"Thank you for such a delicious dinner, Sara. Gosh! It’s been so long since I had such a wonderful handmade al," Remo said, raising his glass of wine before taking a large sip.
"Then I must invite you both frequently," Sara replied, smiling genuinely. "Marco is our neighbor, but where exactly do you live, Remo?" she inquired. "And what do you do?"
"I live in Westwood Hills," Remo replied smoothly, trying to keep his answer brief. "I do investnts," he added.
Sara’s smile remained, but her gaze sharpened. "That I am aware of. What do you do besides investnts, Remo?" she pressed gently, taking a sip of her wine.
Remo froze, his eyes instinctively flicking to Luca, wondering frantically if he should stick to his usual cover story or risk telling the truth.
"You better tell the truth," Sara stated clearly, catching the look. She turned her head, eting Luca’s gaze in a silent, challenging mont. "Since Luca has already told everything about him."
Sensing the sudden silence that followed her statent, Sara continued, "Luca, why don’t you involve in your business too? Not the one you show off in front of the world, but the one you conduct in the shadows."
Luca narrowed his eyes, his mind rapidly processing her question, pondering exactly what motivated Sara’s sudden demand.
"For that, you have to use guns," Remo remarked, finally breaking the tension with a dark chuckle. "I don’t think Luca will mind."
"Yeah, he doesn’t care if anyone gets hurt or not. What he feels is right, he does that," Sara muttered dismissively, deliberately lowering her wine glass onto the table with a soft clink.
Marco looked on with amusent, glancing pointedly at Luca. He realized that his friend had managed to trap himself in a highly volatile marriage. Sara wasn’t simply joining Luca’s world; she was already strategizing to pull him away from the mafia world entirely.
"Sara, where are you even taking this conversation?" Luca asked, his voice carefully controlled. His hand moved under the table to find hers in her lap, a subtle warning or a plea for a truce. "Shall we move out? To the living room?"
"Sure," Sara replied, finishing the last of her wine in one graceful gulp. "I’ll just head to the kitchen first, as I have so work to finish. You guys should go ahead." She pushed back her chair and walked out, leaving a wake of tension behind her.
"Oof, I honestly thought Sara was about to put a gun to my forehead," Remo remarked, letting out a sharp breath. "She was utterly intimidating."
"I think she knows about your work, Remo," Marco asserted, watching the door from where Sara left. "More importantly, she is definitely not ready to get along with Luca’s mafia business yet."
"Let’s head to the living room," Luca said, steering Remo and Marco away from the dining room tension. The three n started walking, but Marco stopped them.
"You two go ahead," Marco requested. "I’ll be right there; I want to grab a glass of water from the kitchen."
Luca gave a brief hum of acknowledgnt and continued on with Remo.
As Marco entered the spacious kitchen, he found Sara focused on her task, ticulously arranging the beautiful cupcakes into a sturdy box.
"Hey, why did you co here?" Sara asked, pausing her work and standing straight. "Do you need sothing?"
"Nothing," Marco replied, leaning casually against the counter. "You seed to really hate Luca’s work."
"Who wouldn’t?" Sara countered, her gaze fixed on the box. "He wants to build a family with , but at the cost of everything we will share." She finished closing the box and efficiently taped it shut before moving on to the second one.
"Luca got into this business because of his grandfather," Marco revealed.
"I know," Sara replied simply, without looking up. "Did you and Remo always know about this, even from school? And did you two never ask him to stop?"
Marco sighed. "Remo belongs to a family of mafias; this life is simply his inheritance," he answered. "While you know about . I had an abusive father, and my mother died from an overdose of alcohol. I practically grew up on aid that Luca’s family provided."
He paused, gathering his thoughts. "Initially, I did try to say sothing, but Luca simply smiled at , saying I wouldn’t understand. With ti, I realized why he said that." Marco explained that for Luca, the business wasn’t just cri; it was power, protection, and the legacy that ensured their survival.
"I see," Sara murmured, still taping the second cupcake box shut, refusing to et Marco’s eye.
"You don’t want to know what I understood," Marco pressed, seeking to clarify his perspective.
"No," Sara admitted. "But I can guess. It must be Luca’s coping chanism for not having parents around. He saw his grandfather as his ideal figure." She finally lifted her head, her eyes sharp and direct. "Did he ever kill soone?"
"Never," Marco stated instantly, his voice firm and reassuring. "Luca might run the shadow operations, but he doesn’t take lives. You should know that, Sara."
"No, I don’t," she countered honestly. "What I knew about him from school and college days seems like it was just a facade. I never truly saw the man he was behind that mask."
Marco walked further close to her, sharing a piece of history only close friends would know. "Luca has always loved you, Sara. That’s why he returned to you, despite how desperately his family tried to pin Ivanna to him. Even his grandfather, the man he idolized, approved of Ivanna, you know."
He sighed. "A lot happened with him. He wasn’t himself in the past, and pushing you away was the best thing he did to protect you. Though I do want Luca to leave that business, it’s going to be tough."
"I know. But in the end of the day, either Luca will have to choose or this dark business," Sara pronounced.
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