Kiel stood confidently before me and smiled, throwing a folder on the table, with contents spilling out and scattered on the table. "You left these," she said with a confident smirk. "Thought I should return them."

Checking on the said scattered items, a gasp escaped my lips. Familiar pieces of torn paper and pictures were on the table and I felt the need to gather them and place them back in my journal. To return them to the place where they rightfully belong.

It was the photos and journal entries that i ripped from my journal before I left. The pieces that's spoke of her. The pieces of my heart that I left in that quaint little town.

The pieces of my heart that I left in that small town in Italy.

"There was an emergency that day. My men called, telling me the Don was assassinated while I was away." Kiel took a deep breath. "It tore me apart... the idea of leaving you broke me. But, as much as it hurts me, I had to leave. The rules of the mafia must be followed." She went silent for a minute, and I waited in silence as well, eyes still on the papers and pictures on the table.

"Well, I'm the boss now..." she explained with a dry laugh. She then sat on the chair beside to mine and watched me as I spread out each item in the folder. "I came back, you know. The night after..." there was something in her voice. Something that reminded me of what I felt before I packed my bags and left.

"But I already left..." I whispered, examining every piece of paper and pictures.

Every bit of paper reminded me of the nights we spent together. The short days of my life in that town, yet the most contented I've been. I looked at those memories and marveled at how there were faded inks, coffee stains, and some other liquids on them. As if someone's been reading them again and again.

Then I realized something I should've noticed the moment I saw.

"Why are you here? This place is miles away from Italy! Like air and seas away!" I looked at her, hoping to glare at her but failed upon seeing the softness in her gaze. "Wait, how the hell did you even know where I was?"

Confusion filled my head as I gazed on those stormy grey eyes I loved the most.

"I demanded Ross to tell me your location. Maxine too. But both stayed true to being your friends." She chuckled and took my hands away from the journal entries. She held them gently, caressing my knuckles as if they were made of breakable glass. "Did you know your travel blog's famous now? Well even more famous that is. I was using the internet one day, trying to locate a certain shipment, when I found a picture of my small quaint town in a blog and gained a lot of tourists in the past months." She then raised my hands to her lips and left a feathery kiss on my knuckles.

The gesture made my heart skip a beat.

"I ordered my men to look for the person who took the said image. Who wrote such wonderful things about my little town." She weakly grinned at me. "You're not easy to find. It took me months to track you down," she said with a mix of amusement and tiredness in her voice.

'She was trying to find me?' I mused, brows knitting. 'But... why?'

I stared at her eyes and tried to read them. To know her ulterior motives for trying to find me. But what my brain and heart were telling me were conflicting ideas.

My brain wanted me to ask her why she was trying to find me.

My heart wanted me to accept her words and ask her well-being.

Me being me, crazy traveler, I did the logical thing possible that I could conclude.

I grabbed on her suit jacket's lapels and roughly pulled her towards me, making her straddle my waist as I kissed her with so much passion that I never knew still existed. Pouring my heart to our kiss.

Kiel returned my kiss, feeling her smile against my lips, and kissing me back with the same fire.

After my heart was satisfied, I pushed her up a bit and slapped her face as hard as possible. "Why are you trying to find me?!" I demanded, tears now starting to flow down my cheeks.

She merely smiled, didn't flinch from the rough slap I did to her, and wiped the tears off of my cheeks with her index fingers. After that, she held my right hand and kissed my ring finger with softness that I was sure her lips merely ghosted over it.

"Because this time, when morning comes, I'm sure that I'll be the first one your beautiful eyes would see."

I held back the urge to cry as I remember what she said before. That she wouldn't leave me yet when the sun came up, she wasn't there. "How will you even do that?" I whispered, biting my lip, looking at her, seeking for any sign of deception.

Kiel then placed a ring on my finger that she kissed and held my hand gently, smiling softly at me.

###

My family said I would continue to travel until my last breath.

But they never said that a single ring could make me weigh anchor beside a woman who had me after walking into the clinic with a knife on her shoulder.