Chapter 5 - The Watcher
The bell above the diner door jingled. Elena wiped down the counter, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Be right with you!” she called out, grabbing a fresh pot of coffee.
She turned around and froze.
He wasn’t in the diner. He was standing across the street, half-hidden in the shadows of an old oak tree, wearing a dark wool overcoat against the snow. Lorenzo.
The coffee pot rattled against the mug in her hand. He looked older. Harsher. The shadows under his eyes told a story of sleepless nights. But he wasn’t storming the diner. He wasn’t sending his men to drag her back. He was just standing in the freezing cold, looking at her as if she were a ghost he was terrified to spook.
For a long moment, the world stopped spinning. Elena remembered the smell of his cologne, the heat of his hands, the way he used to look at her before the mafia and the stepfamily clouded his vision. But she also remembered the humiliation.
She broke the gaze, turned her back, and continued pouring coffee. When she looked out the window ten minutes later, he was gone.
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He stayed in the small town for two weeks. He never approached her. He just watched. He watched her carry groceries, laughing with the local shop owners. He watched her fix the porch swing of her yellow house. He watched her live a life that was vibrant, fearless, and entirely without him. It was the most painful punishment he could have endured. She didn’t need his money. She didn’t need his protection. She was magnificent.
And he had thrown it away for the sake of avoiding a family argument.
