Amelie’s POVRecovery wasn’t graceful.It was slow and annoying. It meant waking up every morning feeling like my limbs had turned into stone overnight. It meant being helped to the bathroom like a ninety-year-old. It meant dizziness, soup, electrolytes, and more soup.But worst of all—it meant the triplets fussing over me like they were running a retirement home.“I can walk,” I groaned one morning, batting Luca’s hand away. “My legs work. I swear.”But he obviously didn't believe me. “You almost face-planted yesterday,” Matteo said flatly, arms crossed from the doorway.“Because someone forgot to mention the floor was slippery,” I snapped, pointing at him. “I slid like a penguin.”“That’s not what penguins do,” Nico muttered from the couch.“I hate you all,” I muttered back.“You love us,” Nico replied without looking up from his phone.The thing is… I kind of did.Somewhere between dying and not dying, something shifted. They weren’t just tormentors or saviors anymore. They were m
_Author’s POV_The sky outside Amelie’s window had darkened to deep velvet, and the only light in her room came from the low lamp by the bedside. It cast soft shadows over the books Matteo had stacked neatly by her pillows, and the blanket tucked carefully around her legs. A half-empty glass of water sat on the nightstand. She hadn’t touched it in hours.She was tired. Still healing. But not so tired that she didn’t notice him.The door creaked open like someone had tried to avoid making noise—and failed. She didn’t turn. She didn’t have to.It was obvious he was the one. Luca.She knew the weight of his presence, the way it shifted the air around her. Even when he said nothing, she felt him.He hovered just inside the door. She could hear the way he breathed—slow, careful. Like he didn’t want to disturb her. Like maybe he was thinking about turning back around.“Are you coming in or not?” she asked softly.A pause.Then quiet footsteps. He crossed the room, then hesitated again. For
_Amelie’s POV_I woke to sunlight.Real sunlight. Not filtered through half-closed curtains or dimmed by haze. It touched my skin like a whisper, warm and golden and alive. I blinked against it, my eyes adjusting slowly, and for once, I didn’t feel the weight of a hundred bricks on my chest.I could breathe.I could move my fingers without trembling.And that made me really happy. It had been three days since I first opened my eyes, since I’d whispered Luca’s name and watched three hardened men fall apart around my hospital bed. Three days since Liana had burst in, screamed at everyone, and made me laugh for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. Three days since Matteo had held my hand and told me the truth—the beautiful, aching, terrifying truth.I was healing, that much was obvious. It was happening slower than I wanted. My muscles were stubborn, and my strength came in frustrating waves. I still couldn’t eat much without getting nauseous. My blood pressure dropped if I sa
Amelie’s POVThe worst part wasn’t the pain. Or the nausea. Or the strange, heavy exhaustion that refused to leave my bones.It was the silence in my own mind. The part of me that couldn’t remember when I’d last felt like myself. The part that kept wondering what I’d missed while I was… gone.Gone but not dead.I hadn’t died. But it felt like I’d disappeared.I know they said for a few seconds I had flatlined, and I am glad they fought for me. Glad they didn’t let me die. Now I was back, piece by piece. Waking up had felt like climbing through mud, and even now my muscles trembled with the effort of sitting up. But every hour, it got a little easier. The fog cleared. My fingers stopped shaking. I could drink water without help. They hadn’t let me walk yet—Matteo said another twelve hours of rest before trying—but I could feel the strength returning in tiny fragments.The room was quiet now. Luca and Nico had gone downstairs. Liana had stormed out not long after her outburst—her goodb
_Amelie’s POV_The world didn’t rush back to me. It arrived in fragments.Small things, mostly.The weight of the blanket on my chest. The distant ticking of the old grandfather clock in the hallway. The hum of the monitor beside my bed, steady and reassuring now.My strength didn’t come back all at once either. It crawled its way into me, inch by inch, like light trickling through closed shutters. Every hour felt like a battle. Lifting my head. Holding a spoon. Sitting upright without blacking out.But they were always there.Luca brought me water before I even asked. Matteo charted my vitals and murmured that my pupils were reacting faster today. Nico was pacing behind him like a caged animal, snapping at anyone who suggested I should rest “a little more.”I didn’t mind the exhaustion. I minded the quiet.Because the house was never really quiet.Someone was always near. A voice. A step. A breath. And sometimes—when I was half-asleep—I caught the edges of whispered arguments outside
Third Person POVThe silence after her whisper was so fragile it felt like the entire room held its breath with her.“I think I love you.”The words hung in the air like smoke—impossible to hold, impossible to ignore. She hadn’t even said it to one of them. She hadn’t chosen. She just… offered it, soft and broken and half-alive, like a flame flickering in a windstorm.And they didn't know who was supposed to take it. Then her eyes fluttered closed.The machines kept their rhythm. Gentle beeps. Steady pulse. The rise and fall of her chest.She was asleep again.Luca didn’t move. His hand was still tangled with hers, thumb brushing over the delicate bones of her wrist like he was afraid she’d vanish again.Nico leaned back in the chair and blew out a slow, quiet breath. “Did she really just say—?”“Yeah,” Matteo said, voice hoarse. “She did.”They couldn't believe it, but it was there. The weight of it pressed against the three of them like gravity had shifted. Something about those w