly.

The door was pushed open a crack, and Lina poked her head in.

She had changed out of her school uniform and put on white loungewear. Her hair was loosely pinned behind her head, making her look particularly relaxed. This appearance was completely different from yesterday when she stood among more than twenty people with eyes cold as ice.

I guessed she probably came directly up from the apartment. Her hair was still wet, water dripping from the ends, leaving a few dark circular dots on the floor.

"Sit." I couldn't help but curve my lips, pointing at the chair across from my desk, indicating for her to sit down. It was one I had specifically asked someone to move in, softer than the other chairs in the study.

Lina walked over and sat down, placing the paper bag on the desk and carefully pulling out those test papers filled with annotations, spreading them flat in front of me.

"Let's begin." I picked up my pen, twirling it. "Let's start with the first problem. Where you went wrong on this problem is..."

I explained very slowly.

Actually, I had never explained problems to anyone before. In the Moretti family, no one would ask me about math problems. They would only ask me "Should we kill this person," "Should we do this deal," "How should we handle this traitor."

I didn't even know how normal people taught others to solve problems. I could only write down every step I could think of, breaking them down one by one, like disassembling a gun, laying out every part in front of her.

Lina listened very attentively, her brows slightly furrowed, her pen tip scratching back and forth on scratch paper. The warm yellow light fell on her eyelashes, casting a small shallow shadow.

I suddenly spaced out, remembering what Lina looked like the first time I saw her.

It was at Antonio's birthday banquet.

Lina wore a red long dress, entering with her arm linked through Antonio's, with a perfectly appropriate smile on her face, but her eyes sharply swept over everyone present, finally landing on me.

In the first second of making eye contact with her, I recognized her.

She looked too much like her mother—the same eyes, the same nose bridge, the same smile, the same wary gaze.

Fifteen years ago, I had seen the exact same look in the study of the Volkov household.

That night, the Godfather's daughter—Lina's mother—stuffed baby Lina into my arms.

She stared at me intently and said, "Luca, please, take her away."

Before I could nod, gunshots rang out from outside, and then she too was pierced through the chest by a bullet and lost her life.

I knew the Raven's people had surrounded the entire house. If I went out directly, neither of us would survive. I made a split-second decision to run out from the house's secret passage holding Lina.

At that time, I could barely protect myself. I could only send Lina to an orphanage first, then bring her back after I stabilized later.

However, three years later when I returned to the orphanage, Lina was already gone.

I used every means at my disposal to find Lina's whereabouts. This search lasted fifteen years.

"Luca?" Lina's voice pulled me back to reality.

I came to my senses and saw Lina looking up at me with confusion in her eyes. "What did you just say? I didn't hear clearly."

"Nothing." I cleared my throat, covering up my spacing out just now, and pointed again at the problem on the test paper. "I said, you should use the Pythagorean theorem here, not the cosine theorem."

She made an "oh" sound and lowered her head to continue writing.

I looked at the top of her head, and an indescribable emotion suddenly surged in my heart.

Fifteen years.

She grew up in the Raven's training camp, learned to kill, learned to endure, learned to lock all emotions in a cage.

She didn't know who her parents were, didn't know she had a family, and didn't know someone had been searching for her for fifteen years.

I could have told her the truth earlier.

On the night she assassinated Antonio, on the night she pointed a gun at my forehead, I could have told her everything.

But in the end I still hesitated.

I was afraid Lina wouldn't believe me. I was afraid she would think I was just like Dmitri, only trying to use her. I was afraid that after knowing the truth she would turn and leave and never come back.

So now I could only wait—wait for her to truly trust me, wait for her to be willing to tell me.

"I still don't understand this problem." Lina suddenly spoke, pushing the scratch paper in front of me. "Why do you calculate it this way here?"

I stood up and walked to Lina's side. Our distance suddenly became very close.

I could smell the faint scent of shampoo from her hair, could feel the warm breath from her breathing brush across the back of my hand.

My heartbeat suddenly skipped a beat.

So I quickly looked away and picked up the pen to draw diagrams on the scratch paper.

The pen tip scratched across the paper, making a rustling sound.

"Look," I tried to make my voice sound calm, "if you complete this triangle into a rectangle, then..."

Lina's head moved even closer. A strand of her hair fell down and swept across my wrist, like a feather, lightly tickling my heart.

The pen in my hand paused, and a drop of ink fell on the paper, spreading into a small black dot.

Lina seemed to have noticed something. She lifted her head.

Our gazes collided.

The study was very quiet, with only the occasional sound of car horns from outside the window.

The warm yellow light enveloped both of us, forming a small world isolated from everything else.

Lina's eyes were very beautiful, that very light blue color, like the seawater of the Arctic Ocean.

Those eyes were usually always cold, without any emotion, but at this moment, there seemed to be stars twinkling inside, carrying confusion, carrying curiosity, and a trace of dependence.

Looking at Lina's eyes, I suddenly really wanted to tell her everything.

Tell her who her parents were, tell her what happened fifteen years ago, tell her why I kept her by my side, tell her... I wanted to always be by her side protecting her.

The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them back.

It wasn't the right time yet.

Dmitri was still watching her from the shadows. The Raven organization would send more people to kill her. Telling her the truth now would only put her in greater danger.

I looked away and picked up the mug on the desk, trying to cover up by taking a sip. The now-cold hot chocolate gave me an excuse to leave.

"The hot chocolate is cold. I'll go pour a fresh cup." I stood up, trying to make my movements look natural.

Lina nodded and lowered her head to continue working on the problems.

I walked out of the study and closed the door behind me.

Leaning against the cold door panel, I took a deep breath and smiled self-mockingly.

Luca Moretti, the head of the Moretti family, whose hands were stained with countless people's blood, who had long since seen countless storms, was now having his heartbeat accelerate to this degree because of a girl's gaze.

When I returned to the study carrying the hot chocolate, I saw her standing in front of the bookshelf with her back to me, touching her chin while looking at books on the shelf.

After Lina heard the door opening, she immediately turned to look at me. A flash of panic passed through her eyes.

"I... I was just tired from studying, just looking around." Lina lowered her head and quickly walked back to sit down at the desk.

"It's fine." I placed the hot chocolate in front of her. "Look at whatever you want. Any books on the bookshelf, you can read them all."

She made an "oh" sound and picked up the hot chocolate, taking small sips.

One minute later, Lina put down the hot chocolate, and just as I was preparing to continue lecturing, she suddenly came out with a line.

"Luca, what should our relationship be right now?"