Chapter 136
Chapter 136
Gabriela POV
Mom wouldn’t let go of me.
She hadn’t let go for three days. If I went to the kitchen, she went to the kitchen. If I went up to my room, she followed. If I went into the bathroom, she stood outside the door asking every two minutes if I was okay, as if the bathroom were some portal to another dimension where I could be kidnapped again.
—Mom, I’m peeing, not climbing Everest.
—I just want to know you’re there.
—Where would I go? I’m sitting on a toilet.
—I don’t care. Answer me.
—I’m here, Mom. Still here.
I heard her sigh on the other side of the door, and it broke my heart. Aurora Moretti didn’t sigh. Aurora Moretti gave orders, hosted dinners, ran mansions, and faced enemies without breaking a sweat. But the past few days had reduced her to a mother who needed to hear her daughter’s voice every two minutes to confirm she still existed.
I couldn’t blame her. If I had spent twelve hours not knowing whether my daughter was alive or dead, I probably wouldn’t let go either.
The mansion had turned into a kind of refuge where we were all packed together in a space that suddenly felt smaller, even with thirty rooms. Alejandra and Mateo were still here with the babies—no one wanted to leave yet, and Mom needed the distraction of her grandchildren to keep from losing her mind. Andrea and Andrés had extended their stay another week with their usual discretion, taking up little space and bringing a lot of calm. Ana came and went every day, bringing cookies and scolding Alejandro for not eating enough—which, according to me, meant he was eating triple his usual amount, but mothers see what they want to see.
Gabriel was calmer. Not truly calm—the divorce was still frozen, Victoria still existed, and Lucía was still missing—but the constant tension he’d been carrying for months had eased. Just one degree. But for Gabriel, one degree was the difference between a man on the verge of collapse and a man who could function.
Dante’s death had closed something inside all of us. Not in the clean, final way movies show, where the villain falls, the music swells, and everyone smiles. It was messier than that. Dirtier. More complicated. There was relief, yes—an enormous, guilty relief none of us wanted to examine too closely. But there was also an unease lingering in the air like dust after a demolition: the sense that violence leaves marks, even on those who survive it, and that those marks take time to surface.
But for the first time in months, we could breathe. Really breathe. Without pills, without guards at every corner, without the weight of knowing an obsessed man was out there planning how to destroy me.
Dante was dead.
And I was alive.
And for now, that was enough.
That afternoon, Alejandra found me in the living room, curled up next to Mom, who was stroking my hair while we watched a movie neither of us was actually watching.
—Okay, I’ve had enough —Alejandra said, planting herself in front of us with Emma in one arm and baby Gael’s bottle in the other—. I’ve spent three days as an only child because this woman has forgotten she has another daughter who also needs maternal attention.
Mom looked up, guilty.
—Ale, it’s not that, it’s just your sister—
—My sister is perfectly fine, and you’re smothering her with love, which is adorable but counterproductive. Meanwhile, here I am, a first-time mom of twins who barely sleeps two hours straight, without a grandmother to teach me how to make this child stop spitting everything he eats.
—Gael doesn’t spit, he regurgitates. It’s different.
—Mom, he’s spitting with style. It’s still spitting.
I laughed. For the first time in days, I really laughed, because Alejandra jealous of maternal attention was priceless—and because I knew she was doing it on purpose to lighten the mood.
—She’s right, Mom —I said, gently nudging her off the couch—. Go with your grandkids. I’m fine. Really.
—Are you sure?
—Yes. And Alejandro will be here in half an hour, and if he sees you glued to me like a barnacle, he’ll think you don’t trust him to take care of me.
—I don’t trust him. No man can take care of a woman like her mother can.
—Aurora Moretti, go hold your grandson before he spits on that Persian rug you bought in Turkey —Alejandra said, pointing at baby Gael, who was indeed making suspicious noises.
Mom rushed off toward the baby at full speed, and Alejandra winked at me as she sat down beside me.
—You’re welcome.
—You’re the best sister in the world.
—I know. And when you actually get married, I want a toast confirming it publicly.
—Deal.
Alejandra squeezed my hand, looking at me with those green eyes she shared with Mom, now warmer in a way motherhood had softened.
—How are you really, Gaby? Not the version you give Mom so she doesn’t worry.
—I’m okay. Not perfect, not healed, not like nothing happened. But okay. I can sleep without pills again. I can close my eyes without seeing his face. I can be alone in a room without my heart racing. It’s different, knowing he’s gone. That he won’t show up at any door or send me messages from a prepaid phone. It’s like someone turned off a background noise I’d been hearing for months, and now there’s finally silence.
—And therapy?
—Dr. Estrada says what comes next is integration—that everything I lived through becomes part of my story without being all of it. That I can be the woman who survived Dante and also the woman who paints and laughs and marries a man who loves her. Both at the same time.
—I like that doctor.
—Me too. Even if she charges a fortune.
—Dad can pay it. It’s the least he owes.
We both laughed, the sound blending with Emma’s babbling, Mom’s scolding of baby Gael, and Andrea’s voice from the kitchen asking if anyone wanted tea—creating a domestic symphony that months ago would’ve been unthinkable and now sounded like what it should have always been.
Family.
Alejandro arrived at five with a bag from the bakery near his apartment—the one with the best croissants in Manhattan, according to him and absolutely no one else, because Alejandro couldn’t tell a good croissant from a mediocre one. But it was the gesture that mattered.
Mom intercepted him at the door with a hug that nearly knocked the air out of him and lasted longer than necessary. She still hadn’t finished thanking him for bringing her daughter back alive—and probably never would. Alejandro endured it with the patience of a man used to intense mothers. His was just as bad, if not worse.
He found me in the garden, sitting under the oak. Our oak. The one that had survived the interrupted wedding, with the lights still hanging from its branches because no one had had the heart to take them down—and because I liked seeing them turn on at sunset, a reminder that beautiful plans don’t die; they just get postponed.
He sat beside me and handed me a croissant without asking how I was. He’d spent three days asking, and he knew the answer by now: I’m okay, really, stop asking.
We ate in silence, watching the afternoon light filter through the branches, casting shadows on the grass that swayed with the wind as if they were dancing.
—Alejandro.
—What?
—I don’t want to wait.
He looked at me mid-bite, confused but interested.
—Wait for what?
—To marry you. I don’t want another big wedding or another decorated garden or another white dress or another perfect moment someone can ruin. I want to go to the courthouse tomorrow, sign the papers, get the certificate, and walk out as your wife. No flowers, no speeches—just you and me and a clerk declaring us husband and wife.
Alejandro slowly set the croissant down, like he needed both hands free to process what I’d just said.
—Tomorrow?
—Tomorrow. And then we run away on our honeymoon. Anywhere—I don’t care where. A beach, a mountain, a roadside hotel in the middle of nowhere. I just want to be with you without guards, without cameras, without family asking every two minutes if I’m okay.
—Gabriela, your mother will kill us.
—She won’t, because she won’t find out until we’re on a plane. Alejandra will cover for me. She and the babies have Mom so distracted she won’t notice we’re gone until night—and by then we’ll be far away.
—Alejandra agreed to this?
—It was her idea. Well, half hers, half mine. I told her I didn’t want another big wedding, and she said a romantic escape was much more our style and offered to distract Mom and book the flights through Mateo’s account—because apparently that’s the least her millionaire brother-in-law can do.
Alejandro looked at me for a long moment, that half-smile spreading across his face—the one that made the world feel like a place where good things really happened.
—Are you sure?
—I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.
—Your mother is going to kill us.
—She’ll yell, then cry, then call us irresponsible, and then demand honeymoon pictures and throw a party when we get back to celebrate properly. I know her. She’s predictably intense.
—And your father?
—He’ll pretend to be mad for exactly four hours and then call you to ask if I’m okay because he can’t stay mad at me longer than half a day.
—And Gabriel?
—Gabriel will be happy. He knows this is what we need. Something that’s ours, without the weight of everything that happened, without Dante’s shadow over the ceremony. Just you and me starting from zero.
Alejandro turned toward me and took my hands—hands still covered in croissant crumbs, the most perfect hands in the world because they were the ones that pulled me out of a hangar, a cabin, and every nightmare in between.
—Tomorrow —he said.
—Tomorrow.
—What time does the courthouse open?
—Nine. Alejandra already checked the requirements. We just need IDs, my divorce certificate, and two witnesses—she says she and Mateo can do it.
—And the honeymoon?
—Alejandra has a contact in a private airline who owes Mateo a favor. We can be on a plane by two, heading anywhere we want.
—Where do you want to go?
—Surprise me.
Alejandro smiled—a smile full of promise and mischief and love.
—Do you trust me?
—With my life. I already proved it.
He kissed me under the oak, the lights from the interrupted wedding flickering on above us as if the garden itself were giving its blessing. A soft kiss that tasted like mediocre croissants and future and the absolute certainty that this—this—no one was going to take from me.
—Tomorrow at nine, Mrs. Ferrer —he whispered against my lips.
—I’m not Mrs. Ferrer yet.
—Tomorrow at nine you will be. And after that, nothing on this earth is going to change it.
I leaned against his chest, watching the sun set over Manhattan, painting the sky in colors that looked unreal, and thought that maybe—just maybe—life knew what it was doing. That maybe interrupted plans, ruined dresses, and stolen weddings were just the long, painful road toward something simpler and more real.
A courthouse at nine in the morning.
Two signatures on a piece of paper.
And then, the world.