Not Afraid of the Mafia Heir’s Threat Chapter 09
I went still.
Then an umbrella opened over my head, cutting off the snow and wind.
A familiar voice spoke behind me.
“What, are you throwing a tantrum now? Running away from home?”
“I was wrong this time.”
“Come back with me, okay?”
Lorenzo stood there in a thin cashmere sweater, looking down at me with that same soft expression.
He looked like he’d come in a rush.
The wind had growing his wrists red with cold.
He followed my line of sight and noticed it, but didn’t seem to care at all. “I was in such a hurry, I forgot to change.”
“Sera, can I come in for a minute?”
His voice was warm and polished, as refined as ever.
I lifted my eyes to his and spoke one word at a time. “Lorenzo, we’re adults. Do you really need me to spell it out that brutally?”
“We broke up…”
His lips pressed into a thin line as he cut me off. “Sera.”
“There’s a limit to how far you can take this.”
“I followed you all the way to London. Isn’t that enough sincerity for you?”
That had always been the rule.
All these years.
Lorenzo allowed me a little anger, a little sulking, and then he would lower
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himself just enough to coax me back.
But I wasn’t supposed to push too far.
Not too much.
Not enough to inconvenience him.
Just like now.
But I was sick of it.
I hated that game.
So I stepped out from under his umbrella and let the snow settle on my shoulders.
I never looked back.
I just held my books tighter and kept walking.
Behind me, Lorenzo threw the umbrella aside.
His breathing turned uneven, anger rising fast and hard. “Sera, you’ve got some nerve.”
“You think just because your wings grew in, you can live without me now?”
“We’ll see how long you last.”
The road stretched out in front of both of us.
Neither of us turned around.
After that, Lorenzo stopped coming.
Vanessa, on the other hand, never stopped bringing him up. “I honestly didn’t know he had it in him. Lorenzo’s wild now.”
“He kept Gianna around, and she dumped him after a month.”
“Let me think… you were gone six months, and he’d already gone through eight girlfriends.”
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“So the untouchable prince finally fell off his pedestal?”
I was working through a financial report when she said it.
My pen paused for a second.
Then I answered lightly, “I guess so.”
Vanessa sounded relieved. “Good. As long as you’re over him. My boss is calling me, I’ve got to go.”
The call ended.
I rubbed my dry eyes and put in eye drops.
And suddenly I wanted to laugh.
Lorenzo had said I couldn’t survive without him.
Yet here I was.
Still alive. Still fine.
I even slept at night now.
Except one day, I reached for my pen and my mind went blank.
Instead of grabbing the pen, I shoved my hand straight into the stapler.
My gaze darkened.
Then I went to see a doctor.
The paper he handed me was light as air.
But the black words printed across it were brutally clear.
Bipolar disorder.
I looked at it and smiled a little before raising my head. “How long until I get better?”
The doctor seemed surprised.
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His blue eyes were full of calm reassurance. “Don’t rush it. Life will get better.”
I picked up the medication, thanked him, and left.
The sky in England was always gray.
Sunlight felt rare there.
So I learned how to live with the rain.
How to live with the shadows inside me too.
I made friends.
I stayed in treatment.
I did the work.
By the time I graduated, I’d even won an academic excellence award.
Three years passed in a blur.
Then my mother called.
She sounded older somehow, worn thin with bitterness. “Sera, come home. Something happened to the family.”
After more than ten hours on a private jet, my eyes were bloodshot and my hair was a mess.
But I was moving too fast to care, hurrying straight for the arrivals gate.
And from a distance, I saw Lorenzo.
He was still tall and striking, though there was more fatigue in his face now.
Even so, when he saw me, something like joy lit up in him.
I stopped a few steps away.
“Why are you targeting my family’s company?”
The smile on his face faded.
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He walked toward me and took the suitcase from my hand. “Sera, you’re back. That’s enough.”
I hadn’t slept properly in too long.
I was too exhausted and irritated to tolerate him. “Lorenzo, what the hell do you want?”
He stopped walking.
After a long silence, he turned around and asked in a shaking voice, “Sera… why didn’t you ever come back for me?”
“I missed you.”
A raw, uncharacteristic gloss coated his eyes, and his voice had gone rough with emotion.
By then he had already taken over the Conti family. Even overseas, I had heard about the things he’d done.
He had become colder. Harder to read. A man who never wore his feelings where anyone could see them.
And yet now, for the first time, he was unraveling in public.
People nearby had already started staring under the harsh airport fluorescent lights.
A headache pulsed behind my eyes. “If you want to make a scene here, that’s your choice.”
“You can keep the suitcase. Goodbye.”