The Family He Lost While Choosing Another

Two days before we were supposed to leave, Nico crashed.

It started with a fever. Then his breathing turned shallow, his fingers went cold, and he curled up in bed clutching his chest.

"Mom," he whispered, shaking. "It hurts."

One of the doctors had warned me the smoke from the training hall fire could trigger delayed complications. Days earlier, I had paid for an imported emergency injector and locked it in the safe for exactly this reason.

I laid Nico back down and ran for it.

The safe was empty.

I called Dante at once.

He picked up quickly. The noise behind him told me he was out.

"Where's the injector?" I asked.

A pause.

"Oh. That." His voice stayed easy. "Leo had a bad reaction during evaluation this afternoon. I took it."

My hand tightened around the phone.

"Bring it back. Nico needs it now."

Silence, then his voice turned cold.

"Serena, do you expect me to undo something that's already been used?"

"That was for your son."

"Nico is not the only child in the world," he said. "And Leo needed it first."

"Nico can't breathe."

"What he needs," Dante said, "is for you to stop turning everything into a competition."

Then he hung up.

I stood there for one second, then called Vivian.

She did not waste time asking questions. She said she would get another one to me.

That hour felt endless.

I sat on the bed with Nico in my arms while he shook against me, sweating through his shirt, trying not to scare me with how hard it was to breathe. At some point the family channel switched itself on in the other room.

I heard the announcer say Leo DeLuca had completed his private evaluation successfully, and that Dante Moretti had stayed at his side the entire time and secured emergency medication when it mattered.

I shut it off.

Vivian's courier arrived forty minutes later. The injection steadied Nico's breathing within minutes.

He stayed in my arms, pale and quiet, until he finally looked up at me.

"Did Dad say no?"

I did not answer.

He already understood.

"Then let's go," he said. "I don't want to wait anymore."

I held him tighter and said, "All right."

That same night, I called the lawyers.

The papers were brought over within the hour, and I signed every page at the kitchen counter. My name on the engagement termination agreement told me one thing. From now on, I was free.

I took our passports, cash, medicine, and Nico's things, and left everything else where it was.

An hour later, we were on the road out of New York.

Nico sat beside me with the medicine case in his lap. He stayed quiet almost the whole drive.

Near the state line, he turned and asked, "We're not going back, are we?"

I took his hand.

"No," I said. "Never again."

Not long after that, I boarded the plane with my son and left New York behind.