He gently tore off the paper, unraveling it until what stared back at him was something, orsomeone,he hadn’t been able to see in a long time.
My hands bundled together, and I waited for him to say something, but it was the silence that told me he was feelingeverything. I crouched beside him, placing a hand on his spine as he stared at every inch of Siena Lucca’s tiny grin and matching Milan dimples.
We’d found his family again, brought them back together, but nobody had included her, and the revelation had haunted me until I’d painted her delicate face from a photograph Fiorella had found in a box of Brenno’s things. She’d sent it over hoping Milan might want it, but it was old and creased, damaged with time, and I hadn’t wanted him to see her as someone fading.
Siena looked happy and adored there, her black hair a little tangled by the wind, her deep honey eyes screaming the happiness that meant I didn’t have to have known her to hear her laughter through the silver frame.
She would’ve been fifteen, only three years older than Ezio, but she was still five.
Still just a baby.
Milan ran his knuckle down her cheek, tilting his head at her like she was really there. “I had started to forget her like this.”
“She looks like you.”
He smiled gently. “She does. She looks like a little of all the boys, though perhaps not Ezio. I do not know who he looks like.” The sound of his chuckle was deep, like it held a million layers. He wrapped me under one arm, pressing a kiss to my head that pried the tears from his eyes as he whispered, “This is more than I deserve.”
“You deserve theworld,Milan Lucca. One with her and all your brothers in.”
He sat back against the floor, pulling me into his lap and the painting closer, tucking his salty, wet face into my neck. “You have brought them all back to me. You brought yourself back to me. Everyone is here and I am complete.”
This was the man withissues. This was the man who was labeled crazy and terrifying.
“Adriano!” Milan suddenly yelled as if my ears were nonexistent, wiping the tears from his eyes. “Come and see what Sicily has done!”
There was a brief moment of pause before Adriano’s gigantic footsteps ran down the stairs, and he appeared in the doorway, panting. “What’s she—” His eyes fell on the painting and one of his palms came over his mouth as his eyes grew glassy.
My lip wobbled watching him find Siena again too. He had lost her just as much as Milan had. He had suffered that day, had held her body in his hands.
“Holy shit,” he whispered, coming to crouch before the painting too. “Look how happy she is. No wonder we called her a little angel, hm?”
Milan grinned. “Indeed.”
Adriano kissed my temple. “Thank you, Sicily.”
“Where shall we put it?” Milan asked.
I hummed. “Hallway?”
“Not next to the portrait of him jerking.” Adriano tutted.
“For the last time”—Milan rolled his eyes—“I amnotjerking.”
Adriano had hung the naked portrait of Milan in the hallway beside the kitchen, and nobody had complained yet, so we’d left it.
“Take it upstairs, Milano.” Adriano chuckled.
A satisfied, calm sigh left me as I stood and began to follow Milan out of the room, but Adriano gripped my wrist to stop me. “I never thanked you for all of this.”
“Me?”
“You.” He smiled softly. “Milan wouldn’t be here, a part of his siblings, a part ofus, without you. I wouldn’t be here with Francesco if it wasn’t for you either. None of us would beuswithout you, Sicily.”
The life of feeling unwanted and inadequate vanished and gave way to something more, something better, and its entire purpose was these people. I didn’t have to fit into my past world because Milan, Adriano, and Francesco were holding it steady so that I could shape it into somewhere that I made fitme.
“Come on.” Adriano chuckled. “Let’s go help before Milan tries to use a nail gun.”
My laughter carried us up the stairs and straight into the arms of my husband. Right there, I was his wife, the wife of the most feeling man in theFamiglia, but I was alsome, and he loved me for simply who I was.
