Chapter 15 - THE WEDDING ZACH FINALLY GOT
We did not get married Saturday.
This deeply offended Zach.
Michael and I dated for eighteen months first.
Real dates.
Awkward dates.
Quiet dinners.
Arguments.
Long conversations after Zach slept.
I learned that Michael hated olives, secretly watched terrible cooking competitions, and checked Zach's bedroom door twice every night before going to bed.
He learned that I needed doors unlocked when possible because Regina had used locked rooms as punishment when I was young.
He never mocked it.
Never “fixed” it without asking.
He simply remembered.
That mattered.
Dad recovered slowly.
Years of improper medication and confinement had damaged his health, but not his spirit.
He started volunteering with the restitution foundation, helping former workers trace claims from Carlo's stolen funds.
Sometimes he and Lorenzo worked at the same table.
The first few months were painfully awkward.
Then they discovered a shared obsession with baseball.
Apparently history could contain both betrayal and box scores.
Zach's heart remained stable.
He still hated doctors.
But he stopped running away.
Mostly.
At seven, he informed me that he had “retired from romance” because first grade was too demanding.
At eight, he became obsessed with astronomy.
At nine, he asked Michael whether I was ever going to officially become family.
Michael answered, “She already is.”
I cried privately after hearing that.
The proposal happened three years after the storage room.
No restaurant.
No expensive ballroom.
No audience.
Michael took me to the Brooklyn waterfront after sunset.
Zach came too.
Of course.
Dad waited farther down the path pretending not to watch.
Michael stopped beneath a row of lights.
“I spent most of my life believing protection meant controlling every danger before it could reach the people I loved.”
I smiled.
“You were exhausting.”
“Still am.”
“True.”
He took my hands.
“You taught me something different.”
“What?”
“That loving someone means protecting their right to choose, even when their choice terrifies you.”
My eyes burned.
He knelt.
Then Zach shouted from ten feet away:
“FINALLY!”
Michael looked over his shoulder.
“You promised silence.”
“I was silent for, like, forever.”
I laughed through tears.
Michael turned back.
“Aurora Bell, would you—”
“Yes.”
He blinked.
“I had more.”
“I've already accepted one Moretti proposal. You people take too long.”
Zach sprinted toward us.
“Pinky promise first!”
So that's how Michael Moretti, the man half the city supposedly feared, proposed marriage.
On one knee.
Holding a diamond ring.
While his nine-year-old son insisted the engagement wasn't legally valid until our pinkies were linked.
We married six months later.
Small ceremony.
Family.
Friends.
No criminal associates.
Zach served as best man and took the position far too seriously.
Dad walked me down the aisle.
Halfway there, he whispered, “Your mother would have loved this.”
I nearly lost my composure.
At the altar, Michael didn't promise to protect me from everything.
I wouldn't have wanted that.
He promised never to make decisions about my life without me.
I promised the same.
After the ceremony, Zach pulled me aside.
“Remember Bellarosa?”
“How could I forget?”
“You said yes to me first.”
“I did.”
“So technically Dad stole my fiancée.”
“Technically.”
He thought about it.
“I'm okay with it.”
“Very mature.”
“But I get extra cake.”
“Obviously.”
That evening, I stood on the terrace watching Michael dance badly with Zach.
Dad laughed nearby.
Lorenzo argued with the caterer about espresso.
It wasn't the family I'd expected.
It wasn't normal.
Thank God.
For years, Regina had taught me that family meant obligation.
Debt.
Control.
Being told what you owed because someone had fed you, housed you, or married your father.
Michael taught me something else.
So did Zach.
Family could begin in the most ridiculous place imaginable.
A freezing restaurant storage room.
A dented frying pan in my hand.
A terrified six-year-old hiding behind flour sacks.
One pinky promise.
One impossible proposal.
I had been running that night because somebody had decided I was property worth fifty thousand dollars.
I spent years afterward learning the truth.
My value had never belonged to Regina.
Or Carlo.
Or Tony.
Or even the Morettis.
It belonged to me.
Michael walked over and wrapped an arm gently around my waist.
Zach squeezed between us.
“Family picture!”
The photographer lifted his camera.
I looked at the boy who had once promised to rescue me from a witch.
Then at the man who had never asked me to belong to him—only whether I wanted to stand beside him.
The camera flashed.
And for the first time in my life, nobody was chasing me.
I wasn't hiding.
I wasn't being traded.
I wasn't someone's debt.
I was Aurora Bell Moretti.
Daughter.
Wife.
Forensic investigator.
May you like
And very unwilling former fiancée of a nine-year-old boy who still claimed he deserved credit for introducing us.
For once, I was exactly where I had chosen to be.
