Chapter 23 "Jealous Husband"
The garden exploded with color bougainvillea tumbling like wild paint strokes, lemon trees glowing gold in the late Italian sun. Below, the sea stretched endlessly, glittering like a thousand scattered diamonds tossed by careless gods.
Elena curled on the old stone bench beneath the ancient olive tree, knees hugged to her chest, tears dripping in perfect, dramatic droplets that caught the light like jewels.
Footsteps crunched over gravel.
Viktor emerged six-foot-seven of scarred steel and soft panic, a walking tank awkwardly misplaced in paradise.
He cleared his throat, voice wobbling like a guilty schoolboy.
“Ma’am… please don’t cry. The boss will have my head.”
Elena lifted her face, lashes wet, cheeks shining.
“He’s the reason I’m crying,” she snapped, voice cracking in heartbreak.
Viktor inhaled sharply like a man staring into the throat of a loaded gun.
He lowered himself onto the bench, leaving a very respectful, very terrified foot of space.
“Ohh…”
Elena sniffled… then brightened with the chaotic determination of the truly wounded.
“Viktor-brother,” she declared the nickname she’d given him months ago “we’re playing rock-paper-scissors. Now. The cook used to play with me when I was sad. It always worked.”
Viktor froze, eyes widening like he’d been asked to defuse a bomb using chopsticks.
“But ma’am ”
“Please,” she whispered, bottom lip trembling dangerously, “or I’ll tell Luca you made me cry again.”
Viktor sat upright.
Instant compliance.
Like a soldier surrendering to a general in a sundress.
They played.
Her tiny hand against his giant fist.
Rock.
Paper.
Scissors.
She won the first round and her laugh burst out bright and loud, echoing through the lemon grove, dancing over the glittering sea.
Viktor lost the next four rounds on purpose, the giant’s terrified face slowly relaxing into a shy, fond smile.
Three floors up, from the study balcony, Luca Romeo watched.
Jealousy,hot, childish, feral roared through him like wildfire.
His wife.
His butterfly.
Laughing with another man.
He stormed down the marble stairs, boots thundering like a coming storm, jaw locked, eyes dark.
He burst into the garden like a tempest unleashed.
“What the hell are you doing, Viktor?” he thundered, voice rattling the bougainvillea. “I don’t pay you to play games. I’m here to play with my wife.”
Viktor sprang to his feet with military precision.
“Yes, boss!”
And he fled like a man escaping a volcano eruption disappearing behind the lemon grove in a blur of panic and gravel.
Elena stood tall, wiping her tears, cheeks flushed from laughter and fury.
A small, barefoot goddess of wrath.
She turned and marched toward the villa.
Luca reached out, catching her wrist gently but firmly.
“Where are you going?” he asked, voice low and ragged with jealousy and love. “Play with me.”
She pulled her hand free.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t look.
Just walked away, spine straight, tears glittering on her lashes like diamonds.
Luca stood alone in the garden of crushed petals and fading laughter.
For the first time in his life,
Luca Romeo the man who conquered empires
didn’t know how to win back the one soul he couldn’t breathe without.
The silent treatment lasted exactly one hour and twenty-three minutes.
For Luca Romeo, it felt like eternity carved into bone.
Elena drifted through the villa like a furious little ghost soft voice, sweet smiles, sunshine for everyone except the man who worshipped her.
She chatted with Giovanna about lunch.
Laughed with the gardener over roses.
Even asked Viktor who nearly fainted if he wanted coffee.
Everyone got a piece of her warmth.
Everyone except him.
Luca followed two steps behind, hands shoved in his pockets, looking like a six-foot-four, scarred, mafia-built puppy abandoned in the rain.
“Butterfly…”
Silence.
“Farfalla, please…”
Nothing.
“Baby… am I invisible now?”
She raised one perfect eyebrow, looked right through him, and walked away.
He was dying slowly. Dramatically. Pathetically.
She wandered into the courtyard where two guards were washing the Maybach, sunlight glittering off the stream of water.
Elena stripped off her sandals, rolled up her jeans, and snatched a sponge from one of them.
“Move,” she ordered sweetly. “I’ll help.”
Within seconds she was laughing, splashing water everywhere, drawing hearts on the fogged windows like a mischievous angel.
The guards grinned like idiots until Luca appeared in the archway, arms crossed, jaw carved from thunderclouds.
“Out. Everyone. Now.”
They scattered instantly like a flock of terrified pigeons.
Elena kept washing, back turned, sponge moving in lazy circles.
Silence stretched thick and heavy.
Luca exhaled defeat softening his shoulders.
He stepped forward, boots soaking in puddles, and spoke the words he’d sworn never to say.
“Okay, fine. You can go.”
The sponge fell still.
Elena spun around, eyes wide, hope sparking like sunrise.
“Really?”
He didn’t even finish nodding before she launched herself at him
Legs around his waist, arms around his neck, joy bursting like fireworks.
Luca stumbled on the wet stone and they tumbled together into the grass soaked, laughing, tangled limbs and messy happiness.
Water dripped from her hair onto his cheeks.
She peppered his face with frantic, delighted kisses.
“You mean it?” she whispered, breath warm against his mouth.
“I mean it,” he murmured, dragging her closer, hands sliding under her damp shirt. “ But you have to take gurads with you And if anyone even breathes wrong ”
“I’ll call you,” she finished with a grin, “and you’ll burn the mountain down.”
He kissed her slow, deep, relieved.
“Damn right.”
She rested her forehead against his, breath mixing with his.
“Thank you, Lucas,” she whispered, a quiet truth. “For letting me grow wings.”
His fingers brushed her cheek, eyes fierce with devotion.
“Just promise you’ll always come back to me, farfalla.”
“Always,” she breathed.
Above them stretched endless blue.
Below them waite
d an empire.
But for now in the wet grass, drenched in sunlight and laughter they were just Luca and Elena.
Soaked.
Stupidly in love.
And finally, heartbreakingly, beautifully okay.
They rose slowly, dripping water, grass stuck to their skin and clothes like confetti from some wild, unexpected celebration.
Luca brushed a leaf from Elena’s hair softly, almost tender then without warning snatched her hand.
“Now play that stupid game with me,” he demanded, voice rough, but his eyes glinting with mischief.
Elena’s brows jumped, her lips curling into a wicked, slow smile.
“Are you seriously jealous, Mr. Husband?”
“Yes,” Luca said instantly, stepping closer until their breaths mingled. Water trickled from his lashes down his cheek like rain.
“I can tolerate anything in this world except someone else making you laugh like that. You want weapons? Armies? Fire? I’ll burn cities. Just… let the reason you laugh be me.”
Her heart flipped low, soft, devastating.
She poked his chest lightly.
“Do you even know how to play rock-paper-scissors, Mr. Big Bad Mafia?”
Luca’s grin sharpened into something sinful.
“Teach me, Mrs. Romeo.”
Elena burst into laughter, bright and uncontrolled.
“Oh my God, what did you even do in your childhood? Terrorize the other kids with that scary face?”
But the moment the joke left her mouth, the air shifted.
Luca’s smile froze caught in place like glass.
A shadow cracked through his eyes, dark and bottomless, swallowing the playful light in an instant.
His shoulders tightened.
The storm-grey of his gaze went cold.
The man before her vanished and for a heartbeat, she glimpsed the boy who grew up in cages, in violence, in silence.
Elena’s laughter died, softening into breathless worry.
She stepped closer, cupping his jaw with both hands, her thumbs brushing the faint stubble on his cheeks.
“Lucas… where did you get lost just now?”
Her voice was a whisper gentle, warm, careful.
“Baby, talk to me.”
He blinked, and the mask came down hard too smooth, too calm.
“Nothing.”
The word was flat.
A lie wrapped in control.
“Teach me the game.”
But Elena saw it.
The crack in his armor.
The childhood he’d buried under violence and empire.
The ghost of a mother he’d put a bullet in.
The quiet boy still stuck in memories he’d never speak aloud.
She didn’t push.
Not yet.
Not when he was retreating behind walls she was still learning to break.
Instead, she slid her fingers into his both of her hands wrapping around his one large, scarred palmanchoring him back to her.
“Rock-paper-scissors,” she murmured, squeezing gently.
“On three. And loser has to kiss the winner. Deal?”
The darkness in his gaze eased, just a little.
Just enough.
“Deal, butterfly.”
They played.
Elena threw paper.
Luca threw rock.
She gasped dramatically, then shrieked, “I win!” as she jumped into his arms.
Luca caught her midair, spinning her once, her laughter mixing with the sound of dripping water and the bright morning light.
The shadows in his eyes softened diluted by her warmth, her stubborn joy, her unwavering love.
He kissed her slow, deep, tasting lemon-scented sunlight and the promise of safety he couldn’t say aloud.
And for a fleeting moment,in her arms,in her laughter,in a silly childhood game he never got to play the wounded boy he never got to be finally breathed.