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For the past three weeks, she’s been rising before I do and sleeping after I doze off. That is, if she’s gotten any sleep at all. She’s constantly checking on me like I might disappear if she looks away too long.

Three weeks of her hovering. Three weeks of her militant care. Even the doctors and nurses were starting to fear her.

I smile, thinking of those moments. They come to me like fragments through the haze. Memories from those first days in the hospital, her voice cutting through the haze of morphine, arguing with doctors about my treatment. Her hands smoothing my hair back when the nightmares came. The way she’d curl up in that uncomfortable hospital chair, one hand always holding mine, even when we slept.

She saved my life as much as the surgeons did. Kept me tethered to consciousness when it would have been easier to let go.

Now, as I manage to sit up against the headboard by myself, without help, I feel something I haven’t felt since this all began.

Hope.

I’m finally on the mend.

And it’s all because of Aria.

The bedroom door opens with a soft click, and Aria appears carrying a breakfast tray. She’s wearing one of my shirts again, the navy silk draped over her smaller frame, and her hair is twisted up in that messy knot that makes my fingers itch to pull it free.

She looks beautiful.

Tired, but beautiful.

“You’re awake early,” she says, setting the tray on the nightstand. Her eyes scan my face, assessing,alwaysassessing. “How do you feel?”

“Good enough to shower.”

The words are out before I think them through, and I watch worry flicker across her features. She’s been helping me with everything—meals, medication, even washing my hair when the simplest movements left me breathless. The thought of me doing anything alone clearly terrifies her.

“Marco—”

“Don’t,” I interrupt gently. “Don’t look at me like I’m made of glass,dolcezza. I’m healing.”

She sets the coffee cup down with trembling fingers, and I realize how much this has cost her. Watching me bleed out on that marble floor. Sitting vigil in a hospital room, not knowing if I’d wake up. Carrying our child, and with her, the burden of everything we survived.

“I know you are,” she whispers. “I just?—”

Her voice breaks, and suddenly she’s sinking onto the edge of the bed beside me, her composure cracking like a dam under pressure.

“I was so scared, Marco.” The words tumble out in a rush, raw and honest. “In the hospital, seeing you so pale, your breathing so weak. The doctors said the bullet missed your heart by millimeters.Millimeters.”

I reach for her hand, threading our fingers together. Her palm is soft and warm against mine, but I can feel the slight tremor that hasn’t left her since that night.

“That bullet was meant for me,” she continues, her voice dropping barely above a whisper. “For our baby. And you took it without hesitation. You threw yourself between us and death, and I?—”

She stops, shaking her head like she’s trying to dislodge the memory.

“I should feel victorious, shouldn’t I? The man who destroyed my family is dead. Justice served. But all I feel is guilt.”

Her free hand moves to her stomach, a protective gesture that’s become second nature. “I tried to destroy you, Marco. I hunted you, pushed you away, built a force to tear down everything you’d built. And still—still you chose me over your own life.”

“Aria—”

“I wanted revenge,” she continues, tears slipping down her cheeks. “But at what cost? I almost lost you. I almost lost us. And for what? Because I was too stubborn to see what was right in front of me?”

Her fingers tremble in mine as she reaches up with her free hand to brush the hair from my forehead. And in that small gesture, I see the weight of everything crashing down on her—all the choices that led us here, all the pain we caused each other in the name of honor, justice, and pride.

“I thought I wanted you gone,” she whispers, her voice breaking completely now. “I convinced myself that a world without Marco Bianchi would be better, cleaner. But lying in that hospital chair, watching you fight for every breath—God, Marco, a world without you feels emptier than I ever imagined.”

The confession hits me like a physical blow, knocking the air from my still-healing lungs. Because this is what I’ve been waiting for.