Chapter 9 - The Man I Chose
Five years passed.
Micah graduated college.
My mother became a grandmother.
Matteo married.
Julian opened a counseling center.
Raphael and I adopted a little girl named Lily.
She was four.
She loved pancakes.
She loved dogs.
She hated thunderstorms.
And she called Raphael “Daddy” with such certainty that every time he heard it, he smiled.
The feared crime boss of Chicago had become the man who checked under his daughter's bed for monsters.
Sometimes life was funny.
One rainy evening, Lily woke up crying.
I found Raphael sitting beside her bed.
He was holding a flashlight.
“What are you doing?”
“Monster inspection.”
I laughed.
“Anything?”
“Three suspicious shadows.”
Lily climbed into his lap.
“Daddy, are they gone?”
“Completely.”
She smiled and went back to sleep.
I watched them from the doorway.
Then Raphael looked at me.
“One hundred seven nights.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You still say that.”
“I can't forget.”
Neither could I.
A few months later, Raphael surprised me.
He had purchased a small building downtown.
He turned it into a medical center for families who couldn't afford specialized treatments.
He named it the Micah Bennett Center.
My brother cried when he saw the sign.
“You didn't have to do this.”
Raphael smiled.
“Yes, I did.”
It was the perfect ending.
Or close to it.
Because one afternoon, Lily found an old photograph.
She brought it to me.
“Mommy, who's this?”
I looked.
It was me.
Twenty years younger.
Standing outside the Orsini mansion.
Raphael was in the background.
Watching me.
I smiled.
“You're looking at the beginning of everything.”
Lily frowned.
“You married Daddy because he was drunk?”
I laughed.
“That's one way to describe it.”
She giggled.
“That's funny.”
“Yes.”
Then Raphael walked in.
“What are you two laughing about?”
Lily held up the picture.
“Mommy married you because you were drunk.”
He stared at me.
“I regret everything.”
“No, you don't.”
He smiled.
“No.”
He didn't.
That night, after Lily went to bed, we sat on the porch.
Rain tapped against the railing.
“I sometimes wonder who I'd be if you hadn't opened that door.”
I looked at him.
“Probably still terrifying.”
He laughed.
“I hope not.”
“You were.”
“Was?”
“Yes.”
He took my hand.
“You saved me.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
He looked confused.
“You saved yourself.”
He was quiet.
Then he said,
“You were the first person who let me.”
We sat together.
No guards.
No guns.
No fear.
Only rain.
Then Raphael gave me a small envelope.
Inside was a note.
One hundred seven nights.
One woman.
One door.
One life.
My eyes filled with tears.
“You wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The night I first knocked.”
I looked at him.
“You had this all along?”
“Yes.”
I laughed.
“That's ridiculous.”
“Maybe.”
I kissed him.
Then I realized something.
The thing I had feared most when I first met him wasn't Raphael.
It was losing the life I thought I had to protect.
Instead, meeting him had given me a life I never imagined.
One where Micah was healthy.
One where my mother was alive.
One where Raphael was no longer ruled by fear.
One where Lily could grow up without knowing what the Orsini name once meant.
We had broken the cycle.
That was enough.
Until Lily walked into the room holding another photograph.
She looked confused.
“Mommy?”
“What is it?”
She handed it to me.
My blood froze.
The photograph showed Raphael's father.
And standing beside him was a woman I had never seen.
On the back were two words.
Your aunt.
I looked at Raphael.
His smile disappeared.
“My father had a sister?”
My mother walked into the room.
She saw the photograph.
May you like
Then she whispered,
“She isn't dead.”
