Chapter 4 - NICO ASKED ME TO MARRY HIM AGAIN—BUT BEFORE I COULD ANSWER, OUR SON FOUND THE LAST MESSAGE MARCUS HAD HIDDEN FROM US FOR SIX YEARS
Nico did not propose after we got back together.
Not for two years.
I appreciated that.
Then I became suspicious.
“Are you afraid?”
We were cooking dinner.
He was chopping onions.
Yes.
Onions.
Love changes people.
“I’m always afraid when you're holding a knife.”
“You know what I mean.”
He kept chopping.
“I proposed once.”
“No.”
“You threatened to marry me while heavily medicated.”
“Technicality.”
“You said, ‘If I wake up, Willa, I'm marrying you.’”
“That was romantic.”
“You had a tube in your chest.”
“Still romantic.”
I smiled.
Then became serious.
“Would you want to?”
He stopped.
“Marry you?”
“Yes.”
“Every day.”
My heart moved.
“Then why haven't you asked?”
“Because the first time I loved you, I thought wanting you meant I should have you.”
“I don't think that anymore.”
I stared.
He continued.
“You gave me a key when you were ready.”
“You kissed me when you were ready.”
“You let me into Eli's life under conditions you set.”
“I don't want marriage to become the next thing I push toward because I want certainty.”
I put down the knife.
“You've thought about this.”
“Therapy is expensive.”
I laughed.
Then hugged him.
He held me.
No proposal.
Not yet.
Eli was nine when the past returned.
He found an old phone inside a box of Nico's belongings.
The device had belonged to Marcus.
Federal investigators had returned certain personal property after appeals ended.
Nobody knew the phone contained a hidden memory card.
Eli was better with technology than either of us.
“Dad?”
Nico looked up.
“Why does Uncle Marcus have videos of Grandma?”
Nico went still.
“Which grandma?”
“Yours.”
My stomach dropped.
Nico's mother, Elena Moretti, had died when he was twenty.
Officially a stroke.
Marcus had always said she was sick.
The video was dated two weeks before her death.
Elena Moretti sat in a parked car.
“Nicholas.”
“If you ever see this, something happened before I could tell you myself.”
Nico's face drained.
“Marcus is not your half brother.”
Silence.
“He is your cousin.”
Nico stared.
“Your father brought him into our home after his parents died.”
“He told everyone Marcus was his son because he believed it would protect the boy.”
“But Marcus found out the truth.”
“He became obsessed with inheritance.”
“Your father planned to leave control of the legitimate companies to you.”
“Marcus discovered it.”
“I believe he has been moving money.”
“If I die unexpectedly, do not trust the medical report.”
Nico stopped the video.
I touched his arm.
He didn't move.
His mother had died of a supposed stroke.
Marcus had been twenty-five.
Nico twenty.
We contacted Rebecca.
She hated retirement apparently because she answered immediately.
Elena Moretti's medical records were reviewed.
The original blood samples had been retained because her death occurred during a research study.
Testing found a rare anticoagulant at levels inconsistent with prescribed treatment.
Marcus had likely poisoned her.
Nico broke.
Not violently.
Quietly.
He disappeared into himself.
For days, he barely spoke.
Then one night he said:
“I let him convince me everyone betrayed me.”
“My mother.”
“You.”
“Everyone except him.”
I sat beside him.
“He trained you to.”
“That isn't an excuse.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“I keep discovering new things I should have seen.”
“You were twenty when your mother died.”
“I was thirty-three when I believed him about you.”
“Different mistake.”
He nodded.
“I don't know what to do with the anger.”
“Feel it.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“Feelings aren't instructions.”
He looked at me.
“Therapy?”
“Very expensive.”
He laughed despite himself.
Nico visited Marcus in prison.
I didn't go.
When he returned, he looked exhausted.
“What happened?”
“He admitted it.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Inheritance.”
“He thought my father loved me more.”
“Did he?”
“I don't know.”
Nico looked toward Eli's room.
“Maybe parents love children differently.”
“That doesn't mean more.”
“What did you say to Marcus?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I went there with a speech.”
“And?”
“I realized he wanted it.”
“My anger.”
“My hatred.”
“He wanted proof he still controlled something inside me.”
“So I left.”
I kissed his forehead.
“I'm proud of you.”
He closed his eyes.
A month later, Nico took me to the river house.
The renovation was finished.
The Moretti-Hart Transplant Residence.
I had protested my name.
Lost.
Families filled the rooms.
Children played in the garden.
A woman sat in the communal kitchen crying while another transplant mother held her.
Life where blood once covered the floor.
Nico took me outside.
No photographers.
No family.
No Eli.
That surprised me.
“Where is our child?”
“With your mother.”
“Suspicious.”
He smiled.
Then reached into his pocket.
I stared.
“Nico.”
“May I ask?”
My eyes filled.
“Yes.”
He knelt.
“Nine years ago, I told you if I woke up, I was marrying you.”
“I thought surviving gave me the right to make that decision for both of us.”
“It didn't.”
He opened the box.
His mother's ring.
Reset.
Simple.
“Willa Hart, I don't need you to save me.”
“I don't need you to prove anything.”
“I don't want your kidney, your sacrifice, your forgiveness, or our son to become reasons you owe me a future.”
“I just love the life we have.”
“And if you want it too…”
He swallowed.
“…would you marry me?”
I cried.
Then laughed.
Then said:
“Yes.”
Nico closed his eyes.
“Definitely?”
“Yes.”
“Because last time—”
“Put the ring on before I reconsider.”
He obeyed.
We told Eli that night.
He stared at us.
“You weren't married?”
Nico looked offended.
“No.”
Eli frowned.
“But you kiss.”
I covered my face.
Nico said:
“Sometimes adults—”
“Stop.”
I pointed at him.
“Do not explain.”
Eli shrugged.
“Can I be best man?”
Nico said:
“Yes.”
I said:
“No.”
Eli negotiated.
He became “Best Kid.”
Our wedding was scheduled for spring.
Then my kidney numbers worsened.
Not dramatically.
Enough.
The vascular abnormality had progressed.
My nephrologist recommended surgery.
Low risk.
But nothing involving my only kidney felt low risk.
I sat in the hospital parking lot.
Nico found me there.
“How did you know?”
“You missed dinner.”
“That's not an answer.”
“Eli told me.”
“Traitor.”
He sat.
I handed him the report.
He read.
His face changed.
“No.”
I almost smiled.
There he was.
Old Nico.
Then he stopped himself.
“What do you want to do?”
I looked at him.
That question.
Everything we'd learned inside it.
“Surgery.”
“When?”
“Next month.”
“Okay.”
“I'm scared.”
“I know.”
“Don't tell me everything will be fine.”
“I won't.”
“Don't tell me you won't let anything happen.”
“I can't control that.”
I cried.
Nico took my hand.
“But I can be there.”
“Yes.”
“I want that.”
So he was.
The surgery lasted four hours.
Successful.
When I woke, Nico sat beside me.
Older than the man I'd once seen after transplant surgery.
Softer.
Eli asleep across two chairs.
I whispered:
“You look terrible.”
Nico laughed.
“You're consistent.”
“Did it work?”
“Yes.”
“My kidney?”
“Safe.”
“You?”
He kissed my hand.
“Still annoying.”
I smiled.
Then slept.
Three months later, I walked down the aisle.
Not because Nico had survived.
Not because I had given him a kidney.
Not because we shared a child.
Not because tragedy had connected us.
May you like
I married him because after losing each other, hurting each other, finding the truth, and rebuilding from nothing, we had learned how to choose each other without debt.
That was the only kind of love I wanted.
