Chapter 493: Their Fate
Vito sat beside my bed that first night after the surgery, his voice steady and gentle. "The anesthesia is wearing off. The pain is normal. Just rest , I’m not going anywhere." He meant it as comfort. I received it as a countdown.
Because the moment the idea of leaving took root in me, it never left. It grew quietly, filling every corner of my mind until there was no room for anything else. I thought about it when I woke up. I thought about it when he sat across from me at the table, watching me eat with that look in his eyes , deep and careful, like I was something precious that kept slipping through his hands.
My body wasn’t making things easy. The rejection symptoms came in waves. My chest ached in ways that had nothing to do with healing, and my energy came and went without warning. The doctors Vito brought in , specialists from three different countries , all said variations of the same thing. Rest. Medicate. Wait. The only real solution was another surgery, and even that wasn’t guaranteed. Not every heart was a match. Not every bond could be forced.
Vito threw himself into it. Medical journals covered every surface. He studied, researched, called in favors from people at the top of every field he could reach. He looked at me sometimes with an expression that was almost unbearable , like curing me had become the thing that held him together.
"Anna, I promise I’ll fix this," he said one evening.
I nodded and said nothing. I had learned how to look like I believed him.
All I was doing was waiting. Wisteria would make her move soon. I could feel it the way you feel a change in weather before the sky shifts , something in the air, something restless and wrong. I had maybe run out of time already. Every week Vito kept me locked inside his careful protection was another week the Morrigans spent unaware of what was coming for them.
My eighteenth birthday arrived like a quiet alarm.
Vito went all out, the way he always did for things he cared about. An evening gown hung on the back of my door when I woke up , deep emerald, floor-length, clearly expensive. He wore a tailored suit to a dinner that was just the two of us. The table was set perfectly. Candles, good crystal, food he had arranged to be made by someone who actually knew what they were doing. It would have been beautiful, if I hadn’t already spent the previous three days planning how to destroy it.
I had faked insomnia. It wasn’t hard , I genuinely wasn’t sleeping well, so all I had to do was be honest about it with slightly more drama than usual. The sleeping pills came easily after that. I had crushed them into powder and kept them folded into a small square of paper in my pocket, waiting.
When I poured his wine that night, I emptied the powder into his glass with my back half-turned, my hands completely steady in a way that surprised even me. Then I set it in front of him and lifted my own juice. "Vito. Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I mean that." I looked him directly in the eye. "If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t still be here."
He smiled , warm, unguarded, the way he only ever smiled at me. "Happy birthday, Anna. I hope you feel better soon."
"Me too," I said, and drank.
We talked for a while after dinner. I kept it light, kept it easy, and then said I was tired and went to my room. I sat on the edge of my bed and watched the minutes pass. I had taken those pills before , I knew exactly what they did and how long they took. Thirty minutes. Maybe a little less.
I waited thirty-five, then moved.
His room was dark and quiet. He was deep under, his breathing slow and even, his silk pajamas slightly creased from where he had settled into sleep. I stood in the doorway for just a moment and whispered, "I’m sorry, Vito." Then I went to work.
The cash was in the second drawer. My passport and ID were harder to find, tucked behind a false back in his wardrobe. My hands were shaking badly by the time I got them out. The rain outside had picked up into something serious, and every crack of thunder made me freeze and listen. I had never stolen anything in my life, and my body didn’t know how to be calm about starting now.
But I found everything. I tucked it all close and slipped out.
The airport was nearly empty at that hour, the departure hall dim and echoey and smelling of recycled air. I booked the earliest flight home. It was scheduled for three in the morning, but the storm pushed it back an hour. I sat in the waiting area with my bag on my lap and my eyes on the dark glass of the windows, and I told myself the dose was strong enough. That he wouldn’t surface until sunrise. That I just had to wait for the boarding call.
At three-thirty, I saw him walk through the entrance.
My blood dropped ten degrees. Vito , rumpled pajamas, hair slightly loose, eyes completely awake and locked directly onto me from across the hall.
I ran.
I was already calculating. If I could reach security, if I could say the right thing, cause enough of a scene, buy myself enough time for the gate to open,
"Anna." His voice cut straight through the noise between us. Quiet. Certain. "Take one more step, and your brother won’t survive the morning."
I stopped.
He had never spoken to me in that voice before. Not once in my entire life. But I knew , the way you know things that bypass logic entirely, the way the instinct that lives in your chest simply recognizes truth , that he meant every word.
I turned around slowly.
He crossed the distance between us without hurrying. He was twenty-one now, and nothing about him resembled the boy who had first brought me in from the cold. He was all edges and stillness, unreadable in a way that should have frightened me more than it did. His pajamas were wrinkled. His hair was slightly messy. He had woken up, understood what I had done, and come straight here , and he still looked like the most composed person in the room.
When he reached me, he took my hand. Gently, like we were just two people standing in an airport at an odd hour.
"Your hands are freezing," he said. "You should have grabbed a coat."
He was dressed lighter than I was.
I got into the car with him without a word. After a moment, I asked, "How did you know where I’d be?"
"You took your passport." He glanced at me sideways. "I just checked the first flight to Snowville."
The tears came before I could stop them. "Vito, please. I just want to go home. Please just let me go."
He pulled me into his arms, and I didn’t have the strength left to pull away. His hold was firm and quiet and final. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
"I’m sorry, Anna. The Morrigans’ fate is already written."
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