Chapter 40 #2
“Since I fell in love with someone who taught me what actually matters.” I raise my glass slightly in Liam’s direction. “Everything else is just noise.”
We stand there in companionable silence, watching our respective partners plan what is apparently going to be the wedding event of the century if Molly has anything to say about it.
Carlo has joined them now, offering his own opinions on various design choices, while Dante watches with amused detachment from his new position by the window.
Ginni is still engaged in the conversation, his earlier intensity softened into something almost... normal. Almost like a regular twenty-one-year-old getting excited about pretty dresses and flower arrangements rather than whatever darkness he usually carries.
“Nicky!” Liam calls out, waving a magazine at me. “Come look at this. What do you think of this theme?”
I cross over to him, looking down at the spread he’s indicating. It’s elegant, understated. All deep blues and silvers, winter-themed but not overwhelming. Very Liam.
“Anything you want,” I tell him honestly.
He looks up at me, and there’s something searching in his expression. “Are you sure? This is your wedding too.”
We stare at each other, and I see the question underneath the question. Is this real? Am I sure about this? Am I going to change my mind or regret choosing him?
“Yeah, I’m sure.” I reach down and ruffle his hair affectionately, the way I used to do when we were teenagers and I was trying to annoy him. “Always.”
His face breaks into that brilliant smile that still has the power to make my heart skip.
Molly makes a sound that’s somewhere between a squeal and a sigh. “You two are disgustingly cute. I love it. Ginni, did you see how cute they are?”
Ginni makes a noncommittal sound, already flipping to another page.
The afternoon drifts on in a warm haze of good company and Christmas cheer. We eat too much, because Dario’s cheese selection is indeed excessive, but also delicious, and drink just enough to make everything feel soft around the edges without anyone getting properly drunk.
Molly continues his wedding planning with the dedication of a military general planning a campaign, with Liam as his willing co-conspirator and Ginni as a surprisingly invested consultant.
Carlo offers periodic reality checks about budget and logistics, which Molly dismisses with airy waves of his hand.
“Money is no object when it comes to love,” he declares dramatically.
“Money is always an object,” Dante counters. “That’s why it’s called money.”
“You have no romance in your soul.”
“I have plenty of romance. I just also have financial sense.”
Dario catches my eye across the room and gives me a small nod, a silent acknowledgment that we’re both in the same boat, watching the people we love be happy, knowing we’d give them anything to keep that happiness going.
As the winter sun starts to set, painting the room in shades of gold and orange, I look around at this collection of people who’ve somehow become family. Not the family I was born into, but a family I chose. One that chose me back.
Carlo, who’s been my friend since I was barely old enough to understand what loyalty meant.
Dante, whose dry wit and ominous presence hides a fierce protective streak.
Dario, who trusted me with the most important person in his world and then promoted me for helping to keep him safe.
Molly, who welcomed Liam with open arms and made him feel like he belonged.
And even Ginni, this strange, intense young man who’s probably going to cause Carlo all sorts of trouble, feels like he fits here.
But most of all, I look at Liam. My fiancé, soon to be my husband, the person who survived hell and came out the other side still capable of love and laughter and hope.
He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, debating flower arrangements with the kind of serious intensity usually reserved for matters of life and death, and he’s never looked more beautiful.
This is it. This is what I’ve been fighting for, what every difficult choice and moral compromise has been in service of. Not power or money or respect, but this. A warm room full of people who care about each other, planning futures that include joy instead of just survival.
“Nicky,” Liam says, looking up at me with those impossibly blue eyes. “Come sit with us. Molly wants your opinion on whether we should have a string quartet or a DJ.”
“String quartet,” I say immediately, settling down beside him. “More elegant.”
“That’s what I said!” Molly exclaims triumphantly. “See, Liam? Nicolo has taste.”
“I never said he didn’t have taste,” Liam protests. “I just think a DJ would be more fun.”
“We can have both,” I suggest. “String quartet for the ceremony and dinner, DJ for dancing later.”
Molly gasps like I’ve just revealed the secrets of the universe. “Brilliant! Perfect! This is why you’re capo material, Nicolo. You think strategically.”
The conversation dissolves into the logistics of dual musical entertainment, and I let myself sink into it, into the mundane joy of planning something as normal as a wedding. No violence, no danger, just friends gathered around a fire on Christmas day, helping us plan the happiest day of our lives.
Later, as we’re leaving, laden with leftover food that Molly insisted we take and a folder full of magazine clippings that he’s marked as ‘essential reference material’, Liam slips his free hand into mine.
“Thank you,” he says quietly as we walk to the car through the cold December night.
“You don’t have to thank me for anything.”
“I want to. I want to thank you. For this. For giving me a life where I get to plan weddings with friends instead of just trying to survive each day. For loving me enough to make me believe I deserve happiness.”
I stop walking, turn to face him properly. The streetlights cast shadows across his face, but I can still see the emotion there, gratitude and love and something that looks like wonder.
“You’ve always deserved happiness,” I tell him. “I’m just glad I get to be part of it.”
He kisses me there on the street, cold and quick but full of promise. “Come on,” he says when we break apart. “Let’s go home.”
Home. Our apartment for now, but soon the house in Hampstead with its four bedrooms and garden and the room that will be his medical practice. The place where we’ll build our life together, where we’ll wake up every morning as husbands instead of just boyfriends.
As we drive through London, Christmas lights twinkling in windows and the city settling into its holiday quiet, I think about how far we’ve come. Engaged, established, surrounded by people who love us and support us.
It wasn’t an easy journey. Trauma and violence shaped both of us in ways we’re still learning to navigate. But we made it. Together, we made it to the other side.
Liam is scrolling through his phone, smiling at what’s probably a text from Molly about some wedding planning emergency. He looks happy. Actually, genuinely happy in a way I once thought might be impossible after everything he’d been through.
“Molly again?” I ask.
“He’s already found three potential venues and wants to schedule viewings for next week.” Liam laughs, shaking his head. “He’s relentless.”
“You love it.”
“I do,” he admits, still smiling at his phone.
I reach over and take his hand, bringing it to my lips to press a kiss against his knuckles, feeling the ring, my nonna’s ring, solid and real against his finger. A promise kept, a future claimed.
He looks over at me, and in the glow of passing streetlights, I can see everything we’ve survived reflected in his eyes. The pain and the healing, the fear and the courage, all the ways we’ve broken and rebuilt each other.
“What?” he asks softly.
“Nothing. Just thinking about us.”
“Good thoughts?”
“The best thoughts.”
He squeezes my hand, content with that answer, and turns back to his phone where Molly is probably sending him another dozen pictures of flower arrangements.
And as I drive through the city that shaped us, destroyed us, and ultimately gave us back to each other, I think about that night under the overpass when we were eighteen.
When he was about to disappear into prison.
When I ruffled his hair and said goodbye, not knowing it would be five years before I could touch him again.
But now he’s here. Alive and healing and planning our wedding with an enthusiasm that makes my chest tight with love.
Now we get forever.
His phone pings again, and he chuckles softly. “Molly just sent a link to a wedding fair that’s on New Year’s Day. Can we go?”
“Alright, dufus,” I say quietly, the words carrying the weight of everything we’ve been through to get here.
He looks at me, understanding flickering across his face as he recognizes the echo. His eyes go suspiciously shiny, but he’s smiling as he squeezes my hand again.
And driving through London on Christmas night with my fiancé beside me and our whole lives ahead of us, I know that whatever comes next, we’ll face it together.
Always.