❝ 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐞. ❞
When Ricardo Esposito bursts through a door and finds a girl handcuffed on the floor, he decides to take her in and give her something she never had.
A fam...
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One month later
It was Ricardo's idea that I visit Zia Giulia in Sardegna, but what was supposed to be a week or two ended up being a month.
It was nice here and a good break. It was said that you shouldn't run away from your problems, but I did, over and over again, and I never regretted it.
My life at the moment consisted of nothing but sunbathing, spending the day at the beach or pool, getting to know Zia Giulia and my cousins better, and going for a walk in the evenings.
After the first few times, the walk has quickly become my favourite activity of the day. It was refreshing to be able to move freely without being followed by guards or being afraid that someone might attack you.
Today, too, I walked around for a while until I settled down on a bench.
It was a great spot; there was a beautiful view of nature from the bench, but it didn't even come close to mine and Antonio's bench.
I couldn't replace our place, no matter how long I looked. That realisation applied to several things.
It was not long before the silence was disturbed, and a clicking sound which reminded me of the past sounded. I looked to the side to see an older man with a walking stick sitting on the same bench as me, but he was careful to keep his distance.
In terms of age, I estimated him to be about Arcangelo's age, over seventy. He had grey hair and wore an expensive grey suit.
Normally I would have got up and left, and that was for several reasons. For far and wide, no one was around us, and he was a man unknown to me. But I reasoned that there was no reason to escape this situation. He was an older man, and physically he didn't seem to be able to hurt me-the only thing he could do was hit me with his stick.
But looking back, thinking that was stupid of me. You never know in what form harm will come to you, but the likelihood of it coming in the form of something you underestimate is high.
My gaze wandered from the landscape back to the man beside me, and I winced as I stared into the same green eyes as mine.
"It was not my intention to frighten you." His voice was as dry and deep as I had imagined, probably the result of decades of smoking.
"No, it's my fault; I can be a bit jumpy sometimes," I told him, and for now, that was the end of our conversation.
The hissing of light breezes, the faint chirping of birds and the rustling of bushes caught my attention. It was a nice change to hear that instead of locked doors, footsteps a few metres away from you or the metal of your handcuffs.
"You remind me of my daughter," he muttered, and I detected the Sicilian dialect in his voice.
