Epilogue
One month later …
ELIZABETH
Matteo's eyes are closed, and he dozed off as we were talking. He had his surgery this morning, and now he's resting in his private suite at the hospital.
I don't want to leave his side, so I sit here, watching him. Thinking about us, and all that has happened.
We're back together.
It took a week or so, after I left Knight Enterprises, when we walked home together after the bar where I had my leaving do.
It felt strange being back in my apartment, working in my small living room, but I had a few projects suddenly appear.
I updated my LinkedIn profile to reflect my latest contract with Knight Enterprises, and within days, new inquiries started landing in my inbox.
Maybe it was the prestige of having Knight Enterprises listed as a former client.
Or maybe Matteo had quietly pulled a few strings behind the scenes.
I suspected the latter, but I couldn't prove it.
Either way, I was busy during that first week after leaving the company.
Busy enough that I didn't have much time to sit around missing him.
But then he texted me first thing in the morning, and wished me good luck. Ten minutes later he texted to tell me he missed me. An hour later he said he kept waiting for me to walk into the office.
I found myself looking forward to his texts, and over the course of that week, they turned into something else. Something hot and steamy.
That following weekend we met at Central Park, and had hotdogs then got into a pedicab and made out like crazy.
And later that night, we discovered one another's bodies all over again.
That's how it started.
“Hey,” he croaks. He's dozed off as we were talking, still groggy from anesthesia, so I let him be. He’s pale, and looks exhausted, and he’s been drifting in and out of sleep as I’ve been here. We talk, when he’s awake, but he seems to have less energy, so I don’t push anything.
“You don't have to stay here all day,” he says.
I make a face. “I'll be off then,” I say, picking up my bag. “I'll check in on Arthur and Irene.”
“B-but …”
“I'm joking!” I say, quickly reassuring him, and setting the bag by my side again. “You're not going to get rid of me so easily. Stop saying silly things.”
As if I would just up and leave him like this. I've been here since early morning, when he came in to get prepped for surgery.
“Can you stay the night?” A smile plays on his beautiful lips.
“I don't know if they'll let me.” I was going to leave only when they threw me out.
“I can make it happen,” he says quickly. “Would you have a problem with that?”
He's still so careful about displaying his wealth and power.
I take his hand and shuffle closer. “I'd love to stay the night.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Want me to arrange for you to stay in my bed?”
My eyes widen, and I play along. “Can you get a double bed put in?”
He laughs, then immediately winces, the color draining from his face and one hand instinctively moving to his abdomen. “I wish,” he murmurs, settling carefully against the pillows. Everything about him is slower, and weaker. I can’t wait to nurse him back to full health again.
“I'm not leaving your side,” I promise, “Unless I get thrown out.”
The surgery has drained him. His messed-up hair that I love so much now lies flattened on one side from sleeping. Dark shadows haunt the skin beneath his eyes. Every movement is slow and strained.
“Thank you for being here.” He tries to squeeze my hand, but his grip is weak.
“I wouldn't have it any other way. I told you I'd look after you.”
He grins. “Still waiting for the nurse's outfit.”
“You'll have to be well enough to come home for that.”
“Oh, something to look forward to.”
I kiss his hand.
“Just having you to wake up to, here, has made my day. Honestly, Elizabeth, you're the best thing...”
We stare at one another for the longest time. No words needed. We know what we mean to one another.
I want to tell him he's the best thing to happen to me, because he is, but I'm on the verge of tears now, because my heart is full, and the tears I want to cry are happy tears. At last, I have someone to care about and someone who cares about me. Someone who cares about what I eat, where I go, whether I’ve made it home safely, whether I’m working too hard, whether I’ve slept enough.
I have that now.
And I feel the same way about him.
I put both of my hands around his, and we sit silently, just staring at one another. Smiling. Thinking.
“Have you really bought the nurse’s outfit?” he asks.
I'm about to answer, when the door bursts open and a team of people walk in. It’s his brothers. All of them. I notice a ridiculously oversized card first, then two of them carry enormous bunches of beautiful flowers, and Enzo carries three huge helium balloons: Get. Well. Soon.
It wouldn’t surprise me if their girlfriends forced them to buy these. Rio pulls out some magazines, and snacks. Zach balances two large cardboard coffee carriers, each packed with steaming cups of coffee.
Exclamations and greetings shatter the quiet of the room.
“Fuck, you look like death.”
“Brother, you don't look too good.”
“Did they leave you any functioning organs?”
Matteo flips them off.
They acknowledge me with smiles and nods before immediately descending on Matteo like a flock of vultures. The flowers are dumped at the end of the bed, and the balloons are tied to a chair. Someone shoves a coffee into my hand. Another brings in extra chairs from goodness knows where.
Within seconds, the room feels completely different. The silence disappears beneath overlapping conversations, insults, laughter, and arguments. The hospital suite seems too small to house all these men.
It no longer feels like a hospital room, more like a family gathering.
It's loud, larger than life and overwhelming.
And I love it.
I love it with all my heart.
“The girls wanted to come, but ... they'll come at the weekend,” explains Jett. “You look like shit,” he says, again.
Matteo grins and flips him off, again.
“At least the personality survived,” Dex says, pulling out a bottle of whiskey, unopened, and setting it to one side, maybe for later. If it doesn’t get confiscated first. Something tells me they’ll be able to do whatever they want.
“What the hell is that for?” Matteo coughs, then winces in pain. They all quieten.
“You okay, dude?” Rio asks, reaching for him.
Dex turns pale.
“He’s okay,” I reassure them. “It hurts to cough and laugh or sneeze.”
Relief ripples through the room. They thank me for staying with Matteo, for looking after him.
Something warm and soft spreads through me. I've never had a big family. Never had brothers barging through doors carrying flowers and coffee and ridiculous balloons. Somehow, these Knight boys have made space for me, too, and the sense of belonging leaves me feeling insanely grateful and blessed.
The room fills again with enough noise and commotion that I’m worried someone will come in and tell us to be quiet. Also, isn’t there a limit on the number of visitors a patient can have?
Probably not with the Knights.
It's so noisy. I step back, and leave them to it. It starts to sound like the inside of a bar on a Saturday night, not a hospital room.
A nurse walks in, sees the commotion, sees all the guys around Matteo's bed, then shakes her head and walks back out.
Dex rubs his hands together and looks around. “Can we all note that Matteo’s finally giving something away for free?”
Matteo shakes his head.
Unperturbed, Dex continues, “The old man gets your kidney, and now you’re going to be his favorite. Sorry Zach.”
Zach shrugs. “Happy to let Matteo wear that crown.”
“At least now you can win every argument with him,” says Enzo. “You can officially use ‘I gave him a kidney’ each time.”
I smile to myself as I watch them. All these men. All this noise and love. All this warmth and belonging.
This is the meaning of family.
Matteo never talks much about it, but looking around this hospital room, I finally understand that he himself is seeing a new way of talking about it.
He’s done something that is noble and honorable, by giving his kidney to a man who doesn't really deserve it, and every one of his brothers knows exactly what that cost him.
The door opens again, and this time I blink, because it's not a doctor or a nurse. It’s a woman. She’s small, yet elegantly dressed, in a simple navy dress beneath a cream woolen coat. Dark hair streaked with silver and swept back from her face.
My breath catches. I know who she is. Isabel, Matteo’s mother. The woman he talks about as if she means the world to him. The woman who raised Rio, Matteo and Enzo. The woman standing at the center of so much heartbreak and history.
She doesn’t see me, her attention going to the bed, to the backs of the men standing around it. She pauses, her hand going to her chest, as if she’s letting the sight before her imprint onto her heart.
Then, slowly, she walks towards them. Rio turns around, sees her.
“Mama?” He rushes to her, then Enzo follows. Jett, Dex and Zach stand to one side, staring at her, their mouths open in quiet shock, as if they don't know what to make of her.
“Mama?” Matteo’s voice is weak, and he tries to sit up, then groans and flops back against the pillows. Rio and Enzo’s arms wrap around their mother. She's so tiny, I can barely see her, as her boys hug her for the longest time.
“Boys, boys,” she says finally, one hand on Rio’s arm, the other cupping Enzo’s face. Then she says something, in Italian, I think, which I don’t understand, followed by, “Let me see my other son.” Her Italian accent is warm and melodic.
Enzo looks at her like she’s made his day. “You never told us you were coming, Mama.”
“I can't believe you're here.” Rio’s voice is thick with emotion.
“I wanted to surprise you all.”
She glances over at the boys, at Jett, and Dex and Zach, and nods at them, before going to Matteo.
“Figlio mio,” she says to him, caressing his face, her voice trembling.
“Mama, I'm fine. Everything went okay.”