Extended Epilogue Giuliana
FOUR YEARS LATER
I stand in the doorway of the living room, taking in the scene before me.
The massive Christmas tree towers near the windows, dripping with lights and ornaments.
Some are expensive and some are made by small fingers.
Garland wraps the banister, dotted with red velvet bows.
Stockings hang from the mantle: Luca, Giuliana, Marco, Gianna, Daniel.
The fireplace crackles, casting dancing shadows across the hardwood floors.
A gingerbread house lists dangerously to one side because four-year-old Gianna got… creative with the frosting.
It’s beautiful and messy and absolutely perfect.
“Mommy! Mommy, look!” Gianna comes running, dark curls bouncing, wearing the Christmas dress she insisted on at dawn. “Daddy says we can open presents now!”
The chocolate smeared around her mouth tells me that she snuck into the kitchen and Ramirez rewarded her with sweets.
“And what did Santa bring you?” I ask her, hands wrapped around a steaming mug of coffee.
It was not a silent night for me as Daniel woke up twice, so I need all the caffeine I can get.
“I don’t know yet!” Her brown eyes—Luca’s eyes—are wide with excitement. “But I asked for a puppy, a new doll, makeup, and a princess dress!”
“That’s quite a list,” I tell her.
“Daddy says Santa is very generous to good girls,” she tells me before she runs back to the tree, where Luca sits cross-legged on the floor with our sons.
Marco, six years old and looking more like his father every day, is trying to teach fourteen-month-old Daniel how to shake presents.
Daniel is more interested in eating the ribbon.
“No, no, Danny,” Marco says patiently, pulling the ribbon away. “We shake it like this.”
Daniel responds by shrieking at the top of his lungs.
Luca catches my eye from across the room, and the smile he gives me is soft and full of the kind of love that still takes my breath away after all these years.
He’s wearing the ridiculous Christmas sweater Marco picked out for him—complete with a light-up Rudolph nose—and somehow he makes even that look good.
“Come join us, cara,” he calls. “Before the natives get restless.”
“Jesus Christ,” Katie mutters from the couch, taking a very generous sip of her mimosa, her legs curled under her. “How is something that small so loud?”
“Language,” Danny says mildly from his spot near the tree, where he’s helping Marco sort presents. “There are children present.”
“The children can’t hear anything over the screaming,” Katie points out, taking another drink.
“No, Danel!” Gianna shouts, rushing over and snatching her doll away from her brother’s grasp. He had spotted it laying on the table. “She’s mine!”
Daniel’s mouth pops open in shock and his lower lip starts quivering. I inwardly groan as the baby starts to wail. Here it goes…
Luca catches my eye and grins, scooping up our youngest before the screaming escalates. “Hey, hey, little man. Let’s calm down.” Daniel immediately stops crying and grabs Luca’s nose, twisting it. Luca winces. “There we go. Crisis averted.”
“For now,” Katie says darkly.
I settle onto the couch beside her. “Are you surviving?” I ask.
“Barely.” But she’s smiling, her brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “Your children are adorable. Also exhausting. How do you do this every day?”
“I have no idea,” I admit. “But somehow we manage.”
Gianna wanders over to Danny and tugs on his sleeve. “Uncle Danny, I need to check your heart.”
“Do you?” Danny asks with complete seriousness, as if a four-year-old’s medical opinion is vital.
“Yes. It’s very important.” She insists as she pulls out her toy stethoscope and presses it against Danny’s chest, her face scrunched in concentration. “Hmm. Yes. Your heart is working very good.”
“That’s a relief,” Danny says gravely. “Thank you, Dr. Marchetti.”
Gianna preens. “You’re welcome. That will be one million dollars.”
Katie nearly chokes on her mimosa and even Luca raises an eyebrow at that.
“One million seems steep,” Danny says, still completely serious. “Can we negotiate?”
“No.” Gianna is firm, crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s the price. Take it or leave it.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to pay it.” Danny pulls out his wallet and hands her a dollar. “Is this enough?”
Gianna examines it carefully. “Yes. This is perfect.” She stuffs it in her dress pocket and moves on to her next patient, Marco, who submits to the examination with the patience of a saint.
“She’s going to be a handful,” Katie observes.
“She already is,” Luca says, settling Daniel on the floor with some toys. “But so is her mother, so I’m prepared.”
I throw a pillow at him. He ducks it, laughing, before pressing a kiss to my cheek. He stands up after that and pats his pockets.
“Before we start,” Luca says, pulling out his phone. “Let me get a picture.”
Everyone but me groans.
“Daddy, no!” Marco yells. “You always take too long!”
“Yeah, Daddy, too long!” Gianna echoes, though she’s already posing, hand on her hip.
“One picture,” Luca insists. “Your mama likes to have these memories. Gianna, get your hand off your hip—where did you even learn that anyway?”
And I do. Every Christmas, every birthday, hell every ordinary Tuesday. I want to remember all of it. The way Marco’s missing his two front teeth. How Gianna refuses to wear anything that isn’t pink or sparkly. The way Daniel babbles constantly in a language only he understands.
The sound of small feet and big laughter filling rooms that once echoed with loneliness.
After approximately twenty photos, because Luca can’t just take one, he finally sets his phone down and starts distributing presents. The children tear into them with abandon, wrapping paper flying everywhere.
Marco gets the chemistry set he’s been obsessing over, because of course my six year old wants an advanced chemistry set, while Gianna squeals over her new princess dress. Daniel is perfectly content with the wrapping paper, though Luca tries valiantly to interest him in the various toys we bought.
My father appears from the guest room, still uncertain after all these years, and I watch as Gianna runs to show him her stethoscope.
“Grandpa! I’m a doctor now!”
“Are you?” My father’s face transforms as he kneels to her level, looking happier than ever. “That’s wonderful, sweetheart.”
“I can check your heart too. Hold still.”
He does, and I feel Luca’s hand find mine as we watch our daughter seriously examine her grandfather.
My father catches my eye, and I see the gratitude there, the disbelief that he gets to be part of this.
Dad wanders deeper into the living room and is instantly accosted by Marco who wants to show him his toys.
Ever since Luca sent Dad off to Arizona, he’s flourished there.
He’s a different man. He’s sober and works at a clean warehouse while attending AA and gamblers anonymous groups.
He visits for every major holiday, though he’s always nervous around Luca.
He still apologizes for things we’ve all moved past.
I squeeze Luca’s hand, thinking about forgiveness. About second chances. About choosing not to let the past poison the future.
“Aunt Katie, you need checkups too!” Gianna announces.
“Oh no,” Katie says, but she’s laughing as she submits to Gianna’s very thorough examination.
The morning passes in a blur of presents and laughter and the traditional Christmas breakfast chaos. Danny and my father help Marco set up his chemistry set. Katie shows Gianna the dance from Mean Girls, and Daniel shreds the wrapping paper everywhere.
Later, when the kids are finally down for naps and Katie and Danny have left with promises to return for dinner, my father has retired to rest, and Luca and I are collapsed on the couch together. The living room looks like a toy store exploded, but neither of us has the energy to clean it yet.
“Seven years ago,” Luca says quietly, pulling me against his chest, “did you ever imagine this?”
I think about the girl I was all those years ago. Scared, angry, and trapped. Would she believe where we ended up?
“No,” I admit, one hand splayed on Luca’s stomach, right over Rudolph’s mouth. “I couldn’t have imagined any of this.” I tilt my head back to look at him, eyes tracing his strong nose, the curve of his full lips, the lock of hair that refuses to be tamed. “But I’m so glad I stayed.”
“Even knowing how we started?” he asks, looking down at me.
“Especially knowing how we started.” I move my hand over his heart. “Because it means we chose each other despite everything.”
He kisses me, slow and deep. When we pull apart, his eyes are bright.
“I love you, Giuliana Marchetti.”
“I love you too.”
We sit there in the quiet, surrounded by evidence of our life. The toys scattered across the floor. The photos on the mantle showing our growing family. The stockings, the tree, the handmade construction paper Santa and snowmen Marco and Gianna made at school.
I think about the journey that brought me here. The clinic that burned, the freedom I lost, the fear that consumed me in those early days. The slow realization that I was falling in love with my captor. The moment I chose to stay.
I’d lost everything—my clinic, my freedom, my innocence—only to find something I never knew I wanted: a love worth fighting for, a family worth building, a future worth believing in.
The monster who’d captured me had become the man who’d saved me. And our children would grow up knowing that even the darkest stories could have beautiful endings.
Above us, I hear small feet hitting the floor. Someone’s awake. In approximately thirty seconds, the chaos will resume—Daniel crying, Gianna wanting a snack, Marco asking to check on the animals in the clinic.
But for now in this perfect moment, it’s just Luca and me. Two people who started in darkness and found their way to light. Two people who choose each other, every single day.
“Mama?” Gianna’s voice calls from upstairs. “Can I wear my new princess dress to dinner?”
“Yes!” I call back, and Luca laughs against my hair
“Here we go again,” he murmurs.
“Here we go again,” I agree.
As our daughter runs down the stairs in her princess dress on backward, as our sons wake and the baby begins calling for us, as the beautiful chaos resumes—I think about how far we’ve come.
From hatred to love. From captivity to choice. From revenge to redemption.
This is home. This is family. This is love.
And I wouldn’t change a single moment of it.
Loved Giuliana and Luca? Get the next book in the series here.
I marry my enemy to stop a war.
Dimitri Volkov marries me to punish one.
He’s the ruthless mafia king who believes my family murdered his brother.
I’m the bargaining chip he locks inside his fortress -
and his bed.
What he doesn’t know could get me killed.
I’m pregnant.
And the baby isn’t his.
It belongs to the brother he buried.