18. Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Sixteen
Bianca
I t's the smell that hits me first. A horrid mix of antiseptic and artificial lemon, undercut with something medicinal that no amount of air freshener can mask.
It's the scent of fading lives and failing bodies, of memories slipping through fingers like sand.
Oakwood Care Center.
My steps falter at the entrance, and for a moment, I'm not Bianca Ravelli with her designer dress and gold crest around her neck. I'm just Bianca Sutton again, the hotel maid who scrubbed other people's messes by day and visited a mother who no longer recognized her by night.
Luca's hand presses against my back, steadying me with every step.
The same hand that had held a blade to Arben's palm hours earlier now guides me with unexpected gentleness. The contradiction makes my head spin. This man who deals in blood and threats, now stands beside me in the sterile corridors of my most private pain.
"Mrs. Ravelli! What an unexpected pleasure."
The night nurse hurries around her station, eyes darting nervously between my face and Luca's looming presence. Her gaze lingers on the Ravelli crest at my throat before sliding away.
"And Mr. Ravelli himself," she adds, voice dropping as she gives a slight, deferential bow of her head.
I glance at Luca, the realization settling cold in my stomach. His reputation, his influence…it reaches even here, to this quiet place where lives fade in dignified silence. Did he already know about my mother? Had his men been watching her too?
"Marina Sutton's room," Luca says. "We won't need an escort."
The nurse nods quickly, stepping back. "Of course, sir. Room 217. Down the hall to the left."
I lead the way, each step heavier than the last. I've walked this corridor a hundred times, but it's always been alone, my shoulders hunched against the weight of watching my mother disappear piece by piece.
But tonight, Luca's presence casts a shadow that both protects and threatens.
Room 217 is exactly as I remember—beige walls, generic landcape art, a single armchair pulled close to the bed where my mother spends her days. A few framed photos sit on the nightstand, but they're strangers to her now. Faces without names, moments without memories.
She's awake, perched on the edge of her bed in a pale blue nightgown, staring out the window at the distant London skyline. Her once-dark hair has faded to silver, pulled back in a loose braid I know the evening nurse must have done. My mother's hands, once nimble enough to braid my hair every morning before school, can no longer manage that simplest of tasks.
"Mom?" I step into the room, heart in my throat. "It's Bianca."
She turns, eyes focusing slowly on my face. There's no recognition there. Just the polite smile she gives to all visitors, whether she knows them or not.
"Hello, dear," she says, voice thin but pleasant. "Have you come to read to me?"
Every time, it stings.
And every time, I pretend it doesn't.
"If you'd like." I move forward, taking her frail hand in mine. "I brought someone with me today. Someone... important to me."
Luca steps into the room, and something shifts in the air. My mother's eyes widen slightly as she takes him in—his height, his presence, the controlled power evident in every line of his body.
"Would you like some tea?" I ask, trying to pull her eyes from Luca.
She nods, and I busy myself with the electric kettle on her nightstand, preparing the chamomile tea she's always preferred. Luca watches from near the door, a predator momentarily caged in this room of pastel colors and hospital corners.
"You have lovely eyes," my mother says suddenly, looking directly at Luca. "So gray. Like a wolf."
He steps closer, movements carefully measured as if approaching something wild and easily startled. "Thank you, Mrs. Sutton."
"Marina," she corrects, with a flash of her old self. "Mrs. Sutton was my mother-in-law, and that woman never approved of anything I did."
I nearly drop the teacup. This is the most lucid she's been in months—aware enough to correct someone, to reference her past.
Hope flutters in my chest.
"Mom?" I press the warm cup into her hands. "Do you know who I am today?"
She looks at me, a furrow between her brows. "You're kind," she says finally. "You always bring me tea just how I like it."
And just like that… the hope withers.
I force a smile, swallowing the disappointment that never gets easier to bear.
Luca takes the armchair while I perch on the edge of my mother's bed. We talk about nothing—the weather, the flowers in the garden outside her window, the book on her nightstand that I know she can no longer follow. I fill the silence with gentle words, while Luca observes, uncharacteristically quiet.
Then something changes. My mother sets down her teacup with a sudden clarity in her movements.
"Bianca," she says, and my name on her lips sends a shock through me. "My little Bianca."
I freeze, afraid to move, to breathe, to break whatever fragile thread of memory has suddenly connected.
"Mom?" My voice cracks. "You know me?"
She smiles. A real smile, one I haven't seen in years. "Of course I know my daughter." Her gaze shifts to Luca, sharpening. "And you… your eyes... they're just like his."
"Like whose?" Luca leans forward, sudden interest glinting in his expression.
"Be careful of men with wolf eyes, Bianca," my mother continues, gripping my hand with surprising strength. "They see everything. They take everything."
"Mom, it's okay." I try to soothe her, but she's agitated now, glancing toward the door as if expecting someone to burst through.
"They'll find you if they know," she whispers urgently. "They always find what belongs to them."
"Who will find her?" Luca asks, voice gentle but insistent.
My mother's eyes grow distant again, the brief light of recognition fading as quickly as it came. She looks at us both with polite confusion.
And just like that the moment passes like smoke through fingers
"Was I saying something?" she asks, reaching for her tea with shaking hands. "I'm sorry. I get so muddled these days."
The lump in my throat threatens to choke me. I stand, reaching for the hairbrush on her nightstand—a silver-handled antique that once belonged to her mother.
"Let me brush your hair," I say softly. "Like you used to do for me."
She submits willingly, turning her back to me with childlike trust. I run the brush through her silver strands, remembering how she once did the same for me—singing softly, telling me stories of princesses and dragons, making me feel safe in a world that often wasn't.
Over her shoulder, I catch Luca watching us, something unfathomable in his expression. Not coldness, not calculation. Something deeper. Something almost like longing.
When we leave, I kiss my mother's forehead, promise to return soon, and walk away knowing she'll forget I was ever there before I reach the parking lot. The familiar ache settles in my chest. That heavy grief for someone who's still here, but remains just beyond my reach.
In the hallway, Luca's hand finds mine, fingers interlacing with mine in a gesture that feels too intimate for the monster who sliced open a man's palm tonight.
"Your mother's comment," he says as we walk toward the exit. "About my eyes. About them finding you."
"It was nothing," I reply quickly. "Just confusion. Her lucid moments are rare now, and even then, what she says rarely makes sense."
He studies me, clearly unconvinced. "She seemed very certain."
"That's the cruelty of this disease. The certainty without the clarity."
We step outside into the cool night air, and I take a deep breath, trying to clear the scent of antiseptic from my lungs. The Bentley waits at the curb, Alessio standing beside it like a statue.
"It's been her whole life," I continue as Luca guides me toward the car. "Just her and me against the world. My father was never in the picture."
"Never?" Luca's voice sharpens with interest.
"I never knew him. Mom said he wasn't ready to be a father." I shrug, the old hurt dulled by years of acceptance. "It was always just us."
Luca's silent as we slide into the back seat of the Bentley, the leather cold against my bare legs. As the car pulls away from the curb, the exhaustion of the day—of witnessing Luca's business methods, of seeing my mother, of the emotional whiplash between fear and tenderness—finally overwhelms me.
The tears come without warning, hot and silent down my cheeks.
I expect him to ignore them. To maintain the cold distance of the dangerous man I married. Instead, Luca pulls me against him, one arm around my shoulders, hand cupping the back of my head against his chest.
"Let it out, little rabbit ," he murmurs into my hair. "No one can see you but me."
The permission breaks something in me. The sob tears from my throat, raw and painful, as weeks of tension and years of grief pour out against the expensive fabric of his suit. He holds me through it, one hand stroking my hair with surprising gentleness.
"I'm sorry," I gasp between sobs. "I don't usually—"
"Don't apologize for feeling," he interrupts. "Not to me."
I look up at him, tears blurring my vision. "How can you be this person now, after what you did tonight? After what I saw you do to Arben?"
His thumb brushes a tear from my cheek. "They're not different people, Bianca. Just different sides of the same coin."
"The man who threatens to slit throats and the man who holds me while I cry?"
"Both are me," he says simply. "Both are real."
I swallow hard, suddenly needing to fill the vulnerable silence between us. "She used to braid my hair every morning before school," I whisper. "Even on her worst days… when the bills were piling up, when she was working three jobs… she always made time for that. She said a girl should face the world with her armor on, and for her, that meant neat braids and clean clothes, even if they were secondhand."
Luca's quiet for a moment, his hand still stroking my hair. Then, surprisingly, he speaks.
"My mother used to sing to me in Italian," he says, voice low as if sharing a secret. "Old folk songs her grandmother taught her. Teresa would join in sometimes. Once, they tried to teach me to make pasta—rolling the dough and cutting it by hand."
I try to imagine a young Luca, hands covered in flour instead of blood, and the image makes my chest ache.
"What happened?" I ask, sensing there's more to the story.
His body tenses slightly. "My father came in. He was... displeased. Said I was wasting time on women's work when I should be learning the business." Luca's voice drops even lower. "That night, he took me to meet with an associate who had been stealing from us. Made me watch as they beat him. Then handed me the knife for the final lesson."
I go still against him. "How old were you?"
"Thirteen."
My heart twists. "That's horrible."
"That's preparation," he corrects. "For the world I was born into. For the man I needed to become."
I think of my mother's gentle hands braiding my hair, teaching me kindness even in hardship. Of Luca's father forcing a blade into his child's hands, teaching him violence as a first language.
Two childhoods. Two paths.
Both leading somehow to this moment, to us tangled together in the back of this luxury car, his suit damp with my tears, my body cradled against a killer who touches me like I'm something precious.
The ringing of Luca's phone cuts through the silence. He answers with one hand, the other still wrapped around me.
"Speak," he commands, voice instantly shifting from the softness he'd used with me to the cold authority of Luca Ravelli, heir to an empire built on blood.
I feel him stiffen as he listens, the muscles in his arm turning to steel beneath my cheek.
"When?" he asks. "How much was lost?" A longer pause. "Who had clearance to change it?"
I sit up slightly, watching his face harden into the mask I recognize from the underground meeting. The predator returning to the surface.
"Who's responsible, Matteo?" Luca's voice drops dangerously. "Don't protect him."
Whatever Matteo says next makes Luca's jaw clench.
" Dante ," he spits, not a question but a certainty laced with venom.
I remember Dante at brunch, his mocking smile, the calculated way he tried to undermine Luca and me. The tension between the brothers that seemed to run deeper than mere rivalry.
"What about the eastern warehouse?" Luca asks. "Any unusual activity?" He listens intently. "Double the security. No one enters without direct authorization from me. And Matteo? Gather what proof you can, but take no action yet. This requires... personal attention."
When he hangs up, it's like watching a transformation. The man who comforted me receding behind the cold, calculating eyes of the Ravelli heir. The comfort of moments ago feels like a dream I might have imagined.
"What's happened?" I ask quietly.
His fingers drum against his thigh, a rhythm of controlled rage. "A shipment was lost. High-value merchandise. The route was changed at the last minute, and authorization like that only comes from family."
"Dante," I echo, remembering the name he'd growled.
Luca's eyes meet mine, and they're the eyes of the wolf my mother warned about—gray and merciless, seeing everything, missing nothing.
"The same brother who left security gaps on our wedding night," Luca explains. "When the eastern warehouse was breached. Too many coincidences. Too many mistakes from a man who doesn't make them."
"What will you do?" I ask, voice barely above a whisper.
His smile is sharp enough to cut glass. "What Ravellis have always done to traitors. But tonight, we do not need to worry."