Epilogue #8
“Not mine, not yet,” I speak adamantly.
Sebastiano makes his way into the dining room with Nicky and Nacho. “Go wash your hands,” he tells his son before instructing us to take a seat.
We all move toward the chairs.
“The paper announcement could actually lure Jack Enzino out,” Sebastiano says.
“And when the journalist asks me how Luca proposed, I’ll say he didn’t,” I insist.
“Marco proposed in a public bathroom, and he didn’t kneel, either,” Luca lets us all know.
“The rectal atrocity,” I declare, while Akira snorts.
“What the fuck, Moretti!” River growls at him, such a protective bro.
“Fuck off. It’s where we met…for the second time,” Marco explains begrudgingly.
“Romantic.” Akira intertwines his fingers with River’s over the tablecloth. “We decided to get married in a warehouse after I painted the floor with an asshole’s blood and intestines.”
So the rumors are true, he’s a sociopathic demon.
“Fly blew Marco in that bathroom,” Luca says nonchalantly.
Marco drops his hands on the table, glaring at Luca. Fly grabs one and kisses it, whispering something in his ear that makes him half-smile.
I turn my head toward Luca, sitting on my right. “Don’t even try to propose in my office at the club…wait, I didn’t blow you there. You just fucked my brains out.”
“How about having the marriage here? In the garden. That’s where the Leones do it, we could have a double wedding,” Seb interjects from the head seat.
I look out of the window. The garden is really pretty. In a month, it will be the end of June. A perfect time to do it—if we stop the bird revolution.
Fly is looking at me with puppy eyes. I know, getting married with my bestie would be fucking amazing. “How can I say no to that?”
“Yeaaaaah, I want that!” He starts bouncing up and down on the chair, and it’s too infectious, I have to do it too.
“Still waiting for a proposal,” I sing-song at Luca, tilting my head back and toward him.
His chair abruptly slides back, making a horrible sound over the floor that silences everybody and makes me freeze. He stands up, pulling on the lapels of his jacket, before sliding a knee on his chair and bending down to grab my face.
Eye to eye. Heart to heart.
“Ti amo, sole mio, sposami,” he rasps.
I really didn’t expect him to do it. I was just riling him up, as usual.
We tried so hard to hate each other, before we tried to love each other.
It was within that space, that undulated gap between hate and love that we fought so desperately, until we both yielded to it and embraced it together.
And now we will remain in that space forever.
I feel light and warmth enveloping me all at once as tears fill my eyes.
Fuck, I’m turning into an emotional disaster.
“Oh my god.” Fly’s low murmur reminds me I have to answer.
“Didn’t get one word, but fuck, Italian is hot,” Akira comments next.
I nod. “Sí. I’ll marry you, Luca Nero.” Tears stream down and mix with the taste of him as we kiss.
I was trying to escape from my family’s rotten prison when Luca took me into another cage, and there I found the freedom I’ve always dreamed of. I found love and happiness and a man I can call mine.
“Maria, champagne, per favore,” Sebastiano calls the maid.
“Do you expect us to come to your wedding when you dared to miss ours?” Akira sniffs at Luca as I push my face into his warm chest.
“Marco summarized it for me,” he counters dismissively.
“Oh, so vividly,” Marco soaks every word with sarcasm.
“It’s Fly’s wedding, too,” River reminds his husband.
“Fuck, okay,” Akira yields quickly.
They keep talking, but I just can’t pay attention anymore.
If I’ll truly become part of his family I need to be honest with them.
All of them. I grab Luca’s hand and stand up, feeling this irrepressible urge to say what has been on my mind since I moved in with Luca.
That sliver of suspicion that I can’t keep in anymore.
“There’s something you should know.” I look at Luca—into those deep green morning forest eyes—then at Marco, Fly, and finally I turn to Sebastiano. “There’s a possibility that my father…might have killed yours.”
“Don Massimo had a heart attack,” Marco states.
Sebastiano is staring at me with narrowed eyes.
“Why do you think that?” Luca asks me, tightening the comforting grip on my hand. That gives me the courage to continue.
“I-I heard a conversation, a month after Don Massimo had died. Jack Enzino was laughing, saying how he killed three bosses under their families’ gullible eyes. He talked about a poison and how he tricked everybody.”
“Three bosses?” Akira asks.
“Esposito, Cerruti and—”
Sebastiano cuts me off. “Leone.”
“Fuck!” Marco swears, springing up and moving toward the window, soon followed by Fly.
I notice Nicky, standing near the threshold, with a pale look on his face. Fuck, I completely forgot about him. Sebastiano walks to him, and the kid quickly wraps his body around his father’s side.
Did I do the right thing? I ruined everything. We were so happy, celebrating and now…
Luca’s arms wrap around me as he pushes me onto his lap. His embrace helps, but I can feel him shivering with anger.
“I should have kept my mouth shut,” I whisper against his neck.
“No. Seb…we all deserve to know the truth.” He tightens his arms.
“I want to become a Nero as soon as possible,” I brokenly whisper into his ear.
“You already are, sole mio. You are mine.”
Will I ever be able to keep my tears in when he says something sweet to me?
“Ti amo, Luca,” I whisper.
“The war is imminent,” Sebastiano suddenly declares in a flat, icy tone.
“Announcing war? Just our kind of people.” Two blond men appear on the threshold. Their Russian accents are heavy. I know who they are, I saw them at my almost-wedding. They are part of the Russian mob.
“Count us in,” Akira states next.
“My vendetta has just turned into a blood feud.” Luca’s muttering makes me squeeze my eyes.
Right now, the bird revolution feels like a walk in the park.
The end.