Six Times A Fool, This Time, I’m Gone Chapter 08

Six Times A Fool, This Time, I’m Gone Chapter 08

Three months later, I returned home.

After the project officially concluded, I flew back to the city I’d left behind three years earlier.

Nothing had changed.

The same buildings.

The same streets.

But I wasn’t the same woman who’d dragged a suitcase through those streets three years ago after being cornered by Celeste in the middle of the night, too exhausted to even fight back.

I spotted him immediately at arrivals.

Kael Moretti stood under the airport lights in a long black coat, two men in dark suits positioned behind him.

I wheeled my suitcase toward him.

“Welcome back,” he said softly, low enough that only I could hear.

I looked at him and remembered that endless Icelandic night three months ago.

Back then, I’d been certain I would regret it.

Certain this forced marriage would become the heaviest chain of my life.

But over those three months, things had quietly changed.

Kael had replaced the entire heating system in my parents’ old apartment just because my mother casually complained once during a video call about noisy pipes in winter.

He’d collected every paper I published during grad school, bound them neatly together, and left them on my desk. On the first page, in his sharp elegant handwriting, he’d written:

You’ve already come farther than most people ever will.

Without telling me, he’d even worked through Professor Sterling’s connections to secure me first-author credit on the project’s core findings in one of the top scientific journals in the world.

Our wedding was scheduled for next month.

I didn’t know if it was love.

But I did know this—

In the three months I’d spent beside Kael, I’d never once lost sleep.

The second I reached my apartment building, a figure suddenly rushed out from the shadows near the entrance.

“Seraphina!”

I would recognize that voice for the rest of my life.

Luca Marino stood beneath the streetlight.

His hair had grown long and messy over his forehead. Dark stubble covered his jaw. He wore a wrinkled navy jacket half-zipped over a faded T-shirt.

The moment he saw me, his eyes turned red.

“Seraphina… you finally came back…”

His voice was so hoarse it barely sounded human.

“I waited for you for three months. Every day after work, I came here. I knew you’d come home eventually.”

He stepped closer and held out a wilted bouquet of baby’s breath.

“I changed. I really changed. I blocked Celeste completely. She came looking for me three times, and I never saw her once. I quit fighting too. I don’t owe Bellandi anything anymore.” He laughed weakly through tears. “Oh—and that new guy, Kael Moretti? He said my debt was cleared. I still don’t know why, but I don’t care. Seraphina, I don’t care about anything anymore except you.”

Tears slid down his face.

“Please… just give me one more chance. We can start over. I’ll never make you cry again—”

“Luca.”

“We’re over,” I said calmly. “We’ve been over for three years. You need to accept that.”

His shoulders shook violently.

“No… no, you can’t do this to me, Seraphina, you can’t—”

He reached toward me again.

But before his fingers could touch my wrist, another hand appeared from the side and caught his wrist effortlessly.

Kael Moretti had already stepped out of the car.

He stood between Luca and me.

Under the streetlights, those gray-green eyes looked terrifyingly cold.

Absolute control.

Absolute authority.

“Luca Marino,” Kael said evenly. “You should stay away from her.”

Luca jerked his head up.

The second he recognized Kael’s face, his entire body went rigid like he’d been electrocuted.

“Kael… Kael Moretti…” he whispered.

Everyone in the underground world knew that face.

“Your debt is gone,” Kael said. “That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to touch what belongs to me.”

My heart slammed hard against my chest.

Luca’s eyes shook violently as he tried to process the meaning behind those words.

Mine.

Why was Kael standing here?

Why was he protecting Seraphina outside her apartment in the middle of the night?

Then Luca’s gaze finally dropped to my left hand.

The diamond ring caught the streetlight and scattered tiny flashes of light.

Kael had placed it on my finger himself last month.

Luca completely fell apart.

“You… you and him…” His voice shattered. “You married him?”

I looked into his eyes and nodded calmly.

“The wedding’s next month.”

Kael released Luca’s wrist.

Then he pulled a dark handkerchief from his coat pocket and slowly wiped his fingers clean.

“Come on,” he murmured quietly to me. “It’s cold out here.”

He held out his hand.

I placed mine in his.

Behind me, Luca’s raw, broken voice echoed through the night.

“Seraphina—please—just look back at me one time—just once—”

I never turned around.

…

A month later, Kael Moretti and I got married at a private estate downtown surrounded by rows of sycamore trees.

I looked into Kael’s eyes and said the words I’d spent an entire week preparing.

“Kael Moretti, I used to think marriage was a cage. You taught me it could also be a lighthouse.”

My voice trembled slightly.

“I don’t know whether this is love. But I do know that every day I spend with you, I stop being afraid of tomorrow.”

“So yes. I’m willing.”

Kael stared at me silently for a long moment.

Then he finally spoke.

“Seraphina… I’m not good with words like this. But there’s something you should know.”

His eyes softened.

“Men in the Moretti family only choose one person in their lifetime.”

“And you are mine.”

He lowered his head and slid the ring onto my finger.

Then he pressed a kiss against my forehead.

Applause erupted from the guests.

I heard my mother crying somewhere in the crowd. Anna had apparently appeared out of nowhere and let out an obnoxiously loud whistle.

Some marriages begin with contracts.

But who says contracts can’t become home?

Kael Moretti once promised I’d never regret choosing him.

And now…

I was finally starting to believe every word he said was true.

Together, we turned and walked toward the other end of the red carpet.

Life was long.

But this time, I wasn’t walking alone.