❝ 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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"The funeral is still some way off," Rafael joked when he came out of the room opposite mine.
"Shut up," I answered, but the doubts settled in. After careful consideration, I decided to wear black to talk to Arcangelo as colours might be inappropriate. "Do you think it could come across as rude?"
"You're fine," he assured me and offered to show me the way to his room.
Arcangelo would spend his last days here at the estate, which made sense as it was the house he grew up and lived in his whole life.
"What was he like to you as a grandfather?" I asked, walking beside Rafael. He and Pietro were grandchildren who could appreciate him as a grandfather; because to them, he was one, unlike Leandro and Alessandro.
He took his time before answering. "Imagine you're afraid of a thunderstorm at night. He is not the kind of person who will let you sleep in his bed or tell you anything reassuring, but he will sit on the edge of your bed and wait with you until the storm is over."
That described him well. Family was important to him, the Famiglia even more, so he always kept a certain distance and never let anyone too close.
I smiled. "Were you afraid of storms?"
"It was an example," Rafael said a little too quickly. "A metaphor, I don't know."
"You don't have to be ashamed of it; I was scared too," I told him. "Are you still afraid?"
"No."
"You just indirectly admitted that you used to be afraid of it," I muttered when we stopped in front of a door.
He chuckled. "You can be damn annoying; you know that, right?"
I shrugged my shoulders and watched him walk away. He was trying to make up for the past, and I couldn't deny that I sometimes enjoyed teasing him about how mean he used to be to get him to buy me things.
But I appreciated his effort.
He didn't push me and understood that it took time to build trust between us, both for him and for me.
Reminding myself that the man I was about to encounter was different from the man I remembered, I took a deep breath and knocked on the door to announce my presence before opening it.
Hadn't I known it was Arcangelo who I would find here, it would have taken me a few seconds to realize who the person resting on the bed was.
He was much thinner and weaker, the exhaustion on his face and in his posture was visible, but his piercing gaze remained the same.
I sat down on the cold floor next to his bed. "I heard you wanted to talk to me."
He was about to reply when he had a coughing fit. "I didn't expect you to come."
