Chapter 43 Marco
Marco
Istand in front of the en-suite bathroom mirror and force myself to look.
The scar runs from my right cheekbone down to my jaw. A thick ridge where the surgeon reattached what the bear tore off. The claw track at my forehead is lighter but still visible. Another ridge crosses my left collarbone, disappearing under my shirt.
I run my fingertips down the facial scar. Flinch at the texture. The nerve endings are still raw, still firing pain signals my brain can’t quite process.
The urge to punch the mirror hits hard. Again.
I ball my right hand into a fist. The fresh bandage around my knuckles reminds me I already did this three days ago. Shattered the glass. Bled all over the sink. Neli was pissed. Gave me that look that said she wasn’t here to babysit a grown man throwing tantrums.
Fair enough.
Niamh had the mirror replaced the same evening, while I hid in another room.
Hide.
All I do is fucking hide.
I unwrap the bandage slowly. The cuts are healing. Everything’s fucking healing. The shoulder bandages came off yesterday. The arm wraps this morning.
Just the psychological damage left to deal with.
Easy.
My reflection stares back. This is what I am now. A before and after photo except the before is gone and the after is all anyone will see.
Maybe I’ll let Jess see my fucking face when I’ve had more reconstructive surgery done.
The thought surfaces before I can stop it. More surgery. More anesthesia. More recovery. More morphine dreams where I’m falling into fires that never go out.
Dr. Reeves said I could do another round if I wanted. Smooth some of the ridge. Minimize the texture. Make it less...
Less what?
Monstrous?
I turn away from the mirror. Walk back into my bedroom where Isotta’s ceramic mixing bowl sits on the dresser. The one Jessica packed away from the kitchen. Handed it to me through the crack in the door like she was returning stolen property.
I’d taken it and closed the door in her face. Added it to the collection of guilt I’m hoarding in here.
The bowl is cream-glazed. Hand-thrown. Isotta made it in a ceramics class the year before Ben was born. Used it for everything. Pizza dough. Pasta. The lemon olive oil cake she’d make on Sundays.
When she was alive I was happy.
Or I thought I was.
Except I wasn’t.
Not really.
Because even then, even when I had a face and a wife and a life that looked perfect from the outside, I was thinking about someone else.
Jess.
Always Jess.
The guilt hits harder than the bear’s claws ever did. Sharper. Deeper. The kind that leaves scars you can’t see but feel every fucking day.
I loved my wife. I did. But I also spent five years obsessing over a woman I met in Vegas the night before my wedding. Hired a private investigator to track her movements.
What kind of man does that?
The kind who deserves exactly what he got.
I sink onto the edge of the bed. The mixing bowl sits on the dresser like evidence at a crime scene. Proof that I was always half-gone. Always looking somewhere else even when I was supposed to be present.
And now Isotta’s dead. And I’m alive. And Jess is sleeping in my house taking care of my daughter because I dragged them both into the woods and nearly got them killed.
This face. This destroyed, monstrous face. It’s not an accident. It’s justice.
Punishment for wanting what I shouldn’t have wanted. For loving someone while married to someone else. For being the kind of father who prioritizes rites of passage over his kid’s actual needs.
Ben came in yesterday, alone, after Neli left. I let her see my face. Wanted her to know I was still here. Still her dad.
As usual, she stared for a long time. Those big brown eyes taking in every ridge, every scar, every piece of damage.
She almost didn’t cry this time.
Almost.
But in the end, the tears still streamed down her face while she stood there holding Frederick.
“It’s okay, piccola,” I’d said. “It looks worse than it is.”
More lies. It looks exactly as bad as it is.
She’d nodded. Wiped her face. Left the room without saying anything.
Jess was waiting in the hall. I heard her voice through the door. Soft. Soothing. Counting breaths with Ben like they’ve practiced a thousand times.
One. Two. Three.
Jess.
Who apparently faced down the charging grizzly with nothing but bear spray and pure fucking will. Who kept my daughter from seeing her father get turned into ground meat.
And now I can’t even look at her.
Can’t let her see what I’ve become.
Because if she sees this face and the man behind it she’ll realize I’m not worth the devotion she’s been showing. Not worth the nights sleeping on Ben’s floor. Not worth the homeschooling and the trauma therapy.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. I reach for it with my good hand. The left one still aches when I grip too hard.
Email from Gianna, my COO. Subject line: “Metropolitan Ledger Inquiry.”
Fuck.
I open it.
Calder Kells has sent another probe. This one’s different from his previous decline-hunting bullshit. More personal. More pointed.
Has Fiore Hospitality Group lost its beauty along with its owner’s face?
The words hit like a second mauling.
He’s offering me an exclusive. A healing-journey piece. All I have to do is sit down for an interview. Let him document the recovery. Turn my trauma into content.
Over my dead fucking body.
I forward the email to Elena with a three-line response.
Shut the fucker down.
Her answer comes back in under a minute.
Understood. I’ll draft something neutral. Two sentences about staff-family supports and move on.
Good. Let Gianna handle the optics. Let Valentina throttle the requests. Let the business run like it’s supposed to.
While I hide in here like a coward.
Except I’m not hiding.
Not really.
I’m protecting them.
Yes.
Protecting Ben from seeing her father become a spectacle. Protecting Jess from having to defend me to vultures like Kells. Protecting the staff from having to watch their boss fall apart in public.
That’s what I tell myself anyway.
My phone rings. Jag.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Quick update,” he says. “That mommy blogger. Marlowe Pennington. She showed up at the curb yesterday. Tried to ambush Jess.”
My grip tightens on the phone. Pain flares in my opposite hand. “And?”
“Jess handled it. No comment. Filepe got her off property. The video she posted has been removed per our takedown request.”
“Good.”
“Elena wants to know if you want to pursue further action. Legal pressure. Make an example of her.”
I think about Jess. About what she texted when I offered to destroy Marlowe.
Let her do her thing.
Compassion instead of vengeance. Grace instead of crushing someone who’s just trying to survive the same system that chewed Jess up and spit her out.
“No,” I tell Jag. “We do nothing more.”
“Nothing?”
“Jess doesn’t want her destroyed. So we don’t destroy her.”
Silence on the line. Then: “Understood. I’ll let Elena know.”
He hangs up.
I set down the phone. Look at the mixing bowl again.
I spent years being the beautiful restaurateur. The photogenic owner. The guy who could charm investors and critics with equal ease.
Now I’m the guy who hides in his room and makes business decisions through email and phone calls.
But at least I’m making the right decisions.
At least I’m not feeding the vultures.
At least I’m keeping Ben and Jess out of the crossfire.
That has to count for something.
Even if it doesn’t fix my face.
Or erase the guilt.
Or bring back the man I used to be.
I return to the mirror. Force myself to look one more time.
The scar stares back. Permanent. Proof that nature doesn’t give a fuck how much money you have or how good you look or how carefully you plan.
Dr. Reeves said more surgery could help.
But I’m done.
Done with the reconstruction. Done with trying to put back together something that was never whole in the first place.
This is my face now.
This is who I am.
A man who loved the wrong woman at the wrong time and paid for it with everything.
A father who nearly got his daughter killed because he confused control with care.
A coward who can’t even open a door and face the woman who saved his life.
Maybe someday I’ll be ready.
Maybe someday I’ll let Jess see what’s left of me.
But not today.
Not yet.
I turn off the light and walk back to bed.
The darkness feels safer somehow.