“Delete My Number,” She Said—Then Six Men Stepped Aside for the Crime Lord She’d Been Secretly Writing To
Chapter 14
Years later, Clara’s daughter found the old letters in a wooden chest.
“Mother?”
Clara looked up.
“What are these?”
“Something from a long time ago.”
Her daughter opened one.
She read the first line.
Then another.
“Who wrote these?”
Clara smiled.
“A stranger.”
“Did you love him?”
Clara laughed.
“Before I ever saw his face.”
Her daughter looked confused.
“How?”
“Because sometimes a person’s heart speaks more clearly through a letter than it does across a room.”
She closed the chest.
“But there is something more important.”
“What?”
“He was dangerous.”
Her daughter frowned.
“Then why did you trust him?”
“I didn’t.”
She smiled.
“Not at first.”
“What changed?”
“He never asked me to surrender my freedom.”
Clara looked toward the garden.
“He protected my choice.”
Her daughter understood.
“And that’s why you married him?”
“Yes.”
Outside, Matteo was teaching their son how to ride.
The six former guards stood nearby.
The feared crime lord of the river had become something else.
Not a saint.
Not an innocent man.
But a man who had chosen to stop living by fear.
