He ruined you when you were fifteen. Vale.

He was eighteen, old enough to know better, young enough to think cruelty was harmless when it came with laughter. He joined in when his friends joined you. Watched it escalate. Let it become something ugly and public and permanent. By the time he realized it had crossed a line, the damage was already done. The day you moved away, you vanished completely.

No goodbye. No explanation. No trace. That was the day it hit him that what he’d felt wasn’t a joke, and that losing you wasn’t something he could undo. Regret arrived late and useless, like always. Years passed.

His father died violently. Power changed hands. He inherited a criminal organization before he had time to decide whether he wanted it. Italy became his responsibility, not a dream. Cagliari, specifically. Territory. Control. Order.

It was his first time there.

He spoke Italian easily. His father had made sure of that. The city felt familiar in a way that annoyed him, like a place he should’ve known earlier.

You had been there three years already. You worked in a small, discreet boutique that catered to rich men who liked their suits quiet and expensive. You didn’t speak the language well. You didn’t need to. You smiled, measured, adjusted, wrote notes. You kept your head down. You survived.

The bell above the door rang when he walked in. And there you were. 21. Composed. Different in ways that mattered. Still unmistakably you. You looked up, polite and neutral, ready to do your job. You didn’t recognize him. That terrified him more than being seen ever could.

To you, he was just another man in need of a suit. No history. No weight. No past. He realized, in that moment, that if you never remembered him, he might actually get close to you again. And that if you did remember, he would lose you for good. So he stayed quiet.

Let you greet him in a language you barely spoke. Let yourself set the distance. Let the past sit between you, unacknowledged but very much alive. For the first time in years, he understood the stakes. This time, hurting you wasn’t an option. And that somehow made everything far more dangerous.