Chapter 9

Lina's POV

I stood up and followed Luca out of the meeting room.

At this moment I could clearly feel everyone's gazes falling on me—fear, curiosity, disgust, awe.

But I didn't care about any of it. I only cared about Luca's purpose in doing all this.

Just as I stepped out of the meeting room door, I couldn't wait to ask.

"What you just said about those real estate projects and betting agreements, was that real or were you just scaring him?"

"It was real."

"You investigated him last night?"

"Of course. But to be precise—" Luca didn't turn back, his voice coming from ahead, carrying a bit of casualness, "before I sent you to this school, I investigated the background of every student who might pose a threat to you."

I fell silent. This wasn't the first time Luca had done something beyond my expectations.

He sent me to college, and I thought he just wanted to put me in a safe place.

He had people photograph me being bullied, and I thought he just wanted to hold leverage.

He used business tactics to crush Marcus Winston at the board meeting, and I thought he just wanted to win.

But when he said "before I sent you to this school," I suddenly realized something—

The timeline of him doing these things was much earlier than I imagined.

We walked out of the academic building and came to the parking lot. Luca's car was parked in the most prominent spot.

He walked to the driver's side door, leaned against it, and turned to look at me.

I raised my eyebrows in confusion, not understanding what he was going to do.

"You performed well today," he said.

"What performance?"

"Not speaking."

"You told me I didn't need to speak."

"Right," Luca nodded, "but you held back. You didn't defend yourself, didn't lose your temper at Winston, didn't expose any emotion in the meeting room. This shows you can control yourself. This shows—"

He paused. "You're not just a wild beast that only knows how to bite. You're a blade with thought."

I stared at him steadily, unsure if this was a compliment or some other meaningful hint.

"Get in the car." Luca cleared his throat lightly, breaking the silence. "I'll take you back to the apartment."

I let out a small cheer, after all, not having to face that incomprehensible knowledge anymore would make anyone happy.

Luca looked at me with some amusement. "You really don't want to go to school that much?"

I made a sound and thought about my wording. "I have nothing against the teachers. I'm just a bit allergic to knowledge."

The car drove out of campus and merged into traffic. I sat in the passenger seat, looking at the familiar street scenes outside the window.

The car fell into familiar silence again. After hesitating for a moment, I still spoke up.

"Luca?"

"Mm."

"That night at the estate when you let me go," this question he hadn't answered that night, so I decided to ask again today, determined to get an answer, "had you already planned all of this?"

It happened to be a red light, and the car slowly stopped. Luca turned to look at me with a very serious expression, so serious it made me feel somewhat unfamiliar.

"Lina," he said, "have you ever thought that maybe I wasn't planning anything, maybe I was just—"

I perked up my ears attentively, ready to hear what he would say.

But the red light turned green at that moment, and the car behind couldn't wait even a second, immediately honking its horn deafeningly.

So Luca withdrew his gaze and pressed down on the gas pedal.

The car stopped steadily in front of the apartment. I unbuckled my seatbelt, preparing to get out.

"Wait a moment." Luca took out a paper bag from the back seat and handed it to me.

I took it in confusion and pulled out several sheets of paper filled with annotations—they were my math test papers.

"When did you—" I looked through my test papers somewhat shocked, discovering that next to every wrong problem there were detailed solution steps and annotations.

"Last night," he said. "Couldn't sleep, so I just looked at your test papers."

I looked at Luca. His expression had returned to that habitual, inscrutable calm, as if staying up late grading someone's math test papers was the most normal thing in the world.

"Tonight at eight o'clock," he said, "bring your test papers to my study."

"For what?"

"Tutoring." When Luca said these two words, the corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "You shouldn't want to not get your diploma, right?"

Honestly, I didn't really care, since I just wanted to experience a normal person's life, and whether or not I got a diploma didn't mean much to me.

But looking at Luca's face, the words that reached my lips took a turn. "Okay."

I put the test papers back in the paper bag and opened the door to get out of the car.

The car didn't drive away immediately. Through the window I saw Luca light a cigarette in the driver's seat, the smoke spreading through the car cabin, blurring his outline.

"Lina."

"Mm."

"You asked me before if I had planned all this since that night at the estate."

My heart stirred. Great, he was finally ready to say it.

Luca took a drag of his cigarette and slowly exhaled. The white smoke quickly dispersed in the cold air.

"My answer is—from the first moment I saw you, I knew you would get to where you are today."

"Alright, good girl, go rest. See you tonight." Luca dropped that last sentence and started the car.

From the first moment he saw me? When was that?

Was it at Antonio's estate, when he walked out from the shadows and stepped aside to let me pass?

Or earlier—on the first day I appeared before him as "Antonio's girlfriend," had he already seen through me?

If he knew from the beginning who I was, knew I wanted to kill his brother, then why did he still let me get close?

Unless—

Unless he had hoped for Antonio's death all along.

I suddenly remembered what Dmitri had said: "In this world, there's no free lunch. If someone is being nice to you, either they want something, or they're setting up a bigger game."

Clearly, Luca was being nice to me.

He gave me an apartment, a school, a chance to experience a normal person's life. He blocked all the trouble for me at the board meeting and stayed up late grading my math test papers.

So he wanted something.

But... what exactly did he want?

I walked into the apartment, pulled those sheets of paper out of the bag and placed them on the table, examining them carefully against the light.

Luca's handwriting was very beautiful, but what caught my attention wasn't the writing itself, but a detail—

In the lower right corner of one sheet, there was a small smudge of ink, as if the person writing had stayed in that position for a long time, the pen tip pressing on the paper, the ink slowly bleeding into a small dot.

I stared at that small ink dot for a while, then casually flipped the paper over and found a line of extremely small handwriting in the lower right corner.

It didn't look like it was written directly with a fountain pen, but more like a trace carved out by the person writing pressing on the back of the pen tip. You could barely see it without looking carefully.

I took out a pencil and lightly shaded it, bringing the paper close to the light to make it out carefully.

"She doesn't know who I am, but she will know soon."

My hand holding that paper froze slightly.

Luca, just how many secrets are you hiding?

I folded that paper and put it in my pocket, lying down on the sofa and staring blankly at the ceiling.

It doesn't matter. However many secrets there are, it doesn't matter. Since you dare to keep me by your side, then be prepared for all your secrets to be discovered by me.