“Delete My Number,” She Said—Then Six Men Stepped Aside for the Crime Lord She’d Been Secretly Writing To
Chapter 13
They married the following spring.
There was no grand display.
No armed procession.
No display of wealth.
Only family, friends, farmers whose land had been restored, and six former guards who stood at the edge of the gathering.
Clara wore her mother’s wedding dress.
Matteo wore a simple black coat.
Before the ceremony, he handed Clara the bundle of letters.
“I want you to keep these.”
She looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because without them, I might still be the man I was.”
She touched the first letter.
“What did I write?”
“You asked whether I believed people could change.”
“And what did you answer?”
“I said no.”
Clara smiled.
“And now?”
Matteo looked at her.
“Yes.”
After the wedding, they returned to the river.
The old warehouses were being converted into legitimate trading houses.
The first ships carried grain instead of contraband.
The same men who once whispered Matteo’s name in fear now called him by his first name.
But Clara never forgot the six men who had stepped aside that first morning.
Whenever she saw them, she smiled.
One of them eventually asked her:
“Why did you stay?”
Clara knew exactly what he meant.
She looked toward Matteo.
“Because he gave me the choice to leave.”
The guard smiled.
“And you stayed.”
“Yes.”
