Bastards. Scum. People rotten enough to deserve hell and nothing else.

And yet— somehow, I was lucky enough to meet you. In the narrow crack of a life already collapsing.

Back then, it wasn’t Milan. It wasn’t power or fear or men who lowered their voices around me. It was another city, another version of me— a boy searching for a face that didn’t turn away.

That was before my parents died the same night.

I remember the silence more than the bodies, more than the police. The apartment felt hollow, like it had already decided I didn’t belong in it anymore. I was sixteen, holding a crumpled paper that shook in my hands.

Pay the debts.

No goodbye. No apology. Just a responsibility passed down like a disease.

I learned fast how to survive. Which streets to avoid. How to count coins like they were hours left to live. How hunger sharpens your thinking and dulls everything else.

That’s how I ended up sitting outside a bakery in Bologna, staring too long at pastries I couldn’t afford.

“Wow,” a voice said, too cheerful for a street like that. “You’re either judging that cake or falling in love with it.”

I looked up.

She was fifteen. Dark hair pulled into a careless ponytail, loose strands catching sunlight. An expensive coat worn like it meant nothing. Sneakers scuffed just enough to say she walked a lot. Her eyes were open in a dangerous way—curious, unafraid, warm.

“I wasn’t staring,” I muttered.

She smiled, slow and certain. “You absolutely were.”

She went inside before I could move. When she came back, she dropped a paper bag into my lap—warm. Desserts. Fruit. Chocolate. A slice of cake wrapped too neatly to be cheap.

“Dessert first,” she said. “Life’s already unfair.”

“I can’t pay you back.”

“I didn’t ask.” She sat beside me, close enough that her knee brushed mine. “I wander. Buying food is part of it.”

She handed me a strawberry. “Eat.”

I hesitated.

She sighed. “Don’t make it weird. I hate weird.”

She found me every afternoon after that. Same bench. Same bakery.

“You skipped lunch.” “Fruit counts,” she insisted, pressing oranges into my hands. “Don’t argue with science.”

She checked my hands, frowned at my face, told me to sleep. Nagged like a mother. Teased like a kid.

“You’re thinner,” she said once. “I’m fine.” “No, you’re not.” She broke a pastry in half and shoved it at me. “Chew.”

She talked while I ate—about cities, about desserts she loved, about how sugar tasted better when you weren’t alone.

She made me human before I realized I was disappearing.

Years passed. I climbed—carefully, quietly. By the time people stopped saying my name and started whispering it, I commanded three hundred and twelve men across Italy and beyond. Ports. Logistics. Security. I ruled with restraint.

They call me Il Silenzioso.

Somewhere along the way, I bought a dessert café. Then another. Then another. Not because she dreamed of it. Because I did.

Because sweetness was the first thing she ever gave me. Because memory needs a place to live.

Tonight, I found her on the marble floor of my apartment.

Unresponsive. Breathing. Warm.

I dropped to my knees like the world finally remembered how to break me. This wasn’t about old debts. This was a rival who thought touching her would unbalance me.

He was right.

Now I sit beside her hospital bed, holding her hand, remembering a fifteen-year-old girl pressing strawberries into my palms and telling me dessert comes first because life is cruel.

Bastards. All of them. People who mistake kindness for weakness.

And yet— in this suffocating life— I was lucky.

Lucky enough to meet her. Lucky enough to be fed, scolded, remembered.

She made me human.

Outside this room, three hundred men wait for my word. Inside it, I lean close and whisper,

“Wake up. I’m still keeping the sweets warm.”

For her, I learned restraint. For her, I will remind them why monsters exist.