Chapter 77 – The Last Man I Expected

Chapter 77 – The Last Man I Expected
Lucia’s POV

Flashback

We were back in Chicago for the summer holidays. I’d just gotten into another fight with my parents over Daniel, and this time I didn’t stick around to finish it. I stormed out of the house, grabbing my phone with trembling hands.

Daniel picked up on the first ring.

“Babe?” His voice was sleepy but alert. “What’s wrong?”

“Can I come over?” I asked, already walking. “I just—need to get out of here.”

“I’ll meet you halfway. Stay on the phone with me, okay?”

He didn’t ask for details. He never did, not until I was ready.

When I saw him under the streetlamp, I ran.

He didn’t hesitate. He pulled me into his arms like I was something precious. Like I wasn’t full of rage and shame and disappointment. His hands moved up and down my back, steady and grounding.

“Breathe,” he whispered into my hair. “I’ve got you.”

We ended up at the beach, barefoot in the sand, the wind kissing salt into our skin. I told him everything. How my mother thought he wasn’t enough. How my father just stood there. How small they made me feel.

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then he took off his sweatshirt and wrapped it around my shoulders. “It’s not true, you know.”

I looked at him.

“I’m not trying to impress your parents, Lucia. I’m trying to build a life with you. They’ll see that. One day. And if they don’t?” He gave a soft, crooked smile. “I’ll spend the rest of my life proving them wrong.”

Tears burned my eyes.

“God, Daniel, I’m so tired of having to explain you to them. To everyone.”

“You won’t have to forever,” he said, gently tucking my hair behind my ear. “One day, we’ll have a place where no one gets a say but us. A home that’s ours. I’ll cook shitty pasta every Sunday and pretend it’s good, and you’ll write books that make people cry, and we’ll hang ugly paintings on the walls just because we can.”

I laughed through my tears. “What if I’m not a good writer?”

“Then we’ll be broke and in love,” he said, grinning. “And I’ll still think you’re the smartest, most beautiful woman alive.”

My chest ached in the best, worst way. I looked at him—really looked. His messy brown curls, the little golden specks in his eyes when the moonlight caught them, the way his lips twitched when he was trying to make me laugh.

Right then, I knew.

I wanted to marry him.

I wanted every stupid Sunday pasta night, every broken heater, every long night curled in bed with his heartbeat under my ear. I wanted the struggle and the softness. The ridiculous arguments about which way the toilet paper should hang. I wanted his last name. His future. His forever.

So I kissed him.

Slow and deep and trembling with the weight of everything I couldn’t say yet.

When I pulled away, he brushed a tear from my cheek with his thumb.

“Whatever happens,” he said quietly, “you’ll always have me. I’ll never give you a reason to doubt that, Lucia.”

————————

I jolted back into the present with the kind of whiplash that steals the air from your lungs.

How had I life spiraled so fast? How did I end up here?

I sat curled up on my bed, knees hugged to my chest, heart shattered into a thousand pieces no one could see. My fingers were clenched around the sleeves of the old hoodie I sometimes wore to feel safe…. It belonged to Daniel.

Days blurred together. My limbs ached from being still too long, but it was my mind that tortured me most. My thoughts spun like a broken film reel: Daniel’s betrayal… and death. Dante. The masked man with the gun. My father’s lies.

A knock sounded again. Soft at first. Then firmer.

“Lucia,” my father’s voice pleaded from behind the door. “Please. Just talk to me.”

I didn’t answer. Not this time. Not the last ten times either.

What was there to say?

He’d admitted it—just blurted it out like it wasn’t the worst thing he could’ve said to me: “Yes, I stole from the Romanos.”

My life was unraveling.  Everything I thought I knew turned out to be a lie.

Everything I believed Daniel had protected me from, he’d been part of all along. That truth made everything worse.

Had he just pretended? All those times he held me, whispered promises, looked at me like I was his whole world, was any of it real?

Or had he gone down that path because of me?

Because I was stranded—broke, lost, drowning. I couldn’t even afford college fees, textbooks, or rent.

He said he’d handle it. Said he’d take care of us. And I let him. God, I let him.

Had I pushed him into his own death?

And Dante…

God.

I hated that part of me wanted to understand him.

Another knock. “Lucia, please. You need to know everything.”

I squeezed my knees tighter, numb. My thoughts scattered like broken glass, impossible to piece together. Guilt burned in my chest for not telling Dante sooner, for not realizing what Daniel was.. for loving men who had destroyed everything…

Including me.

I straightened and unlocked the door expecting him to say something that would hurt. I wasn’t wrong.

“I need you to listen, amore. Just this once.”

I didn’t speak.

He sat down slowly, like the weight of his guilt was dragging him under. His face was older—lined, sunken.

“When I… when I got fired, I thought it was just for a little while,” he murmured, eyes unfocused. “I kept showing up for interviews… wore that blue—no, navy suit. Your mother’s favorite, wasn’t it? Or maybe it was your sister who liked it. She said I looked like a lawyer in it once. Funny girl.”

He laughed, then quickly sobered. “They didn’t want me. No one did. Said I took money. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t, Lucia. But once people start talking… it sticks.”

He scratched his arm, distracted. “Your mother, she… she didn’t get it. Thought I’d stopped trying. Called me lazy. Irresponsible. Weak. Maybe she was right. I don’t know anymore.”

A long pause. His mind was slipping more each day.

“Then there was this guy. An old friend. From the academy? No—no, before that. College, maybe? Rick. Or Ray. I don’t remember. He said he had something lined up. One night. One job. Big reward., he said. No one gets hurt.”

He blinked rapidly like the memory slipped just out of reach. “I told him no. At first. I think. Or maybe I just thought about saying no and never did. He kept pushing. Said it’d change everything. So I…”

He held up trembling fingers. “We did it. Took something. A box, maybe? No. A shipment. Yes. It had… money? Jewels? I don’t know. But we got away. No cops. No blood. It felt like—like winning the lottery.”

His eyes drifted toward the kitchen. “Moved us out of that apartment. Got you into that school with the big hallways. You remember the one? You used to get lost…”

I nodded, throat tight.

“I thought it was over. But then… he died. Rick. Shot in the chest—or was it the head? I don’t know. All I know is he was gone, and I started watching my back. I kept seeing things that weren’t there. Thought maybe I was losing it. Or maybe I was next.”

He frowned. “And then we ran out of money. It went fast, you know. That kind of money… it never lasts. We came back to Chicago. Thought we could start over. But I felt them watching. Listening. And then—”

He looked at me suddenly, eyes watery and wild. “It wasn’t a robbery, Lucia. No. I thought it was, but… they weren’t after us. Not really. They came for what we took. That’s why your mother…”

His voice cracked. “That’s why she died. And your sister. They didn’t want to hurt them. They wanted what we stole. And we—I—put it in their path.”

He covered his face with both hands, breathing shallow.

“I didn’t mean to. I swear to God. I never thought it would follow us home. But it did.”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

His voice cracked. “I was the reason they were there, Lucia. It was…. me.”

The silence between us stretched so long I thought it would break something in both of us. 

He reached for my hand. “I know you’ll never forgive me. But I needed you to know.”

He left the room after that. And for the first time in days, I cried.

Not because of Dante. Not even because of Daniel.

But because my mother died hating the wrong people. Because my sister died with terror in her eyes, and none of it should’ve happened.

The masked man slid through my thoughts. Tall. Eyes like ice behind the black fabric. Breathing like a monster under the bed. I still heard it in the dark.

I didn’t know who he was.

But I had a feeling I’d see him again. And I didn’t know who would die next.

Me. Dante. Or someone else I hadn’t even begun to lose yet.

It took until evening before I finally walked downstairs. My father was in the kitchen, patiently waiting for a verdict.

“I forgive you,” I said quietly.

His head shot up.

“But not because you deserve it,” I said. “Because hating you is choking me, and I need to breathe again.”

He nodded, something like shame softening his face.

Then came the knock.

I walked to the door, every part of me tensed like a red warning light. 

And when I opened it, the last man I expected to see was standing on the other side.