It was an unknown number.
Something in my chest tightened.
I didn’t think.I just turned and walked toward the back terrace.
He was outside, leaning against the railing that overlooked the rolling hills, his shoulders loose, posture easy in a way it hadn’t been for weeks.The Tuscan countryside stretched out in front of him—endless green, dotted with cypress trees and sun-warmed stone—and for a moment, he looked like he was finally at peace.
“Archie,” I called softly.
He turned at the sound of my voice, eyes finding mine instantly.
I held up the phone.
His expression shifted the second he saw it.But I caught it.
He pushed off the railing and crossed the distance between us, taking the phone from my hand without a word.His fingers brushed mine briefly—warm, grounding—and then he stepped past me, already answering.
I didn’t follow.
I stayed where I was, watching him from a distance as he moved further down the terrace, his voice low, measured.Serious.
Whatever this was—it wasn’t nothing.
My arms folded loosely across my chest as I leaned back against the doorway, letting the moment stretch while my gaze drifted over him.
Two months.
It had been two months since the airstrip.Since blood and fire and the kind of fear that carved itself into your bones and stayed there.
Archie’s recovery had been slow.It had been brutal in its own quiet way.
There were nights he hadn’t slept.Days his body had fought him with every step, every movement.Weeks where I’d watched him relearn things he used to do without thinking—strength coming back in increments that felt too small to matter, until one day they did.
Now he stood tall again.The hand of death had touched him, but he’d managed to find his way home.
My chest tightened.Because I knew.I remembered just as much as he did.
Every time my mind slipped back there—every time I saw him lying still—something dark twisted through me.A shadow that hadn’t quite left.
My hand moved without thinking, settling against my stomach.
The curve was slight.Easy to miss.But I felt it.Constantly.
A quiet, steady reminder that something had shifted.That the future I’d almost lost had rewritten itself into something else entirely.Something fragile yet extraordinary.
I exhaled slowly, my thumb brushing lightly over the fabric of my dress.
We were okay now.More than okay.Better than I ever thought we’d be.
Things with Raze had… settled.They were not perfect, but we were making our way back to the place we’d once been.
Time didn’t erase what had happened between Archie and Raze.But they were better.Now, somehow, they got along.Not just tolerated each other—actuallygot along.In their own way.Which mostly involved dry insults, veiled threats, and the occasional shared drink that neither of them would admit they enjoyed.
Progress.
We’d moved here to Tuscany not long after Archie was discharged.
It was a place that felt like it existed outside of everything we’d come from.Far removed from the chaos and destruction we were both born into.
