His Green Eyes

AIDEN's POV I closed my eyes for just a second as the salty ocean breeze brushed against my skin. Watching this joyous scene was harder than I had imagined. My first love was getting married—again. On the very beach where my father once gifted a house to his grandchild, in the quiet intimacy of a seaside wedding. Years ago, I thought Adeline would become a Wilson. Even though I was illegitimate, I was still a Wilson, in a way. I believed she would marry me. Yet, here she was, marrying Lucian Wilson for the second time. And I couldn't even be angry because deep down, I knew—I wasn’t a real Wilson. I had never been. Which is why I didn’t belong here, not even as a guest at this wedding. I didn’t know what role I would play if I were here. I had become no one. I couldn’t be Aiden, and I couldn’t long for a life that was never mine. Aiden had died the day he was betrayed, trapped by an ambush before he could ever claim the Wilson name. Now, after being tangled in so much darkness, the only identity left for me was Marco. A mafia boss had given me that name. At first, I hated being Marco, but over time, I suppose I got used to it. The more I embraced Marco, the colder my heart became with each passing day. In the beginning, I had wanted revenge—on my brother and my uncle. They had tried to erase me for the sake of an inheritance, and I wanted to make them pay. For a while, I even wanted to protect Lucian and Adeline. I guess, back then, I had a purpose. Something that kept me alive. But now? Now, I didn’t feel alive at all. I didn’t crave revenge anymore. I didn’t want love. I didn’t want to be loved. None of it seemed to matter. I leaned against my car, pulling out another cigarette from the pack and lighting it between my lips. We had parked behind thick beach bushes, far enough from the shore so that no one would see me. I didn’t know why I had come here to witness this. I wanted Lucian and Adeline to be happy, truly. A heart that no longer beats has no right to feel broken. Maybe that’s why I didn’t know what I felt anymore. Slowly, I exhaled the smoke into the air. No matter the situation, it seemed there was no place for me anywhere. Chloe—pregnant now—was laughing with someone else. Not long ago, she had sworn she loved me. But watching her now, it was clear how quickly I had been erased from her life. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t care that she was with someone else. These were just facts. I was the one who told her I didn’t want her, but even when I said it, I had never truly believed there could be anything between us. Not anymore. I wasn’t a man who could love anymore. From afar, I looked at my father’s house, feeling like a stranger. My own father’s home. I suppose he had left me with nothing in the end. He had wanted to leave me his name, his legacy, but they hadn’t let him. My eyes drifted to the woman in the white wedding dress, the one who once claimed she wrote songs for me, now dancing with another man. A bittersweet smile tugged at my lips. If that were true, then why did I disappear as if I had never existed at all? Of course, they blamed me for not showing up, for not being there. They had no idea how dangerous it would’ve been for me to stay. I was like a walking minefield. I never knew which step would set off the explosion or who would get hurt because of it. Blaming me was easier than accepting the truth, and I didn’t argue with them. I didn’t want their forgiveness, nor did I want to be let back into their lives. That would only bring danger... I knew they would expect me to be the same as I once was, but they could only understand if they had lived through what I had. Aiden was truly dead, buried beneath the black, filthy swamp of everything I had gone through. His innocent life, everything about him, suffocated and lost in the dark. No one could understand me now. No one but myself. David, standing a few steps behind me, was trying to make sense of why we were here, watching this wedding from afar, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. “Go on. Ask,” I muttered, my hands shoved deep into my pockets as I leaned against the hood of the car, watching a life I no longer belonged to flow on without me. “It’s not my place, Marco…” he mumbled under his breath, unsure of what to say. I motioned for him to come closer with a wave of my hand. He hesitated but took a few steps toward me, still keeping his distance. I pointed to the stone house behind us. “That house used to belong to my father. Arthur Wilson was both my father and Charles Wilson’s. But there’s a big difference between Charles and me. He’s a true Wilson, and I’m the illegitimate one. I’m also an orphan.” David listened with a palpable sense of unease, as though I were revealing something too dangerous to know. No one really knew anything about me, not even my right-hand man. No one had dared to ask who I was before Marco, or where I came from. But today, for some reason, I felt like talking. Maybe a person can even grow tired of their own silence. Not just silence—sometimes, a person can even tire of their own loneliness. “Do you know what today’s lesson is, David?” I asked, my eyes fixed on the sea. I could still see the anxious look on his face as he tried to guess the right answer, fearful of saying the wrong thing. There was a long pause. I hadn’t realized I wasn’t really talking to him but to myself, lost in the conversation happening in my own mind. “What is it, Marco?” he finally asked, his voice cautious. “When you make a wish, you should really be specific. I wished for Adeline to become a Wilson, but because I didn’t give enough details, she married the wrong Wilson. Twice, in fact,” I said, laughing as I slid into the car. I could see the look on David’s face—he probably thought I’d finally lost my mind. Maybe he was right. Maybe I had lost it a long time ago. The thing is, when your mind is gone, you don’t really notice. And there wasn’t a single person left around me who’d dare to tell me I’d lost it. As soon as I got in the car, David rushed to the driver’s seat. “Where to, Marco? Want me to take you home? You seem tired.” “We haven’t worked enough today,” I said, leaning my head back against the seat. “Drive us to wherever we need to go to rough someone up and collect what they owe.” I tried to focus on the passing scenes outside the window—the ocean, the trees, the road. It all blurred together like frame after frame of an endless movie. But to me, time had felt like it had stopped a long time ago. Every day was the same. Every morning felt like the one before. Even on warm summer nights, there was always a biting chill in the air. Every night, when I closed my eyes, the same scenes played on repeat. If there was any darkness in my life, it had to be the deepest shade of black.