Chapter 9 #3
Please help.
I know these elegant loops and careful curves. I've studied them on documents prepared for me all week, in the grocery lists left on the kitchen counter, and in the notes scribbled in the margins of books.
I turn it over.
There, on the back, is the wisher’s name, a single word that stops my heart mid-beat.
Ilona.
"Luca?" Rafael's voice cuts through the roaring in my ears. "You look like you've seen a corpse walk through that door."
I look up but don't answer. My hands shake as I tear open the envelope, the paper ripping too loudly in the sudden silence. The note inside is cream-colored, her writing neat and precise, the words few but devastating.
"I wish someone would make my mistake disappear." - Ilona
The world tilts beneath me.
"Brother." Kon's voice reaches me through the fog, distant and distorted like sound traveling through deep water. A hand lands on my shoulder, heavy and grounding, the weight of it anchoring me to the present moment. "Breathe. Whatever that paper says, you need to breathe first."
Air scrapes into my lungs like shards of glass. Out. In again. The paper trembles in my grip, her words burning into my retinas, searing themselves into my memory where they'll live forever like a brand.
Make my mistake disappear.
"Everyone out." The command tears from somewhere outside my body, rough and barely recognizable as my own voice. My throat feels raw, stripped, like I've been screaming for hours.
Drake rises slowly, his expression shifting from curiosity to concern to the careful blankness of a man who recognizes when not to push. "Luca, if something's wrong—"
"Out. Please. I need a minute." I don't look at any of them. Whatever is on my face right now isn't something I want five men reading. "Now."
Their footsteps fade across the carpet, the door clicking shut behind each one as they leave.
I can sense Kon lingering at the threshold.
I look at him to find concern carved into his stoic features, his dark eyes searching my face for answers I refuse to give.
One nod and then he steps out. I know he’s telling me to right my wrongs, but it’s not that easy.
That leaves Rafael.
He crosses to me and waits for me to drag my eyes off the wish in my hands.
“Don’t make a mistake that you will regret.”
Instead of explaining, I pass him the wish.
He reads it in silence, then asks, "How do you want to handle this?"
I stand and come level with Rafael. "First I have to figure out what it means."
Rafael nods and rests his hands on my shoulders. "Whatever it means, you don't face it alone. That's what this brotherhood is for." His grip tightens once, firm and grounding, before he releases me and steps back. "But Luca, don't let fear make your decisions for you. That's not who we are."
With that, Rafael steps out. The lock clicks behind him, sealing me in with six words that have just rearranged everything I thought I understood about my marriage.
I read the wish again. And again. And again.
Each time, the words cut deeper, sharper, drawing blood I can feel dripping somewhere inside my chest.
I have to wonder when she found the time to slip away. While I stood across the room picturing decades of laughter and fights and makeup sex and growing old together, she dropped this bomb into a box and prayed someone would detonate it.
The words burrow under my skin and settle into my bones with a precision that leaves no room for misinterpretation.
What mistake? The question ricochets through my skull, hitting every vulnerable surface. The pregnancy? The marriage? The night that started it all? Me?
I've been operating under the assumption that what we're building has a foundation.
That the attraction is real, the connection is growing, that time and patience will close the distance she keeps between us in bed.
This wish suggests otherwise. This wish suggests she's been performing compliance while praying for an exit.
And I have no way to know which interpretation is true without showing her the card I'm holding.
The paper crumples in my fist before I can stop myself. I smooth it out again, pressing it flat against my desk. Six words from the woman I love and I can't breathe.
I should ask her. Should sit her down tonight and lay this wish between us and demand to know what she meant. Give her the chance to explain, to clarify, to tell me I'm wrong about what mistake she's referencing.
But the strategist in me knows that some questions change the landscape permanently. If I lay this wish between us and she confirms the worst interpretation, I can't unknow that. And I can't protect her from a position of weakness.
The wish disappears into my jacket pocket, the paper pressing against my chest like a second heartbeat. I'll carry it with me. A reminder of what I need to fix. What I need to become.
Tonight wasn't supposed to be about Enzo. Tonight was supposed to be about her. About us. The wish in my pocket has turned every plan I made on its head.
I'll show her this isn't a mistake. I'll prove it with every action, every touch, every moment of the life we're building. Starting tonight.
Tonight, I have a chance to prove it. The charity gala. Her in the emerald dress I’ve fantasized about all day, on my arm, under my protection. Every powerful person in Chicago watching us together. Let them see a man who will burn the world to ash before he lets her regret choosing him.
Tonight I prove to my wife that this marriage isn't a mistake.
And I show her father exactly what he's up against.