The moment he asks it, everything in me stills.
‘Do you want to run?’
His voice is quiet, hardly above a whisper, but it lands like a wave crashing over years of resistance.
We’re still tangled in the half-light of the living room, the warmth of his body surrounding me, grounding me, but it’s that question that undoes everything.
I don’t answer right away, because I don’t know how. Because I’ve spent so long surviving that I don’t know what it means to stop.
‘I did,’ I say finally, my voice fragile, like old silk stretched too thin. ‘Every single day. Every time Gabriel asked me a question I didn’t have the strength to answer. Every time I looked over my shoulder. Every time I closed my eyes and saw blood, or silence, or your face.’
He doesn’t flinch. His arm is still around me, but looser now, like he’s giving me space to speak, or to run if I choose to.
‘But I’m tired, Enzo.’ I reach for the truth the way dancers reach for a final pirouette, controlled but trembling. ‘I can’t keep holding my breath like this. I can’t raise my son in the dark while pretending the sun never existed.’
Enzo’s hand finds mine. He doesn’t squeeze it, just covers it, like an oath without words. ‘Then let’s stop,’ he murmurs. ‘Let’s stop running.’
I know what that means.
He cannot leave the family.
He would never ask it of me, and I would never ask it of him.
This is the man who killed for them, bled for them, stood beside Luca Salvatore when half the underworld flinched.
Asking him to walk away would be like asking him to rip out part of his soul.
So, I do the only thing I can. I nod.
‘I’ll go back,’ I whisper, and the moment I say it, something heavy lifts from my chest. ‘But if we do this, it has to be on our terms. No hiding. No half-truths. No shadows.’
He looks at me then, really looks at me, and I feel the pieces of us start to reassemble—clumsily, imperfectly, beautifully.
He brings my knuckles to his lips.
There is nothing seductive about it. Just reverence. And in that gesture, I feel the past and the present collapse into something new.
We don’t sleep. We just lie in silence with our thoughts curling around us like smoke.
When dawn creeps in, pale and golden through the curtains, I hear the soft shuffle of Gabriel’s steps down the hall. He’s blinking, still half-asleep, clutching the little stuffed lion I stitched for him last winter.
Then his eyes land on Enzo.
For a second, there’s confusion, then the slow dawning of something as he realizes the similarities in bone structure, the shape of Enzo’s eyes, the half-light within them, perhaps.
Everything in me tightens.
Gabriel stares.
Enzo stands slowly, uncertain.
This man who has carved fear into the spines of the worst criminals in Valleria suddenly looks like he’s standing at the edge of something infinitely more dangerous.
‘Mom?’ Gabriel’s voice is small. ‘Is he…is he my dad?’
The world halts. My heart lurches. I open my mouth to answer, but Enzo is already kneeling before him, eyes soft but steady.
‘I’m Enzo,’ he says. ‘And I’m here because I should never have left. Because I should’ve found a way sooner. Because I want to know you, if you’ll let me.’
Gabriel doesn’t move at first.
Then, to my astonishment, he walks forward and wraps his arms around Enzo’s neck.
‘You’re really tall,’ he mumbles.
Enzo lets out something between a breath and a laugh, his arms closing gently around our son. ‘And you’re braver than I’ll ever be.’
I turn away for a second, pretending to fix a mug on the kitchen counter, but what I’m really doing is hiding the way my throat burns and my hands shake.
I never imagined this moment.
Not like this.
We have breakfast. Or rather, Gabriel and I do.
Enzo manages a few bites of the eggs I make, the ones Gabriel likes with cheese and herbs, but mostly he watches.
Watches Gabriel talk about his favorite books.
Watches the way I refill his milk glass and ruffle his hair.
When the plates are cleared and the quiet stretches a little longer than it should, Enzo turns to Gabriel.
‘Would you like to come with me? There’s a plane. It’s safe. But only if your mom comes too.’
Gabriel blinks. Looks at me. Then back at Enzo.
‘Only if she comes,’ he says firmly.
Enzo looks at me. And this time, there’s no fear, no hunger, no hardness in his eyes. Just love. Just hope.
I nod once, and the boy beside me beams.
We pack lightly. I don’t need reminders of this place.
I already carry too many. Enzo books the flight on a secure line.
The car comes just as the sun climbs higher.
I hold Gabriel’s hand as we walk onto the plane, and Enzo sits opposite us, never looking away.
The estate looms as we arrive in Nuova Speranza.
Even now, it looks eternal, like it has been carved into the earth to outlast empires.
The dark stone façade catches the last light of morning, and I feel something cold ripple through me as we drive through the gates. It is the kind of place that remembers everything.
I do not need to see the walls to know they are thick with the voices of the dead, the decisions of men who never had to kneel, and the weight of loyalty that doesn’t waver, even when it wounds.
The gates creak open without hesitation, a signal that we were expected.
I feel Gabriel tense beside me, his small body curled slightly inward as he clutches the straps of his backpack.
He does not know where we are, but his instincts are good, and this place does not feel safe to him.
Enzo notices. His hand slides to Gabriel’s shoulder and gives it a firm, silent squeeze.
I watch my son respond to it, not with words, but with a steadiness that stuns me.
His body softens, his breathing evens out. He doesn’t speak, but he holds Enzo’s gaze a moment longer than he needs to, and something unspoken passes between them. A thread forming. One I never thought would be allowed to exist.
The car halts at the front entrance. A butler I don’t recognize opens the door and nods his head low.
We are ushered in without ceremony, and still, every footstep feels like it echoes across years I’ve tried to outrun.
The corridors are unchanged. Same arched ceilings, same polished floors, same dark wood panels that hide secrets as easily as they reflect the light.
I try not to look too long at the carved moldings or the paintings I once passed as a girl.
They haven’t forgotten me.
And I don’t trust myself not to remember everything if I stare too long.
‘Aria?’
I stop mid-step. The voice is low, warm, and unsurprised. I turn to see Giovanni stepping out of a side hallway, his suit crisp, his mouth already tilting into the kind of smile that makes most men trust him and most women resent him for how easily he can disarm.
‘You’re not a ghost, after all,’ he says, and for a moment, it feels like he might hug me.
He doesn’t.
He only surveys me, his gaze dropping to Gabriel, then flicking back to Enzo.
‘I didn’t think you’d bring her here,’ he says to Enzo. I’m almost sure he’s lying.
‘I couldn’t do what Luca asked,’ Enzo replies, and his voice carries the same steel that once made me shiver in bed.
I glance toward Giovanni, waiting for him to argue or nod or scoff, but he does none of those things. He only gestures toward the eastern wing.
‘Luca is waiting. He wanted her brought in quietly. Guess that part’s out the window.’
We follow him without a word. The walk is longer than I remember, or maybe time plays tricks when every step feels like the beginning of a reckoning.
I wonder if they will offer me coffee or cold glances. Whether I’ll be given a seat or a verdict.
Gabriel holds my hand. His grip is firm, tighter than usual. He senses more than he understands, and I hate that I’ve made him a part of this world.
Even now, I want to turn around, take him somewhere quiet, bake him brownies, and pretend none of this exists.
But I’ve run long enough.
The door to the great room opens, and all warmth drains from the air. The room is cavernous, with high ceilings and marble floors that reflect the light like mirrors.
Luca sits at the far end, beneath a massive oil painting of his father. His expression is unreadable.
His hands rest lightly on the arms of his chair, but no one who knows him is fooled by that pose.
Marco leans against the far wall, his arms folded across his chest, a storm barely contained. Sofia sits beside him, all grace and glass, her wine untouched. She nods at me faintly but says nothing. I feel the judgment in her silence.
Enzo steps forward. He does not flinch. He does not glance back at me. He only says the words as if he has already bled them.
‘I will not kill her.’
Luca lifts one brow. Just one. The silence that follows is thick, long, the kind that coils around the throat and waits to see who breathes first.
‘I did not ask whether you would,’ Luca replies. ‘I asked whether you could.’
Enzo’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t blink. ‘I cannot.’
The air hums. Marco’s mouth moves into something that might be a sneer. Sofia closes her eyes, barely.
‘She is guilty,’ Marco says quietly. ‘She helped Valentina escape.’
‘I know what she did,’ Enzo says, and his voice is colder now, carved from something more dangerous than rage. ‘And I also know what she risked by coming back.’
Gabriel steps slightly in front of me. He does not speak, but Luca’s eyes land on him now. And stay.
‘Yours?’ Luca asks.
Enzo doesn’t look away. ‘Yes.’
There is a moment—just one—where Luca’s gaze narrows.
He shifts back slightly in his chair, like the weight of the truth has just pressed deeper into his chest.
He is calculating. Always calculating.
‘I see,’ Luca murmurs.
‘You want to punish someone?’ Enzo says. ‘Punish me.’
‘And if I had asked you to prove your loyalty?’ Luca asks, his voice deceptively soft. ‘If I had put a gun in your hand and told you to finish what was started?’
‘I would have put it to my own head before I touched her.’
The words are not loud.
They don’t need to be.
Everyone in the room hears them.
Gabriel hears them too. I feel him look up at me, his hand still clutching mine.
‘That won’t be necessary.’
Every head turns.
The doors swing open, and Valentina steps inside.
