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Chapter 3

Autor: Eternity
The next morning, Nico was still running a fever.

I should have kept him home, but the incident papers from the training hall had to be signed that day. Insurance, liability, internal reports, none of it could wait. So I bundled him into his coat and took him with me to the family law office.

He was quiet most of the drive.

When we were almost there, he asked, "Do you think Dad will be around?"

I kept my eyes on the road. "We're just here to finish the paperwork."

That answer was enough to tell him not to ask again.

The secretary took us upstairs, and the moment we stepped onto the floor, I saw Dante at the counter.

Claire was beside him.

Leo was leaning against the desk, swinging one leg, looking far too pleased with himself for that early in the morning.

There was a stack of papers spread out in front of them. The one on top caught my eye at once.

Elite junior program authorization.

I stopped walking.

That spot had been mentioned for Nico weeks ago. One of the trainers had pulled me aside after practice and said that, if he stayed on track, they would move him up by the end of the month.

Dante was signing it for Leo.

Nico saw him then, and for a second everything else seemed to fall away. The fever, the bandage on his shoulder, the way he had cried himself to sleep the night before. He stepped forward with the incident file clutched in both hands.

"Dad."

Dante looked up.

Before he could speak, Leo pulled the paper toward himself and grinned.

"So this is mine now?"

Nico stopped where he was.

"That spot was supposed to be mine."

Leo gave him a slow look, starting with the file in his hands and ending at the bandage under his coat.

"You couldn't even make it through one accident."

I moved before Nico could answer and put myself between them.

"He was in a fire yesterday," I said to Dante. "And this is what you're doing this morning?"

Dante didn't even glance at the file in Nico's hands.

"Leo's paperwork was already scheduled."

"So was Nico's," I said. "Or were you too busy to notice?"

Claire stepped in lightly, voice calm, almost gentle.

"Serena, no one is trying to hurt him. He's exhausted, he's injured, and he clearly shouldn't be here. Maybe pulling him from the program for a while is the best thing."

I turned to her.

"No one asked you."

She looked stung, but only for a second. Then she lowered her eyes and said, "I'm only trying to be realistic."

Nico had gone very still behind me. After a moment, he tugged at my sleeve.

When I looked down, his face was white.

"That place really was mine, wasn't it?" he asked.

I opened my mouth.

Dante answered first.

"If one accident is enough to break him, then he was never fit to be the Moretti heir."

The whole hallway seemed to go quiet after that.

Nico didn't cry. He didn't say anything at all. He just lowered his head and tightened his grip on the file until the papers bent under his fingers.

I looked at Dante for a long moment.

Then I walked to the counter, took the incident file from Nico's hands, and placed it in front of the secretary.

"Process these," I said. "And withdraw his elite-track placement."

She froze and looked at Dante.

I didn't.

"This is over," I said. "Nico is done with the Moretti elite program, and we're done."
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  • The Family He Lost While Choosing Another   Chapter 12

    By winter, our life had settled.I worked full days at the clinic. Nico had school, his afternoon class, and a habit of leaving books open all over the apartment. He slept through the night. He laughed more easily. He no longer listened for footsteps at the door.Dante wrote three times.The first letter stayed unopened until I burned it with the junk mail. The second I read once and put away. The third was shorter. He said he would keep telling me the truth if that was all I would ever let him give.I never answered.He came twice after the night at the clinic. The first time, Vivian told him I was busy. The second time, I saw him from the window and waited until he left. After that, there was silence for almost two months.Then one cold evening in December, Nico and I came back from the grocery store and found him outside the building.Nico stopped first. He was carrying a paper bag with bread in it.For a moment, none of us spoke.Then Nico looked at me and asked, “Do you want me to

  • The Family He Lost While Choosing Another   Chapter 11

    Dante went to his father first.Claire was brought into a private meeting room at the family office. Leo was kept out of it. Dante put three documents on the table: the text that sent Serena upstairs that night, the access log from the second floor, and the approval record that moved Leo into the elite track after Nico lost the spot.Claire read them and understood at once.“You were ready to believe the worst of her,” she said. “I didn’t have to invent much. You wanted a reason to stay in Chicago. I never gave you one to question.”That was enough.Her family protections were pulled the same day. The apartment, the driver access, the training sponsorship, and Leo’s privileges all ended before she left the building.She looked at Dante and asked, “You’re doing this for Serena?”He said, “I’m doing it because it should have happened years ago.”That afternoon, he flew out.He found Serena at the clinic after closing. She let him in because she wanted to hear what he had come to say, not

  • The Family He Lost While Choosing Another   Chapter 10

    Life settled faster than I expected.I worked mornings at the clinic and stayed late whenever Vivian needed another set of hands. Nico went to his class in the afternoons, then sat in the back office with homework until I finished. He laughed more easily now. He ate better. Most nights, he slept through until morning.One evening, Vivian leaned against the doorframe while I locked the medicine cabinet.“You look different,” she said.“Tired?”“No,” she said. “Lighter.”I did not answer, but I knew she was right.In New York, Dante had stopped pretending old reports were enough.The temporary access card used at the gala had been assigned to a catering worker who disappeared two days later. The service stair had been opened twice that night. The sitting room lock had been overridden and reset before dawn. None of it proved Serena innocent on its own. Together, it stopped looking like coincidence.What broke it open was a housekeeper.She had worked the second floor that night and was on

  • The Family He Lost While Choosing Another   Chapter 9

    A week after we arrived, Vivian signed Nico up for a small after-school class near the clinic.It was nothing like the programs in New York. No family connections. No special access. Just a rented gym, six children, and an instructor who cared more about balance than pedigree.Nico liked it immediately.On the second afternoon, I stood by the wall and watched him move through drills with the other kids. He was still quieter than before, still slower to trust a room, but his body had started to loosen. He no longer flinched every time an adult called his name. He listened, adjusted, and tried again.At the end of class, the instructor crouched in front of him and said, “You’ve trained before.”Nico nodded.“With your father?”Nico paused only a second.“My mom taught me.”The instructor smiled and ruffled his hair. “Then your mom did a good job.”Nico looked pleased in a way I had not seen for a long time. He did not glance toward the door. He did not look around to see who else had hea

  • The Family He Lost While Choosing Another   Chapter 8

    Nico slept through the night for the first time after we left New York.When he woke, sunlight was already filling the room. He looked around, then asked, “Are we late for anything?”“No,” I said. “Not anymore.”Vivian gave us two quiet days before putting me on the schedule. On the third morning, she handed me a white coat, a keycard, and a clipboard full of names.“You’re working,” she said. “I need you useful.”It was exactly what I needed.The clinic stayed busy all day. A delivery driver came in with a split palm. A little girl needed stitches in her chin. An older woman refused to let anyone but me change her dressing once she heard I had done trauma recovery work. By afternoon, I had stopped thinking about New York.Nico spent the day in the back office with a workbook, a box of pencils, and the old dog from downstairs asleep beside him. When I finished my last patient, I found him on the rug with a comic open in his lap. He looked up, smiled, and went back to reading.That smil

  • The Family He Lost While Choosing Another   Chapter 7

    By the time the plane landed, New York was already behind us.Vivian was waiting outside arrivals. She took one look at me, another at Nico asleep against my shoulder, and told me to get in. There was bread on the front seat, medicine in the console, and clean clothes folded in the back for Nico.The apartment above her clinic was small, bright, and warm. Fresh sheets were already on the bed. Soup was on the stove. Nico’s medication had been set out on the kitchen counter.Nico barely woke while I changed him and got him into bed. Once he was under the blankets, he slept hard. In New York, every sound had pulled him half-awake. That night, he never stirred.When I came back into the living room, Vivian handed me a mug of tea and a blue folder.“The position is still yours,” she said. “You can start whenever you want.”I looked at the folder and then at the dark window.For the first time in years, there was nothing outside that belonged to Dante Moretti.Vivian watched me for a moment.

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