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“I can’t wait one more second to ask you this, Ev,” I say, grabbing both her hands with my free hand. “Marry me.”
“Was that a question?”
“Nah,” I say, shaking my head as I chuckle. “Guess not.”
She pulls me up without even looking at the ring and kisses me as I pick her up in my arms, where she’s meant to fucking be, and put my all into the kiss. This woman is fucking everything. And I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life trying to be good enough for her.
When we finally break away from each other, I’m already needing another hit, but I have shit I need to say. Things I don’t want to wait any longer to tell her.
I run my fingertips over the small black and red tattoo that’s now fully healed and fucking perfect for her. “I’m unworthy of you. Of your love. Of your presence. But I’ve never wanted anything more than I want you.” I take the ring out of the box and slide it onto her finger, and her eyes widen as her other hand goes to her mouth. “Our story is far from finished, Evelina,” I say. “There’s so much up in the air. So much to figure out. Loose ends that need to be tied up…” I trail off thinking about everything we don’t have answers to. “But I want and need you by my side to do it.”
“Nicco, this is too much.”
She surveys the diamond while more tears fall, and I do my best to keep up with wiping them away.
“You’re stuck with us now,” Evelina says, motioning to her baby bump.
We have so much to figure out.Ihave so many things I need to get together, clean up, and start over. I’m not naive to any of that. Still, I know I don’t want to do this with anyone but her.
I pull her into my arms as she looks up at me. “Wouldn’t want it any other fucking way, viper.”
EPILOGUE
ONE MONTH LATER…
Evelina
“Sofia is finally in an inpatient program,” Giana says as she, Dante, Dom, Nicco, and I eat dinner at the home Nicco bought for us to bring our baby home to.
Boxes are all over the place because we’ve been moving everything all day, and this baby is pissed at me for doing more than I should have despite Nicco and everyone else yelling at me all day about it.
“That’s incredible,” I say after finishing my bite of pizza. “How did you guys get her to go?”
I think back on what Giana has been saying, about how she’s been adamant she doesn’t need to go to any kind of program and accusing everyone of holding her against her will.
Which, technically, she’s an adult, so Vittoria and Romeowereholding her against her will.
But better that than have her running back into Gabriel Amato’s arms.
Although now that wouldn’t be possible anyways since I killed the piece of shit that’s ruined so many lives sitting at this table. My thoughts go to Jeffrey. To the man inside that compound who posed as a guard and helped save all of our lives. I haven’t seen him since the day we all got out, and part of me doesn’t even believe he was real.
But that’s insane, isn’t it?
What, was he a ghost or an angel who came to help me in my most desperate time?
I shake my head as I think about how there has to be an explanation for Jeffrey and his uncanny appearance in my life. I need to find him. I need to find him and thank him because it wasn’t just me who got us all out of there, it was him, too.
Dante cuts into my thoughts, talking about how great Giana has been at helping Sofia and that a lot of the success of getting her into an inpatient program should be attributed to her.
I have a lot of feelings about another man’s blood being on my hands.
He’s the second person I’ve killed.
When I first found out I’d been brought into this life, I couldn’t imagine killing another person. Not after killing the pastor who ruined my childhood and took my sister from me. I had no guilt about that, never wished or wanted to take it back, but I couldn’t imagine ever doing something like that again—especially not after seeing what the people in this life do day in and day out.
But after learning who Gabriel was, after witnessing what he did to so many innocent people, innocentbabies. To his own children.
To Niccolò. To that little girl he chose to play with because he was merely a child.
