CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Forgive Me, Love12Please respect copyright.PENANAwEijf46HNO
(Matteo’s POV)
He didn’t tell her where he was going.
He just left a note beside her pillow:
“I’ll be back before the sun sets. If I don’t come home—don’t wait. Raise her without me. But know I loved you both with everything I had left.”
The drive was long.12Please respect copyright.PENANAZXvFD17NSs
Dusty roads.12Please respect copyright.PENANAehXxVXzLI4
Nothing but guilt in the air.
And the weight of one last name—
Luciana.
His first patient.12Please respect copyright.PENANA3EbyMhicwq
His first mistake.12Please respect copyright.PENANAQKqPvil21y
His first... sin.
She was still alive.12Please respect copyright.PENANABcgmB5zYTo
In a quiet care home.12Please respect copyright.PENANALzXPEFRyg1
Diagnosed with long-term trauma.12Please respect copyright.PENANAzKke0uTNDc
No family.12Please respect copyright.PENANAtrSSn76ciM
No voice.
But her eyes still remembered him.
Even after everything he did.
He entered the room.
Luciana was sitting by the window, staring at nothing.
Her hands were pale.12Please respect copyright.PENANA648xxiFAlz
Wrinkled.12Please respect copyright.PENANA57WXEipfUa
One of them flinched when she heard his footsteps.
But he knelt beside her.
Slow.12Please respect copyright.PENANAoAEVLzSbDx
Gentle.
“I came to say sorry.”
No answer.
“You trusted me. I used you. For comfort. For control. For ego.”
“And I broke you.”
Tears rolled down his cheeks.
“I didn’t know love back then. I only knew how to take.”
“But I’m about to be a father now. To a little girl.”
“And if someone ever treated her the way I treated you—”
He sobbed.
“—I would burn the whole world down.”
He took her hand.12Please respect copyright.PENANABzo5on5S8Y
It shook in his palm.12Please respect copyright.PENANAwGM2JgfruR
But she didn’t pull away.
“If there’s any mercy left in the universe… let it be this.”
“That you find peace.”
“And that I learn how to be better… through her.”
She didn’t speak.12Please respect copyright.PENANAcyrzky54PZ
But her fingers tightened.
Just once.
And Matteo broke.
He sat with her in silence for an hour.12Please respect copyright.PENANA8VdqBeEp0e
Left flowers on her table.12Please respect copyright.PENANAsOcQlwu24p
And walked away lighter.
For the first time in years—12Please respect copyright.PENANA5U0VGLT3WI
He didn’t hate himself.
He could breathe.
When he came home, she was waiting outside the motel room.
Holding a small pink sock.
“She kicked hard today.”
He knelt and kissed her belly.
“I faced my past today.”
“And?”
“It didn’t kill me.”
That night, Matteo wrote in a notebook.12Please respect copyright.PENANAZ2x1IqrA97
A letter for Arielle.
ns216.73.216.12da2“One day, you’ll ask me who I was before you. And I’ll tell you the truth. But I’ll end it with this—12Please respect copyright.PENANAs7aY8wu90i
‘You made me a man worthy of being remembered.’”