He simply slid a diamond band across the counter, looked me in the eyes, and said, “I’m not letting this world have you without my name standing in front of yours.”
I laughed because I was overwhelmed.
Then I cried because I knew I would say yes.
And I did.
For nine months, I lived inside a fever dream built of love and danger.
Then came the warehouse explosion.
The last text he sent me said: Stay inside tonight. I love you.
Two hours later, his consigliere, Victor Hale, arrived at the penthouse with blood on his cuff and grief arranged too carefully on his face.
“There was an explosion,” he said. “Nick was inside.”
I remember the room tilting.
I remember laughing because the words were too absurd to process.
I remember saying, “No, he isn’t.”
But he was. Or so they said.
The fire had burned too hot. There had been little left to recover. Identification came through fragments. A watch. A ring. DNA from remains the coroner assured me were his.
There was a funeral.
A grave.
A death certificate.
And after that, there was silence.
I moved out of the penthouse and into the brownstone he had bought “for when you finally admit you deserve a neighborhood with trees.” I went back to work because rent and grief both demanded structure. I stopped eating enough. I stopped answering most texts. I stopped recognizing my own face in mirrors.
Every Sunday, I visited his grave.
Every Sunday, I told him I was sorry for surviving.
And on the sixth month, in the rain, I rose from the mud and felt the impossible sensation of being watched.
I turned.
Between two mausoleums stood a man in a black coat.
Tall.
Still.
Shoulders I knew better than my own reflection.
My heart lurched so hard it hurt.
“Nicholas?”
The figure stepped backward into shadow.
I blinked rain from my eyes.
When I looked again, he was gone.
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