Chapter 11: the choice that isn’t a choice

Serena’s POV

“Ms. Romano, I need you to stay still.”

The nurse adjusts the IV line at my wrist, her voice calm and professional, like this is just another room, another patient, another morning. I nod even though my head feels heavy and my ribs ache when I breathe too deeply.

She checks the monitor, scribbles something on a chart, and gives me a small smile. “Your vitals are stable. That’s good.”

“Can I go home?” I ask.

She hesitates, and that hesitation tells me everything before she speaks. “The doctor will talk to you later.”

She leaves without another word, pulling the door shut behind her.

The quiet rushes back in.

I stare at the ceiling, following a thin crack that runs diagonally toward the corner of the room. I don’t remember noticing it yesterday. Maybe it’s new. Or maybe I was too distracted by pain and fear to care.

The machines beside the bed keep beeping, steady and unforgiving. Each sound feels like a reminder that I’m still here, still costing money I don’t have.

I turn my head.

The chair beside my bed is empty.

Dante’s chair.

My chest tightens before I can stop it. Yesterday, he sat there like he owned the room, like the hospital itself had rearranged to accommodate him. His presence felt suffocating then. Now the absence feels worse. Like he stepped out and took the floor with him.

“Marry me.”

The words replay in my head, unchanged, unsoftened. He didn’t dress them up. He didn’t pretend it was romantic. He stated it like a transaction, like a solution to a problem only he could afford to fix.

I swallow and push myself up slightly, wincing as pain flares along my side.

No one else is coming.

The truth settles slowly, heavily. Antonio isn’t going to burst through the door full of regret. The bank isn’t calling to apologize for a mistake. No long-lost miracle is waiting just outside this room.

It’s just me.

And a hospital bill that grows by the minute.

My phone sits on the side table where I left it. I reach for it and scroll through missed calls and messages even though I already know what I’ll find.

Nothing.

Antonio’s name isn’t there. It hasn’t been there for days.

I close my eyes, but that only makes it worse.

“You were never enough.”

His voice slides into my head without permission. It sounds Calm, Flat andFinal. I see him standing behind his desk, hands folded, already done with me before I finished begging. I remember how he didn’t raise his voice, didn’t look angry, didn’t even look guilty.

I remember Isabella sitting on the couch behind me, legs crossed, watching like she’d already won.

My jaw tightens.

I open my eyes again and stare at the wall until the image fades.

My hand moves to my left ring finger.

Empty.

I rub the skin where my wedding ring used to sit, pressing harder than necessary, like maybe pain will ground me. It doesn’t. It just reminds me how quickly everything I thought was solid disappeared.

“Mom,” I whisper.

The word breaks something open in my chest.

I picture her the way she looked the last time I visited. Too thin. Trying to hide it. Smiling anyway. Telling me she was fine when we both knew she wasn’t.

She worked herself into sickness to give me a life that wouldn’t break me.

And now I’m here, deciding whether to trade myself for time.

My throat tightens.

If I say no, the machines keeping her alive will stop. Not dramatically. Not all at once. They’ll stop because someone decides the bills aren’t being paid.

If I say no, I’ll be the reason she doesn’t wake up again.

Tears slide down the sides of my face, quiet and humiliating. I don’t wipe them away. I don’t have the strength to pretend anymore.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, staring at the ceiling. “I tried.”

The door opens.

I flinch, my heart jumping painfully, but it’s only the doctor. He steps inside with a clipboard and a careful expression.

“Ms. Romano,” he says gently. “We need to talk about discharge and… arrangements.”

I nod.

He explains everything plainly. The costs. The limitations. The things insurance won’t cover. He doesn’t say it cruelly, but he doesn’t soften it either.

When he leaves, the room feels smaller.

I start listing things in my head, the way you do when panic threatens to take over.

No money!!

No job!!

No home!!

No husband!!

I am left with No option.

The conclusion arrives without drama.

Dante is the only door left.

I don’t pretend otherwise. I don’t lie to myself and call it destiny or rescue. This isn’t love. It’s survival.

Footsteps sound outside the room.

My heart stutters hard enough that it hurts.

I straighten slowly, adjusting the thin blanket over my legs. My ribs protest, but I ignore them. I know who it is. My body seems to know before my mind catches up.

The door opens.

Dante steps inside, his presence filling the space immediately. He’s dressed the same way he was yesterday, dark and controlled, like nothing in the world has the right to surprise him. His gaze goes straight to my face.

“You’re awake,” he says.

“Yes.”

He closes the door behind him and walks closer, stopping beside the chair. He doesn’t sit yet. He studies me like he’s measuring something invisible.

“Have you thought about what I said?” he asks.

I grip the blanket in my hands. My palms are damp. My mouth feels dry.

“Yes.”

He waits.

The silence stretches, heavy and expectant. I look at him, really look at him, and understand something clearly for the first time.

If I say yes, I won’t come back from this.

Whatever I am now will be gone.

I take a breath that shakes despite my effort to control it.

“If I agree,” I say carefully, “what happens to my mother?”

He answers without hesitation.

“She lives.”

The simplicity of it nearly breaks me.

I close my eyes for a brief second, then open them again and meet his gaze.

“Then tell me,” I say, my voice steady even as my chest caves in, “what exactly are you asking me to give up?”

Dante’s expression doesn’t change.

“Everything,” he says.

I swallow.

The door feels like it’s closing even though no one has moved.

And before I can stop myself, before I can rethink it or soften it or run from it, the words leave my mouth—

“Then I need you to promise me one thing—”