“Away from you.”
“Yes.” He holds my gaze. “Away from me. And it’s killing me. But at least she’s alive. At least she’s not in a shallow grave because my uncle decided she was a liability.”
I want to hit him. Want to drive my fist into his perfect face and watch him bleed.
But I can see it now, the thing underneath the composure. The same devastation I feel. The same desperate love that drove me for hours to stand in his living room.
“Why are you really here?” Dario asks.
The question cuts through my rage. Forces me to think.
Why am I here? To protect her? To warn him off? To prove I’m the better man? Or something else entirely?
“She got your chocolates,” I say. “She fell apart. Called me crying, couldn’t breathe, asked me what she was supposed to do.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“I told her I’d come talk to you.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Processing. “You came to talk. Not to threaten.” His eyes narrow slightly. “Why?”
“Because she’s not okay.” The words hurt coming out. Admitting it to him, of all people, feels like handing over a weapon. “She’s building a life,” I continue. “She has the bakery, friends, a routine. She laughs, she bakes, she’s learning to be Zoey Carter. And I love her. She loves me back. But she’s not whole.”
“Because of us.”
“Yes.” The admission burns. “Because of you. Because of Enzo. Because she’s carrying both of you around like wounds that won’t heal, and I can’t fix it. I’ve tried. I’ve been there as much as I can, given her everything I know how to give, and it’s not enough.”
“So you came here to, what? Ask me to leave her alone so she can heal?”
“I came here to figure out what the hell we’re supposed to do.”
Dario goes very still, like hope is a gun he doesn’t trust. “We?”
“She loves you.” The words taste like poison but I say them anyway. “She loves Enzo. She wears your shirt to sleep. She keeps his mug in her cabinet. She can’t make peanut butter cookies because they remind her of him, can’t make amaretti because they remind her of you.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like to watch her grieve you while she’s lying next to me. To see her flinch when something reminds her of what she lost. To know that no matter how much I love her, I can’t fill the space you left.” My voice cracks on the last word.
Fuck. I turn away. Can’t look at him while I’m falling apart.
“So you came here to tell me she still loves me.” His voice is strange. Rough. “Why?”
“Because I want her happy.” I force the words out. “More than I want her to myself. More than I want to win. I want her whole, and I can’t make her whole alone.”
Silence.
When I turn back around, Dario’s expression has changed. The composure is gone, replaced by something I recognize.
Hope. Desperate, terrified hope.
“What are you suggesting?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s a version of this that works.” I run a hand through my hair. “But I know she’s not okay without you. And I know I can’t be there all the time. So either we figure something out, or we all lose her.”
He stares at me for a long moment. Then he moves to the bar. Pours two drinks. Holds one out to me. “Enzo needs to be part of this conversation,” he says.
My stomach drops. Because if Enzo walks in here with his grief and his hands, this stops being a conversation and starts being triage.
