Page 315 of Mario
His face hardens.
Not with rage.
With hurt.
I see it before he buries it.
“I would never hurt you,” he says.
“I know.”
“No,” he says. “You do not.”
The words hit me right in the gut.
“I do,” I say, ashamed. “That’s the worst part of all of this. I couldn’t be with you if I thought you would ever hurt me.”
His eyes narrow slightly.
“But you don’t trust me.”
“I want to,” I say, because that is the truth. “I want to trust you. I think I do trust you. I just didn’t trust myself or what I knew in my gut.”
His jaw tightens.
The fire snaps again, but I do not flinch this time.
Maybe because he is beside me.
Maybe because I am finally saying the things I should have said before an apparent fake journalist and a man with a gun made them unavoidable.
Mario looks toward the fire for a moment.
When he speaks, his voice is controlled, but not cold.
“Anna died because she was pregnant.”
My heart stutters.
I stare at him.
He does not look at me yet.
“She was thirty-nine. The pregnancy was high-risk. She had complications when the twins were born, and doctors told us itwas unlikely she would carry again. Seventeen years later, she did.”
His throat moves once.
“She wanted the child.”
I cannot speak.
“She knew the risks. We both did. We had doctors. Monitoring. Instructions. She followed every one of them.” His eyes close briefly. “She hemorrhaged at home while I was out.”
Oh God.
“I came home to paramedics in my house and my wife already gone.”
My hand covers my mouth.
