Chapter 3 - The Man Everyone Feared
The safe apartment Vittorio offered was on the thirty-second floor of a quiet building overlooking the river.
My mother hated it at first.
“It has too many windows,” she complained. “People with money always want to look at the sky as though they own it.”
But after three days, she admitted the medical bed was more comfortable, the nurse was kind, and the building’s kitchen made the best chicken soup she had ever tasted.
I continued working.
I insisted on it.
Vittorio’s people offered to cover every bill, every treatment, every meal, but I needed my job. I needed a place in the world that still belonged to me.
So I worked my shifts at Giovanni’s.
And Vittorio returned.
Not every night.
Never predictably.
But often enough that I learned the rhythm of his presence.
He arrived after nine.
He sat at table 12.
He ordered bourbon and water with lemon.
He never asked me to sit again.
He never mentioned my mother’s bills.
He simply asked questions.
“How is her fever?”
“Lower.”
“Did she eat?”
“Half a bowl of soup.”
“Good.”
Sometimes he told me stories about his wife, Sofia.
Not everything.
Only fragments.
She liked old black-and-white movies. She sang badly while cooking. She once convinced him to dance at a wedding, and he had hated every second of it until she laughed so hard that he stopped caring who was watching.
“She made you sound almost normal,” I told him one night.
He looked at me.
“Do not spread that rumor.”
I smiled before I could stop myself.
It was the first real smile I had felt in months.
But the more time passed, the more I understood why people feared him.
Men approached him at the restaurant and left looking pale.
Phone calls ended with someone whispering, “Yes, Mr. Moretti.”
A city inspector suddenly reopened a case involving a landlord who had been evicting elderly tenants from a building Vittorio had purchased.
A local businessman who had been exploiting workers vanished from every board he served on within two weeks.
I did not ask questions.
But I noticed.
I always noticed.
One night, I found Vittorio alone in the restaurant after closing.
The lights were dim. Staff had gone home. He stood near the bar, staring at the reflection of the city in the windows.
“You should not be here,” I said.
“Neither should you.”
“I work here.”
“You worked twelve hours today.”
“I have bills.”
“You do not anymore.”
I set down the stack of menus in my hands.
“Please do not say that.”
“It is true.”
“My mother’s treatment is covered. That does not mean my life belongs to you.”
His expression hardened slightly.
“I have never said it does.”
“No, but you act like you can solve every problem with money.”
“That is what money is for.”
“No,” I said. “Money is for helping. It is not for deciding who gets to have a voice.”
The silence that followed felt dangerous.
Not because I thought he would hurt me.
Because I saw how deeply the words hit him.
Vittorio stared at the city.
“My world taught me that people are safest when I make the decisions.”
“And has your world made you happy?”
He did not answer.
I knew then that I had gone too far.
But he surprised me.
“No,” he said quietly. “It has not.”
The next day, my mother’s nurse called.
Someone had tried to enter the building using forged medical credentials.
Security stopped them before they reached the elevator.
The police were notified.
Vittorio arrived within fifteen minutes.
I found him in the lobby, speaking in a voice so calm that it frightened me more than yelling ever could.
“No one touches them,” he said into his phone. “Not because they are connected to me. Because they are innocent.”
He ended the call and saw me.
“This is what I was trying to prevent,” he said.
“You cannot prevent everything.”
“No,” he replied. “But I can stop pretending that I can.”
That night, he finally told me the truth.
His rival was Carlo DeLuca, a man who had once worked beside him and later turned against him. Carlo believed Vittorio had grown weak after Sofia’s death. He had spent years trying to take control of Vittorio’s businesses and use every personal connection as leverage.
“Why me?” I asked.
“Because Carlo thinks I care about you.”
My heart beat too fast.
“Do you?”
Vittorio looked at me for a long time.
Then he answered with brutal honesty.
“Yes.”
The room became quiet.
“But I will not ask you for anything,” he continued. “You deserve a life untouched by men like me.”
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, I felt sad.
Because beneath the power, the wealth, and the terrifying reputation, Vittorio Moretti was a lonely man who had decided love was something he no longer deserved.
Then Carlo made his move.
A package arrived at Giovanni’s addressed to me.
Inside was a single white rose.
And a photograph of my mother asleep in her hospital bed.
May you like
On the back, written in black ink, were six words:
LOVE MAKES OLD MEN EASY TO BREAK.
