EPILOGUE

THE LETTER FROM FABIANO;

This is where I first met you; in this very room and this is where it will all end.

I couldn’t say it to your face so I wrote it down to give it to you.

There is a question that we both asked ourselves many times but only I knew the answer to it.

‘Why you? Why this woman?’

Because you were the lone rose standing fall in the field full of wilted flowers.

Injured yet strong, broken yet standing, failing yet surviving.

Beautiful and different.

Maybe that was your curse.

I saw you. I saw your photo in Adriano’s office and I was obsessed with you from the very first moment. You were like a lioness, protecting your sister when you could have lost your life. Like a Queen.

I knew that I’d go mad without you so I did what I wanted to.

Stole you. Broke you. Tainted you.

I gave you pain but you gave me something else.

A home. A family.

Venus. Massimo. You.

You gave me something the little boy in me desired to have. The little boy whose dreams were shattered long ago, bef