Chapter 23 Marco
MARCO
“She kicked you out?”
Max didn’t look up when he said it. He was already sitting out on the back patio as if it were any other Sunday morning, drinking his coffee and thumbing through the paper like an old man.
Rosalie’s ridiculous dog, Duke, kept trotting up every five minutes, dropping a half-shredded stick at Max’s feet, his tail wagging like an idiot.
Every single time, without fail, Max grumbled under his breath, muttered something about how the damn thing slobbered too much, and then tossed the stick again anyway.
He hated that dog. Said so all the time. It was too loud, too clingy, and too dumb. But I’d caught him letting Duke curl up beside him when he thought no one was looking. The soft spot was there, buried under his control issues.
I sat across from him nursing a cup of black coffee that tasted exactly as bitter as I felt, trying to decide if showing up here was a mistake.
“She told me to get out,” I finally admitted.
Max flipped a page, not even bothering to look at me. “And you listened?”
“She meant it.”
He raised his eyebrows over the top of the paper. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
I shrugged. “Didn’t want to make things worse.”
“So, naturally, you made them worse.”
I ignored him.
It wasn’t like I’d planned to show up at Valentina’s apartment just to fuck everything up, but things had escalated fast. We were fine, and then we weren’t.
One second I had her pressed against the counter like she was the only thing in the world that made sense, and the next I was saying something I couldn’t take back.
Something I didn’t even mean—not like that.
And then she’d told me to leave.
So I did.
I didn’t want to, but I respected her enough to listen. Or maybe I was just afraid of what I’d do if I didn’t. Afraid I’d stay and make it worse. Afraid I’d keep pushing until something broke—for good this time.
Max sipped his coffee. “What did you say to her that pissed her off?”
I’d opened my mouth and said something about her drinking. Something I should’ve kept in my head, where it belonged. It wasn’t supposed to come out like that. It wasn’t supposed to come out at all.
I didn’t know what the hell I’d been thinking—if I were thinking at all.
It was a joke. Or an observation. Or some combination of the two that made sense in my head and turned to shit the second it left my mouth.
She’d looked at me like I’d just confirmed every bad thing she already believed about herself.
Like I’d pointed a spotlight on the one part of her she still didn’t know how to carry without shame.
“Nothing in particular,” I lied. “We just argued.”
“Again?”
“We always argue.”
Max took a sip of his coffee. “Why?”
I leaned back in the patio chair and rubbed my jaw, staring out at the yard while Duke circled again.
“Why do we fight?” I repeated, more to myself than to him.
“I don’t know. I’ve been asking myself that since the moment I met her.
It’s like every word between us is soaked in gasoline, and neither of us knows how to keep the matches out of our mouths. ”
Max didn’t say anything.
“I try,” I added. “I really do. I walk in the room with every intention of being civil, calm, reasonable—and then she opens her damn mouth, and somehow it all goes sideways. Every time. I say the wrong thing. She says exactly the thing I don’t want to hear.
And we go at it like that’s the only language we know. ”
He looked at me like I was missing something obvious. “Girls like flowers.”
I blinked at him. “Flowers.”
“Yes, Marco. Flowers. They’re colorful. Come in a vase. You buy them when you fuck up.” He leaned back in his chair and picked up the paper again. “You’ve got money. Figure it out.”
He could be right, but showing up after I’d said something I couldn’t take back? After she’d looked at me like I was the exact kind of man she never wanted to need? That was different.
I didn’t want to be one more person who made her feel small. And I definitely didn’t want to be the reason she started drinking again just to forget the sound of my voice.
I didn’t regret her, but I hated how easy it was to make her think I did.
“I’m not going to push this marriage on her,” I complained. “She has what she needs, and I’m okay with that.”
Max grunted. “I don’t care if either of you want it. You’ll make this marriage believable.”
I rolled my eyes. I’d learned that from Valentina. “She doesn’t seem exactly eager to have me given the circumstances.”
“Well, I don’t really care. She’s your responsibility. You’ll be staying with her.”
“Fine,” I said, setting the mug down. “I’ll handle it.” Then I paused, rubbing a hand over the back of my neck. “Once I get back from Chicago.”
That got his attention. “You leaving today?”
“Tonight. Maybe morning.” I glanced down at the watch on my wrist—as if the time mattered when I’d already made the decision. “Need to meet with Castello’s legal counsel. Tie up loose ends.”
Max nodded once. “You’ll be gone a week?”
“Give or take.”
A lot could happen in a week. Especially when the person you were married to didn’t trust you, didn’t want you in their space, and didn’t realize how close they were to burning it all down.
“Try to get it done sooner. Sebastian’s around more than he should be,” he continued.
“Eyes are on her more than I like. I don’t give a shit if it’s love or fun or something in between, but if she’s still got a soft spot for him—if there’s even the smallest chance she’ll listen to what he tells her—then we’ve got a problem. ”
“She won’t,” I said, though I didn’t sound convincing. Even to myself.
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “I’ll head out now though. I’ll try to be back by Saturday at the latest.”
He nodded once, satisfied enough to let it drop.
I stood and showed myself out.
I was lying. I knew it. Max probably did too. I wasn’t sure. About any of it. About her.
That was the part I hated—the not knowing.
I hated not being sure. I hated that someone else had a piece of her I couldn’t touch, couldn’t reach, couldn’t even compete with.
And it wasn’t about control—not really. It was about the fact they had history.
Real, tangled, ugly history. The kind that sinks into a person and lingers long after it’s over.
Sebastian was her past—and not just some chapter she’d closed.
He was the one who showed up when she burned everything else down.
The one who helped her set fire to things.
They’d been through the same shit. Same streets, same lies, same patterns.
He’d known her before any of this. Before me. Before I was even in the picture.
And history like that didn’t just go away.
I wanted to believe she’d never go back to him. That she was smarter than that. That she’d changed. But I wasn’t blind.
I’d seen the way she got quiet when his name came up. Like if she just kept talking, it wouldn’t matter that her hands were shaking. I’d seen the hesitation in her eyes when I brought him up. The guilt. The anger. The ache she wouldn’t name.
It wasn’t about love. Not for her. Not anymore. But there was still something there.
And the worst part? I understood it. There were people I still would’ve picked up the phone for, long after I should’ve let them go.
So no, I wasn’t sure. I wanted to be. I wanted to sit there with my coffee and say it like it was fact: She won’t go back to him. She won’t run. But she was known for that.
And me?
I stayed. I always stayed. Even when I shouldn’t. Especially when I shouldn’t.
I hadn’t learned that from something noble.
I wasn’t raised on consistency or kindness or whatever else people are supposed to get from childhood.
I’d learned to stay because the one person who was supposed to show up never did, and I swore—somewhere along the line, probably too young to remember making the decision—I’d never be the one walking away.
Her name was Isadora.
My foster mother.
She gave me my name—Marco. She said it sounded strong. Said it had weight. Said it wasn’t easy to forget, and she liked that. She always hated things that were easy to forget, like she’d already lived a hundred lives by the time she’d found me and didn’t want another one to vanish.
She used to call me “mi vida” when she was sober. Her voice would soften, real low, as if she remembered I was hers. Those were the rare days. Mornings, usually. Before the bottle. Before the phone calls. Before she disappeared into whatever new chaos had landed at her feet.
She had a laugh that filled the entire house. I used to think it was beautiful; that if I could just figure out how to make her laugh more, everything would be okay.
She’d sing in Spanish when she cooked, even when there wasn’t much to cook. When I was little, I’d sit on the counter while she stirred rice or opened a can of beans, and she’d tap her spoon against the side of the pot.
Those moments? I used to cling to them like they meant something. Like if I held on tight enough, they’d outweigh everything else.
They didn’t.
Isadora drank like breathing. She could ruin a day before it had even started.
I was nine when she first passed out with a lit cigarette in her hand.
Ten when I had to lie to the landlord because she hadn’t paid rent in three months.
Eleven when I realized I was more responsible for her than she’d ever been for me.
She didn’t hit me. Not the way people assume. She just forgot me. Forgot I needed dinner. Forgot I needed rides. Forgot I existed when it was inconvenient. I became good at staying invisible, at cleaning up, at doing the adult things she wouldn’t.
By twelve, she couldn’t even remember my name half the time.
She’d call me “mijo” or “hey, you” or just yell from the other room as if I were the help.
But her husband—he remembered me.
His name was Gerard. Big guy. Ex-military. The kind of man who believed in routine and punishment and “character building.”
He wanted to turn me into a man.
That was what he’d say, always with that patronizing tone like I was some failed experiment he could fix with enough structure and shame.
He’d make me wake up at 5:00 a.m. every day.
Run three miles before school. Six on weekends.
Said it would make me strong. Said it would “burn the softness out of me.”
If I missed a step—if I talked back, looked at him wrong, breathed in a way that annoyed him—he’d lock me in the hall closet.
It was an empty room, just four mirrored walls and my own reflection staring back at me as if I were the problem.
I’d stand there staring at my reflection for hours, forced to face the boy he saw.
The one he thought needed fixing. The one he treated like a problem, like a monster he had to break and rebuild.
Maybe he was right. I’d spent years believing he was anyway.
It wasn’t just punishment. It was method. Psychological warfare dressed up as parenting. He thought breaking me would build something better. And the worst part? It worked. I got quieter. I stopped waiting for anyone to come get me, because no one ever did.
Remy had already been adopted by then. Different family. Better one. The kind that showed up for parent-teacher conferences and packed lunches that didn’t smell like cheap whiskey. He got out before Gerard came into the picture. He didn’t see what the house became.
And in a fucked-up way, I was glad it was me.
Glad it wasn’t Remy who had to hear the lock click behind him while he sat in that closet counting his own breath and wondering how long it would take before he forgot what sunlight looked like.
Glad it wasn’t Remy who ran until his legs gave out, throwing up in the bushes because Gerard had said, “Real men don’t stop when they’re tired, only when they’re done. ”
I’d taken the short end of the stick, and I’d held onto it like a damn dog.
I still did, because at least that way, someone else didn’t have to.
And maybe that’s why I showed up now. Why I kept showing up. For people who didn’t deserve it. For people who forgot me. For people who pushed me away and spat in my face while I was still holding the door open.
Because if I didn’t—if I didn’t stay, even when it was thankless—what the hell had all that been for?