Silence settles over us. His heartbeat thuds under my ear.
Sixty-one beats per minute. I count them because I can. Because he’s here. Because three weeks ago this heart stopped, and now it’s beating against my cheek, strong and alive and mine.
“Dante?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m glad I married you. Both times.”
His arm tightens around me. He presses a kiss to the top of my head.
“Best decision I ever made,tesoro. Both times.”
The music drifts in through the window. Laughter. Glasses clinking. The world celebrating without us.
We’ll go back. Face the knowing smiles and the teasing comments and the last toasts of the night. But not yet.
Right now, I just want to stay here. In this bed. With this man.
My husband.
37
DANTE
One month married. One month of Amalfi and silence and her body against mine without the shadow of a goddamn conspiracy between us.
We’re back now. And the ordinary part of it is what keeps catching me off guard.
She takes her coffee with oat milk creamer and two sugars. She hums when she’s reading the financial reports. She steals my side of the bed the moment I get up in the morning.
Romano tried to take this from me. He failed.
Sunday dinner. The tradition my mother started when she was twenty-two and married to a man the whole city feared. She set the table herself that first week. Made the food with her own hands. Told my father that if he wanted to build an empire, he had to start with a family that sat down together.
She was right. She was always right.
The dining room looks different today. Not haunted, for once. Nonna Rosa has been in the kitchen since dawn, filling the house with the smell of her red gravy and fresh bread. Maria arranged the flowers. The table is set with the good china, the crystal glasses that come out for occasions worth celebrating.
Cristo.We survived.
They arrive in waves.
Gia first, breezing through the door with a bottle of wine and a smile that reaches her eyes. She’s been different since the crisis. Less wound tight. Still carrying too much, but setting some of it down.
“You look rested,” she says, kissing my cheek. “Marriage agrees with you.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m smug. I called it months ago.”
Nico is next, slipping in with that charm that makes everyone in the room exhale. He’s telling a story before he’s through the door, something about a restaurant owner in the Quarter and a case of mistaken identity that has Maria laughing from the kitchen.
Then Marco. My youngest brother pauses at the threshold, scanning the room the way he always does. Looking for his place. Looking for confirmation he belongs here. I catch his eye. Nod toward the chair beside Renzo.
He sits.
A month ago, the week after the wedding, I found him alone in the garden. He’d been different since that night. Steadier. Less desperate to prove himself through volume.
