𝔰𝔞𝔪𝔲𝔢𝔩𝔢

In Lost Heaven, Michelle was known as the woman you couldn't forget. She was the city's best prostitute—not because she belonged to everyone who could pay, but because she knew how to make even the coldest man feel like he was the only one. But for her, there was only one man to whom she was never truly a stranger: Sam Trapani. He came to her not as a mafioso, not as a man feared on the streets, but simply as Sam. He could leave his gun at the door, take off his hat, forget about business, and for a few hours become the man madly in love with the woman the whole city considered unattainable. He was her regular client, her lover, her protector—and, over time, the only person she allowed to see her true heart. Their love was wrong, dangerous, and too strong for the polite world. Between them, there were no pretty promises or vows at the altar. There were long nights, cigarette smoke, quiet conversations until dawn, and glances that told each other so much more than they could say out loud. Sam knew how many men had passed through her life, but he was never jealous of her past—he simply wanted to be the one she returned to with her heart. And Michelle knew how much blood was on Sam's hands, how many enemies he left behind, and how many times life itself could have taken him from her. So every time he showed up at her door, she greeted him as if she were seeing him for the first time. Not as a client. Not as a mafioso. But as a man she loved madly. They said Sam Trapani could buy any woman in America. But no one knew the most important thing: Michelle was the only one he never tried to buy. Because her love was the one thing in his life that money couldn't get. And if the world saw Michelle as a prostitute and Sam as a ruthless gangster, then at night, when the doors closed and the city grew quiet, they were simply two people desperately in love. He was her most loyal client, and she was his greatest weakness. And perhaps that's why their love proved stronger than anything they could ever lose.

That evening, he remained on the threshold for a few moments, his hat still in his fingers and his eyes fixed on her. His face carried that unusual calm that only appeared when he was with Michelle, while the faintest smile curved his lips. Then he slowly closed the door behind him and approached without hurry, stopping close enough to gently brush her face with his knuckles. The gesture was tender, almost impossible to reconcile with the man he was outside those walls.

Sam looked into her eyes for several seconds, as though he needed to make sure she was really there. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and let his fingers linger briefly against her cheek. He didn’t need to tell her how much he had missed her. The way he looked at her said it for him, as did the way he sought her presence after days spent surrounded by armed men, orders, and danger.

To Sam, Michelle had always been the place he returned to. It didn’t matter how many men had known her body, because he had never wanted to possess it. He wanted something far more difficult to obtain: her heart. And whenever she allowed him even a small piece of it, Sam guarded it with a devotion no one would ever have imagined possible for a man like him.

I was true to one man once and look what happened.

There was always a noise outside the office door—the footsteps of soldiers, the clink of glasses, the hushed conversations. But as soon as the door closed, such silence descended that you could hear the cigar slowly smoldering in the Don's fingers. Sam Trapani stood to one side of the room. For the first time in his long service, he didn't know where to look. His gaze involuntarily found Isabella, but each time it immediately veered away. She stood motionless, her eyes lowered to the floor, like a marble statue. No excuses. No tears. Not a single word. Behind her, Don Salieri stood, his hands slowly clasped behind his back. He didn't raise his voice—he didn't need to. His calm was more terrifying than any shout. – The most dangerous lie is the one that hasn't been told yet. I haven't gathered you here to hear excuses. I want to see the truth. It always appears before words: in a flickering glance, in too-long a silence, in a stray breath. Loyalty is not an oath, but a habit of the soul. And if my wife betrayed me, I will know it. If my capo betrayed me, I will know it too. But if you are both silent, then each of you is already waging your own war. And the war within a person is always louder than any confession. So look at each other... if you can. Because today, it is not my anger that judges you. Today, it is your own silence that judges you.

For years, I had learned how to hide everything. My emotions, my thoughts, my weaknesses. In our world, showing too much meant giving someone a weapon they could use against you.

But Isabella had always been the only person who could make me forget those rules.

I looked at her for only a moment, long enough to see the way she kept her eyes lowered, the way she tried to remain strong even when everything around us seemed to be falling apart. I wanted to say something. Anything. I wanted to protect her, to take all that weight and carry it myself.

But words would have sounded like nothing more than excuses.

And maybe that was what hurt the most: knowing that, for once, silence wasn’t a choice. It was a sentence.

I had spent my entire life being the perfect “soldier”, the man Salieri wanted by his side, the man who never hesitated. But in front of her, I wasn’t that Sam Trapani. I wasn’t the capo, I wasn’t the gangster, I wasn’t the man everyone feared.

I was just a man who was afraid of losing the only person who had ever managed to see beyond everything else.

I wanted to reach for her hand, even if only for a second. To let her know that, whatever happened, I wouldn’t leave her alone in that room. But the weight of the Don’s gaze was too heavy, and any gesture could have become a confession.

So I stayed still.

I looked at her one more time and let my silence speak for me.

Because if there was one thing I knew, it was that I could lie to the entire world. I could lie to enemies, to men who held a gun against me, even to myself.