Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dante
The soup is good. Better than good. She made this for me. The thought settles somewhere in my chest and refuses to leave.
I take another spoonful. Watch her from the corner of my eye.
She's sitting with her back straight. Hands folded in her lap. Like she's waiting for a job interview.
"Do you want to talk?" I ask.
Her eyes snap to mine. "About what?"
"About how these two years have been for you."
The words hang in the air. I watch her face change. Watch the walls go up.
She laughs. It's not a happy sound.
"Apparently you already know whatever the hell I've done these years." Her voice is sharp. Bitter. "You have my phone number. My address. Probably my work schedule and my grocery list too."
I nod. There's no point in denying it.
"Why?" she asks.
The question cuts through me.
Why.
Because I couldn't stop. Because every time I told myself to delete the alerts, to stop checking, to let her go, I found myself opening the app again. Because knowing she was alive was the only thing that made breathing bearable some days.
Because I'm in love with her and I have been since the moment she slapped me across the face two years ago.
I can't say any of that.
She doesn't deserve me. Doesn't deserve my obsession, my watching, my inability to let go. She deserves a normal man with a normal job who doesn't track her location like a stalker and show up bleeding on her doorstep.
I choose part of the truth.
"I felt guilty," I say. "About what happened to you."
Her eyebrows rise. "Guilty."
"You got shot because of us. Because of the family. Because I didn't get to you fast enough." I set the spoon down. Look at her directly. "I wanted to make sure you were okay."
She stares at me for a long moment.
I can see her processing. Weighing my words against what she knows about me. Deciding whether to believe me or not.
Finally, she looks away.
"What's going on with the Sartori family?" she asks.
The subject change is abrupt. She doesn't want to talk about herself anymore. Doesn't want to examine why I've been watching her or what it means.
I let her redirect.
"A lot has changed since you left," I say.
She shifts in the chair. Pulls her legs up. Tucks them beneath her until she's sitting cross-legged on the seat.
She looks comfortable now. Settled. Like she's preparing to hear a story.
Christ.
She looks amazing.
The afternoon light from the window catches her hair. Turns the brown strands golden at the edges.
She's waiting for me to continue.
I pick up the spoon again. Take another bite of soup to buy myself time.
"Lorenzo and Sophia are solid," I start. "Stronger than ever. She's been good for him. Softened some of his edges."
Marina's expression flickers. Something like relief crosses her face before she schools it back to neutral.
"Pietro stepped back," I say.
Marina's eyes widen. "What?"
"He handed the position to Bruno."
She shakes her head slowly. Like she's trying to process information that doesn't fit into any category she has.
"Bruno," she repeats. "The one in the wheelchair."
"Yes."
"He's the Don now?"
"He is."
I watch her work through it. She met Bruno once, maybe twice, during those chaotic weeks two years ago. She would have seen the bitterness. The rage. The man who pushed everyone away because he couldn't stand being seen as less than what he was.
"How?" she asks.
I take another spoonful of soup. Let the warmth settle in my stomach.
"He changed," I say. "Or maybe he didn't change. Maybe he just finally let someone see who he really was underneath all that anger."
Marina tilts her head. "Someone?"
"His wife. Antonella."
Her mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
"Bruno got married?"
"Arranged marriage. Her father owed debts to the family. She was traded to settle them."
Marina's expression darkens. I can see the judgment forming. The assumptions about what that means.
"It's not what you think," I say quickly. "It started that way. Cold. Transactional."
"That sounds exactly like what I think."
"He fell in love with her." I say.
Marina's hands have uncurled in her lap. She's leaning forward slightly. Engaged despite herself.
"She's pregnant now," I add.
Something shifts in her expression. Softens.
"Pregnant," she whispers.
"Due in a few months. Bruno walks now."
Marina looks away. Toward the window. The afternoon light catches the moisture in her eyes before she blinks it away.
"That's..." She stops. Swallows. "That's good. For him."
"It is."
Silence stretches between us. Comfortable this time. Or at least less hostile.
"What about the others?" she asks finally. "Nico?"
"Nico found someone too."
Marina's eyebrows rise. "Nico? The paranoid one?"
"The same."
"How is that possible? He seemed like the type who'd run background checks on his own shadow."
"He did run background checks. Extensive ones. On a woman named Kristen."
I shift against the pillows. The movement pulls at my stitches, sends a spike of pain through my side. I breathe through it.
"She came to work for the family," I say. "Single mother. Escaping an abusive ex-husband. She has a daughter. Lily."
Marina's expression changes again. The softness returns. She understands something about escaping. About rebuilding.
"Nico didn't trust her at first. Didn't trust anyone. He'd spent his whole life watching love destroy people in our world. Soldiers who got distracted protecting girlfriends instead of watching their own backs. Informants who turned because they fell for the wrong person."
I pause. Let the weight of that settle.
"He decided love was a liability. A weapon your enemies use against you. So he never let himself fall. Never let anyone close enough to matter."
"But Kristen changed that?"
"Kristen didn't flinch."
Marina's brow furrows. "What do you mean?"
"Everyone else was intimidated by his staring. His questions. His intensity. They called him paranoid, obsessive, exhausting. They left or he pushed them away." I meet her eyes. "Kristen met his stare calmly. Answered his questions without fidgeting. She'd spent years studying men to survive them."
Marina's breath catches. Almost imperceptibly. But I notice.
I notice everything about her.
"Nico is dangerous," I continue. "But he's not cruel. She saw that distinction. She was the first person who ever did."
Marina looks down at her hands. Her right hand is curled slightly. Protecting itself.
"They're married now," I say. "Nico, Kristen, and Lily. A family. He's still intense. Still paranoid. Still too much."
The room is quiet. Outside, I can hear traffic. The distant sound of a car horn. Normal city sounds that feel very far away from this conversation.
"So everyone found love," Marina says. Her voice is strange. Flat. "Despite the violence. Despite the danger. Despite everything."
"Yes."
She laughs again. That same bitter sound from before.
"Must be nice."
I want to tell her that she could have that too. That love isn't reserved for people who stay in the family. That she deserves happiness and healing and someone who sees her.
But I'm the wrong person to say it.
I'm not her happy ending.
I'm the complication she's trying to survive.
"Marina—"
"Eat your soup," she says. She unfolds her legs. Stands up. "It's getting cold."
She walks out of the bedroom before I can respond.
I stare at the doorway for a long moment. Then I pick up the spoon.
The soup is lukewarm now. But I eat it anyway.
She made it for me.
Marina
I close the bathroom door behind me and lean against it.
My heart is pounding. Which is stupid. Nothing happened. We just talked. He ate soup and told me about people I barely know getting married and having babies.
Normal conversation.
Except nothing about this is normal.
I push off the door and turn on the shower. The pipes groan before water sputters out. I wait for it to heat up, watching steam slowly fill the small space.
I strip off my clothes and step into the shower. The hot water hits my shoulders and I close my eyes.
Mafia people falling in love. Having children. Building families.
While killing other people.
The two things exist side by side in their world. Violence and tenderness. Blood and baby showers. It's not right. None of it is right.
But this world has never been right.
I learned that two years ago when a bullet tore through my hand and I watched Sophia nearly die on my bed. I learned it when I woke up in a hospital bed with nerve damage that would never fully heal. I learned it when Dante sat beside me for days and I told him to leave and he actually left.
I can't change any of it.
I can't make the Sartori family stop being what they are. I can't undo the violence or the death or the complicated web of loyalty and blood that holds them together. I can't judge them for finding love in the middle of all that darkness.
Who am I to judge anyone?
I'm the woman who saved a mafia man's life.
I'm already complicit.
The water runs down my back. I tip my head forward and let it soak my hair.
What unsettles me isn't the marriages. Isn't the children. Isn't even the casual way Dante talked about arranged marriages and debts settled with human beings.
What unsettles me is the way he talked about love.
Like it was something that happened to other people. Something he observed from the outside. Something he understood intellectually but had never experienced himself.
Nico didn't trust anyone. He decided love was a liability.
Bruno let someone see who he really was underneath all that anger.
She was the first person who ever did.
Dante told those stories like a man describing a foreign country he'd read about but never visited.
And I asked.
That's the worst part. I asked about the others. I invited this conversation. I sat there and listened and felt something twist in my chest when he talked about people finding their person despite everything.
My fault.
I reach for the shampoo and squeeze some into my palm. Work it through my hair with both hands