He Let Me Bleed So I Let Him Go Chapter 18
A month later.
Elena found herself thinking about the past less and less.
The nightmares had dwindled from every night to only once in a while.
And when she woke, she no longer felt that bone-deep chill.
In that month, Luca had quietly attended to almost every detail of her life.
She mentioned offhand that the coffee at the house tasted wrong. The next day, a tin of Lavazza beans from Italy appeared in the kitchen.
She said she was craving real Texas barbecue and that nowhere in L.A. did it right. The following evening, the housekeeper served her perfectly smoked brisket, explaining that Luca had hired a pitmaster to teach her.
Once, on a street corner, Elena had paused for a few seconds to look at an old woman selling gardenias.
That night, a small bouquet of them sat on her table, their stems wrapped in damp newspaper, the petals still beaded with dew.
Luca never mentioned any of it, and he never used his kindness to ask for anything in return.
He also never interfered with her work.
Under her own name, Elena signed her first structural restoration contract since leaving Chicago. The project payments went directly into her personal account, and the blueprints bore only one name: Elena Marino. No Family insignia.
For the first time, she felt with absolute certainty that if she walked out of this house tomorrow, she would be just fine.
But one question lingered.
She was waiting for Luca to state his terms.
A man who controlled the entire Bellandi family didn’t block a rival Don’s pursuit of his wife for no reason.
She remembered the wager he had proposed six months earlier.
Luca had found her and offered a deal so absurd it had sounded almost like a joke.
If, over the next six months, Dante truly put her first—if he fulfilled his duty as a husband to protect her through every danger and every choice—Luca would withdraw completely and never bother her again.
If Dante failed, Elena would accept Luca’s protection and leave the city, just as they had agreed.
The agreement required neither love nor fealty to the Bellandi family. Luca guaranteed only an independent residence, the freedom to work, and the right to leave whenever she wished.
At the time, Elena hadn’t understood why Dante’s greatest rival would make such a bet.Â