Chapter 19 Marcello
Marcello
“It’s been a week,” Tone complained.
I knew she wasn’t tired of Samira. That wasn’t what was behind the edge in her voice. It was fear—concern that sounded a lot like accusation.
“I am aware,” I replied. “I do, in fact, understand how time works.”
The sarcasm slipped out before I could stop it. Tone raised a brow, unimpressed. Being my cousin meant she didn’t bother sparing his feelings.
“What if the damage is irreversible, Marcello?” she pressed. “She needs to see a doctor.”
“She has,” I told her, my voice steadier now. “More than one.”
That gave her pause.
“They all diagnosed the same thing,” I continued. “Anterograde memory loss. Her body protecting itself by shutting down. Speech. Sight. Memory. They told me not to rush it. Not to force her into examinations that are unnecessary. She’ll regain all senses in time.”
Tone studied me, searching for something selfish in the answer. She didn’t find anything.
“I’m not convinced, Marcello.”
“Just a few more days,” I added. “That’s all I’m asking.”
What I didn’t say is that I wanted nothing more than to hear Samira’s voice. To see the moment light returned to her eyes. To know she was whole.
Sometimes I imagined it—her seeing me for the first time. Really seeing me. And I didn’t know if I was ready for that moment, or what it would mean when it came.
Not because I wanted to keep her broken. But because I knew what would come after.
She would leave. As she should.
And somewhere along the way, I’d grown used to her presence. To coming home and knowing she would be there. To the simple companionship that eased the ache Alessio had left behind. It didn’t replace him. Nothing ever would. But it dulled the sharpest edges of my grief.
Samira had done something unexpected.
She had listened.
When I talked about Alessio, she didn’t interrupt. She didn’t offer platitudes or try to make sense of something that didn’t have clean edges. She didn’t rush me toward closure.
She just sat there, silent and steady. Like a new anchor. And somehow, without asking, without prying, she drew the words out of me anyway. Gently. Like she understood that some truths only surfaced when you weren’t forced to defend them.
“I’ll give you a few more days,” Tone clipped. “Then I’m bringing my own team in.”
She didn’t raise her voice. The reminder landed all the same—heady, firm, impossible to ignore.
This was exactly why I had called her.
Not just because she was my cousin, and not just because anything I told her stayed buried with the rest of the family’s secrets.
Tone had earned her place long before this moment.
She was trained in trauma counselling. Medical recovery.
Crisis response. She was the one the family turned to when bodies or minds were pushed past their limits.
The family nurse, if you wanted to reduce it to something simple.
She was also very good at what she did.
The fact that Samira wasn’t family hadn’t slowed her down for a second. If anything, it had made Tone more attentive, more protective. She treated her with a careful kind of devotion—like someone worth fighting for, not managing.
I saw it in the way she spoke to her. In how she listened to everything Samira was not saying. In the patience she brought into the room.
“That’s all I ask,” I said finally. “A few more days.”
Tone didn’t answer straight away. She squinted at me instead, head tilting slightly, like she was reassessing a diagnosis she thought she’d already made.
“This is a far cry from the man who stood in front of me a few days ago,” she noted, “begging me to take this problem off his hands.”
I grimaced. I knew she was never going to let me live that down.
“Not getting attached to her, are you?” she added. “That’s so not like you, March.”
The nickname chipped away at something hardened inside me. It was childhood-soft. Disarming.
“I didn’t say that,” I replied.
“No,” she said. “You didn’t have to.”
She crossed her arms, studying me like I was the patient now. Like she was checking reflexes. Responsiveness. Signs of improvement.
“Well?” she prompted. “You grow a spine overnight, or should I be worried?”
I huffed out a breath. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m still the same wicked bastard I’ve always been.”
“But you’re spending time with her,” she pointed out.
I nodded once.
That earned me a slow, knowing smile. The kind Tone reserved for moments when she saw something shift, even if the person involved wasn’t ready to name it yet.
“Huh,” she murmured. “Would you look at that.”
“What?”
“Redemption,” she mused lightly. “It sneaks up on you when you’re looking the other way.”
I scoffed, but it was hollow. Because the truth was, something had changed. I just didn’t know how to label it.
After Tone left, the house settled into its familiar peace.
Samira was in the other room. I could feel her presence now the way I felt weather changing. Subtle. Persistent.
Saving her felt… good. That was the part I didn’t want to examine too closely. The satisfaction of pulling someone back from the edge.
I helped her eat. Walk. Rest. Heal. And somewhere in the middle of all that, something inside me loosened its grip.
I thought of Alessio. Of the way he used to look at me when I was spiralling—like he could see both the man I was and the one I was refusing to become.
Fix what you broke, Alessio used to say. Not harshly. Just… logically. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
I had thought he meant the damage outside of me.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
Helping Samira back onto her feet didn’t absolve me of what I’d done. I knew that. It didn’t undo what happened in that alley, or what I had taken from her without meaning to.
But it did something else.
It gave the guilt somewhere to go.
Maybe this was the first step. Not redemption, but direction. A way forward that didn’t involve burning everything down and calling it justice.
Alessio would have approved of that. I was certain of it.
I moved toward Samira’s room, listening for the small sounds that told me if she was awake. The rhythm of her breathing. The subtle shift of weight against the mattress.
I stopped in the doorway.
I told himself I wasn’t here because I was attached.
I was here because this was my home, and I belonged here.
And for the first time since Alessio had died, it felt like I might finally be doing something right.