Chapter 7

Luca's POV

I leaned against the car, the cigarette between my fingers burned down to the end. The ember singed my fingertip, and I flicked the butt away, watching it bounce twice on the ground before the night wind swept it into the crack of a storm drain.

I stared at Lina's figure disappearing behind the door, slightly lost in thought.

She was always asking me questions.

"You had this all planned out from the start, didn't you?"

"You wanted me to do this, didn't you?"

"You knew from the first moment you saw me that it would come to this, didn't you?"

Her questions came like bullets, one after another, each one aimed at the place I least wanted to be hit.

I didn't answer.

Not because I didn't want to, but because once I opened my mouth, I would say too many things I shouldn't say.

I lit another cigarette. The nicotine spread through my lungs like a hand slowly smoothing down the throbbing bumps on my nerves.

I took a deep breath, leaned against the car, and closed my eyes. All I could see was her face.

This afternoon, I stood at the entrance of that corridor, watching her surrounded by more than twenty people in a dead-end corner.

She wore that deep navy blue school uniform, a few strands of hair blown loose by the wind. Her whole body was thin and small, standing in the middle of that crowd like a knife thrown into a pack of wolves.

She wasn't trembling. She wasn't backing away. She wasn't even looking at those people.

She was looking at me.

Across more than twenty people, across the twilight and smoke, her gaze pierced through every obstacle and landed precisely on me.

I'd seen that kind of look before—that night at the hotel, when she walked out of the shadows, covered in blood, still clutching that syringe. The way she looked at me then was exactly like this.

Not a plea for help, not fear, not anger, but a calm sense of "I know you're watching."

She always knew I was watching.

From her first day of school, I'd been watching.

Watching her not close her eyes when water was thrown on her in the classroom, watching her not turn around when she was called "orphan" in the hallway, watching her get back in line when her food was knocked off her tray in the cafeteria.

The informants I sent would message me every day—sometimes text, sometimes photos, sometimes a few seconds of video.

I watched them over and over again, until eventually, she on my phone screen became a spring being pressed down and bouncing back up repeatedly.

I was waiting for the day she would spring back up.

I always knew she couldn't keep enduring forever. I could tell.

It was only because of what I said—about trying to live a normal life—that she tried to tuck away all her sharpness and killing intent, to perceive and handle things the way ordinary people do.

And this afternoon, when that girl from the Winston family raised her hand, I saw Lina's eyes change.

Her pupils dilated slightly—a sign of adrenaline release, a signal that her body was entering combat mode.

She finally moved.

I didn't see her movements clearly, not because my eyesight was bad, but because it was too fast.

By the time I registered what happened, that blonde girl's face had already smashed into the brick wall, blood spraying out and painting an arc-shaped trace on the gray surface.

I clearly saw Lina straighten up and look at that crowd.

"Anyone else?"

Lina's voice wasn't loud, but those twenty-something little wastes were already scared shitless. Not one of them dared to move.

She just stood there in the middle of the crowd, blood still splattered on her face, a few strands of hair hanging loose. She looked like a red rose struggling to grow from ruins—absolutely captivating.

When she walked through the crowd toward me, I almost pulled her close, into my arms, wrapped her in my coat, let her trembling body rest against my chest.

But I didn't, because I knew full well this wasn't some delicate dodder flower. If I really did that, she would immediately push me away.

Not only that, she would in that instant categorize me as "the same kind of person as Dmitri"—someone who wanted to control her, tame her, turn her into a tool.

I didn't want to become that kind of person, so I suppressed the urge inside me and only lightly touched her shoulder, telling her to wait for me in the car.

And I stayed behind to deal with these snot-nosed brats.

I didn't lift a finger. I just walked up to Blair, who was still wailing nonstop, crouched down, grabbed her hair, and forced her to look at me.

"You know the relationship between your father and me," I said. "So do you know how many of his projects are in my hands?"

Blair was whimpering something I had no interest in hearing. I cut her off directly. "Shut up. If you touch her one more time, I will make your family disappear from this world. Understand?"

She covered her face, blood continuously seeping through her fingers. She stopped talking and just nodded frantically.

I flung her away, slowly stood up, and swept my gaze over those people holding up their phones.

"Delete all the videos. If I see anyone post them online, I'll make that person's family disappear. I mean what I say."

No one dared doubt my words.

When I got back to the car, Lina was sitting in the passenger seat with her eyes tightly closed. Her breathing was steady, but I noticed her hands trembling constantly.

I didn't say anything. I started the car.

The car drove three blocks before she opened her eyes.

"You saw it," she said.

"Yeah."

"You wanted me to do this."

I was silent for a few seconds before speaking.

"What I wanted," I said, "was for you to decide for yourself when to stop enduring."

That was the truth, but it wasn't the whole truth.

The real truth was: I wanted to see whether, under the "shackles" of trying to live a normal life, she would eventually return to her original state, or become like me—

Always enduring.

Enduring my father's coldness, enduring the family's schemes, enduring the knives of those coveting my position.

Enduring until one day finally discovering that endurance doesn't make you stronger—endurance only turns you into a target that won't fight back.

I wanted to see whether she would lock herself in a cage or choose to be herself.

"Why?" she asked.

Why. She was always asking why.

Because you're the first person who made me decide to stop enduring.

Those words stuck in my throat, and I swallowed them back down.

"Because a person who only endures is a person without teeth," I said. "A person without teeth won't survive long."

She didn't ask again.

"That night at the estate when you let me go, you had already planned all of this, didn't you?"

Her voice echoed in my ears.

I could have said "yes." I could have said "I knew from the first moment I saw you that you would come to this." I could have said "I was always waiting for you to lose control."

But once those words were spoken, they would become a rope.

She would think she was a chess piece on my board, think everything I did for her was calculated, think I was no different from Dmitri.

I didn't want her to think that way.

Dmitri.

That name was like a thorn, stabbing viciously into my brain.

He had spent fifteen years poisoning Lina with toxic values—during those fifteen years, he kept telling her: no one can be trusted, everyone who approaches you has an agenda, your value lies only in how many people you can kill.

How long would it take me to extract fifteen years of poison?

I didn't know.

All I knew was that tonight, when she stood in the middle of that crowd and said "anyone else," what I saw wasn't a killer.

What I saw was a girl, a girl who had been stripped of everything since age three, a girl who had never been embraced, a girl who didn't even know what "normal life" looked like but desperately tried to reach for it.

I wanted to give her those things, but I knew if I said it out loud now, she would definitely run. She would think I was controlling her in another way.

So I wouldn't say it. I would just wait for her to discover it herself.

...Why did it feel like I was treating Lina like a little cat? After realizing this, I couldn't help but smirk.

The cigarette burned out. I flicked the butt into the trash can, pulled open the car door, and sat in the driver's seat.

Alright, time to say goodbye to the little cat for now. There were other matters to handle.