It had finally sunk in. The bruises, the betrayals, the cold walls of that prison cell. My body still ached from the bruises and the days I’d spent curled up on the floor, too weak to
stand.
When Niccolo pulled me out, I thought I’d just walk away and be fine but the truth was, my bones felt like glass and my heart felt worse.
So I let him take me to the hospital, even though every part of me wanted to scream that I didn’t need help, that I was done letting men tell me what to do. But this was Niccolo, the one man who had every reason to turn his back on me, yet never did.
“Stop fighting me for once,” he’d said, sitting next to my hospital bed, arms folded stubbornly across his chest. “You’re staying here until the doctors say you can leave.”
I tried to roll my eyes. “I’m fine. I don’t need-”
“You don’t need what?” he cut me off sharply. “Food? Sleep? Or maybe you think you don’t deserve to heal after what that bastard did to you.”
I had no answer for that. So I lay there, feeling the weight of the IV drip pulling at my skin, and I let him win.
Every morning when I woke up, Niccolo was there, talking to the nurses, arranging my meds, arguing with the doctor when he thought they weren’t doing enough.
Every night, he’d fall asleep in the chair by my side. Sometimes I’d wake up and catch him just… watching me. Like he still couldn’t believe I was really there, breathing.
My mother came, too. Claudia hovered like a ghost at first, unsure if I’d push her away. But
I didn’t. Not this time.
One evening, she sat down at the edge of my bed, her perfume soft and familiar in the sterile hospital room.
“I’m sorry, Nadine,” she said. Her voice cracked like old porcelain. “I should have made you come home sooner. I should have stopped you from loving that man.”
I felt the sting in my eyes, but I swallowed it down. “It was my choice, Mama. I didn’t listen. I thought… I thought he was it. I was stupid.”
She shook her head fiercely, brushing the hair from my forehead the way she used to when I was sick as a little girl. “No, you were never stupid. Just stubborn. And too good for him, always too good for him.”
I wanted to laugh but my throat burned too much. I just nodded instead. We didn’t say anything more, we didn’t need to.
For the first time in years, we were just mother and daughter again. No lies. No secrets.
A few days later, Niccolo walked in with that exasperated look I’d seen a thousand times before. “Nadine,” he said flatly, “stop telling the nurses you’re discharging yourself. You’re
not.”
I crossed my arms over the thin hospital blanket. “I hate hospitals.”
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“Tough luck. You’re staying until they say you’re healed.”
“Niccolo…” I looked at him carefully, trying to find the man I once rejected so easily. “You really don’t have to do this, you know.”
He blinked, leaning back against the windowsill, arms folded. “Do what?”
“Any of this,” I said, my voice cracking around the edges. “Taking care of me. Paying for the doctors. Sitting here every day. This is just a business deal for you, right? You’re only doing this because Mama asked you to marry me. You can say it.”
His jaw twitched. “You really think this is a deal? God, Nadine. Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for you to see me? To see this?” He threw his arms out, gesturing to the room, the flowers he’d brought, the bags of food from my favorite café.
“I rejected you,” I whispered. “I rejected you, and then I ran after a man who never even loved me. You should hate me. Laugh at me.”
Niccolo closed the distance between us in two long strides. He crouched down so we were eye to eye. “If anything,” he murmured, his hands resting gently on the edge of my blanket, “I’m the luckiest bastard alive. You came back to me, didn’t you? And I swear to you, no one, not even Scott, will touch you again.”
The tears fell then. I couldn’t stop them. And for once, I didn’t try to.
When I was finally discharged, Niccolo made good on his promise. He brought me home. He let me sleep for hours, brought me soup when I woke up, tucked my hair behind my ear like I was made of glass.
And every time he did, I felt a little less broken.
A few days later, he took me on a drive to the lake. We sat on a blanket, the wind cool against my cheeks, the sun catching in my hair. Niccolo grinned at me like a fool.
“When you’re better, we’re getting married,” he said, so simply that my heart squeezed. “No big church wedding if you don’t want it. Just you and me. I don’t care. Just say yes.” And I did. Through my tears, I said yes.
That night, Mama found me sitting by the fire, wrapped in one of Niccolo’s old sweaters. She sat down next to me, her hand resting over mine.
“You’ll be okay now, Nadine,” she said softly. “No more pain. No more pretending. You have your second chance.”
I nodded. “I know. I just… I wish I’d known sooner.”
Her phone buzzed on the table beside us. She glanced at it but didn’t pick up. “What matters is you know now.”
But when I finally went to bed, I found my phone vibrating on the nightstand. An unfamiliar number. I almost didn’t answer but something in me needed to know.
“Miss Nadine Smith?” a clipped voice said. “This is Attorney Hensley. I’m sorry to bother you, but I thought you should know, Scott Jones has declared you missing and is offering a reward to anyone who finds you.”
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Chapter 11
