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To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband
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On the night before the Moretti succession ceremony, I found a post in the Confessional of the Dead that had been sent from ten years in the future. “If you could rewrite your blood oath, whom would you erase from the family tree?” The anonymous reply read: “Leon Vita.” “If not for that adopted son who used a life-debt to secure his place—a man destined to become my husband and consigliere—I could have had Matteo at my side years ago.” The poster’s icon was a black iris. Viola Moretti had used it as her private seal for seventeen years. I stared at the profile of a Viola ten years older than the woman I knew, and all warmth slowly drained from my fingers. Every time she had laced her fingers through mine in front of the elders, she had been thinking about how to break free of me. Every time she had said, “The family needs you,” she had never meant, “I need you.” I removed the obsidian ring from my right hand and placed it beside the succession contract. Then I signed the departure agreement offered by the North Sea Mercantile Association. If she saw me as a blood debt she could never repay— then I would grant her one last freedom and settle that debt for good.
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To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband Chapter 8
“Yes.”My answer was calm.Viola bent down and gathered the cookies one by one, returning them to the box.Mr. and Mrs. Moretti did not stay. Soon, Viola and I were alone in the dining room.“After Matteo was banished, he went to South America,” she began.“Two years ago, he was arrested for identity fraud and extortion. He will never return to Port Aspera.”“I sealed the White Cellar as well. The Old Customs House is now a school for the families of our fallen members.”When she finished, I asked only, “Why are you telling me this?”Her eyes slowly reddened.“Because I remember.”“On the day you left, I received every memory from the other timeline.”She spoke of the white transit pass she had withheld, the call bell unplugged beside my grandmother’s bed, and the fire in the White Cellar.One after another, she recited details known only to me and to the woman she had been ten years in the future.At last, she closed her hand around the broken ring. Her voice had gone hoarse.“Leon, I
To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband Chapter 7
After the freighter sailed beyond Port Aspera, a message from Viola appeared on my phone.It contained only one sentence.“Safe journey.”I looked at it for a few seconds before replying, “Thank you.”“This number will be disconnected today. If you need anything, contact Mr. Moretti.”Then I removed the SIM card, snapped it in half, and dropped it into the metal bin at the stern.The old harbor disappeared into the fog.My grandmother and I went first to Bergen. Six months later, we settled in Lisbon.The North Sea Mercantile Association kept its promise. I joined its legitimate marine insurance division, and it found a doctor to take over my grandmother’s care.No one there demanded that I love someone, protect someone, or surrender my life to someone simply because my parents had died.For the first time, I learned that a home did not need to be bound to a debt.The first few months were not easy.A ship’s horn could wake me in the middle of the night, my hand already reaching for th
To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband Chapter 6
The memories did not stop.When fire broke out in the White Cellar on the third night, Viola rushed to the Old Customs House.The guards told her that Leon had seized a lamp, started the fire, and died in the archive room at the deepest end of the cellar.Matteo held her and begged her not to look at the body.“Leon cared about his dignity more than anything.”“Don’t let the way he looks now destroy every memory you have of him.”The future Viola shook from head to foot, but for the first time, she refused to listen to him.She pulled back the white sheet.There was no soot in Leon’s lungs.Wire had cut deep wounds around his wrists and ankles. Six of his ten fingers had been broken, and a needle mark remained on the side of his neck.He had died before the fire began.Viola sealed the Old Customs House and brought every guard on duty that night back to the estate for questioning.The truth came apart layer by layer.Matteo had diverted the family doctor’s car.Matteo had unplugged the
To Her, I Was a Debt, Not a Husband Chapter 5
Viola saw another version of herself.In that world, Leon had never left.He still checked every ledger for her, memorized every shipping route, and stepped between her and the first bullet whenever an assassin came.She had loved Leon once.But that love had always been tangled with her parents’ orders, the family’s expectations, and a blood debt that could never be repaid. In time, it began to feel like suffocation.That was when Matteo drew close.He never spoke of duty, only desire. He never reminded her what kind of boss she ought to become; he only told her how beautiful she looked when she fired a gun.After their first peace talks in Sicily, they kissed on the rooftop of the hotel.When she returned to Port Aspera, she gave Leon the saint’s medal she had picked up casually from the same shop. The medal Matteo had engraved for her with his own hands remained hidden against her heart.She basked in Leon’s absolute trust while surrendering herself to the thrill Matteo offered.She
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