Epilogue #1
Lorenzo
*** Four Months Later ***
“Come on, cara, you can do it.”
She glares at me like she wants me dead. Fair. Elizabeth is drenched in sweat, her hair plastered to her forehead, one hand crushing mine hard enough to break bone, and somehow she is still the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
“If you call me cara one more time,” she pants, “I will smother you with a pillow.”
One of the nurses makes a choking sound that might be a laugh.
I lean down and kiss Elizabeth’s temple anyway. “That seems dramatic.”
Her eyes flash. “This is your fault.”
That, at least, I am not stupid enough to argue with.
The doctor says something encouraging from the foot of the bed, but I barely hear it. I hear only Elizabeth’s breathing. See only the strain in her face. Feel only the vise of her fingers around my hand and the helpless, savage panic beating through my chest every time pain takes hold of her again.
I have stood in gunfire and felt less fear than this and I would shoot every man in this city if it would spare her one ounce of this.
Instead I do the only thing she has allowed me to do. I stay.
“That’s it,” I murmur, brushing her damp hair back from her face. “One more. You’ve got him.”
She lets out a furious sound and bears down again. Then the room changes as a cry slices through the air. For one suspended second, everything in me stops.
Then the doctor lifts my son into the light, red-faced and furious at the world, and I swear my heart leaves my body.
Our son.
Elizabeth starts crying first. I don’t realize I am crying too until the nurse says, “You have a healthy baby boy,” and my vision blurs so badly I have to blink to keep from losing the moment.
They lay him on Elizabeth’s chest.
I have killed men for touching what I love, and yet I have never seen tenderness like this. Her trembling hand on his tiny back. The way he quiets at the sound of her voice. The way she looks down at him like the world has finally given her something gentle.
I am ruined by it.
Completely.
I bend, kiss her hard, then kiss his tiny forehead because I cannot stop myself.
“He’s beautiful,” I say, and my voice sounds nothing like mine.
Elizabeth laughs wetly. “He looks angry.”
“He looks like a Conti.”
That earns me the weakest eye roll of my life, and God, I love her. I love her so much it feels like a wound.
The nurse asks if we have a name. We decided this months ago, one quiet night when she was half-asleep against my chest and the city was glowing outside and everything between us felt fragile enough that I did not dare move too quickly.
Now I look at my son and say it aloud.
“Stefano Dante Conti.”
Elizabeth looks up at me through tears, and the softness in her face nearly drops me to my knees.
Stefano, after my grandfather. And Dante.
For the man who helped her live long enough to come back to me.
For the man who died in the middle of our war and deserved better than the end he got.
There are debts in this world no blood ever fully pays.
A name is not enough. But it is what I can give him now.
Elizabeth brushes a fingertip over our son’s cheek. “Stefano,” she whispers.
I put my hand over hers, then over the small furious boy between us, and for the first time in my life I understand what it means to fear God. Not as punishment. As gratitude. Because I have no idea what I did to deserve this, and yet it is here.
The bedroom is quiet three days later when I wake in the chair beside our bed, my neck ruined, my shirt wrinkled, and one hand still resting on the edge of Stefano’s bassinet.
I open my eyes to find Elizabeth watching me.
Her mouth curves. “You snore.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
I stand, lean over, and kiss her. Slow. Careful. She still looks breakable to me, even though I know better than to say it. She would probably hit me with a water pitcher.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Like I had a mafia prince by way of battlefield extraction.”
“That sounds accurate.”
I glance toward the bassinet. Stefano is asleep, one tiny fist near his face, dark hair already visible against the blanket. He looks peaceful now. Innocent. I know better than to trust that. He is my son. Peace is probably temporary.
Elizabeth follows my gaze and smiles.
“We did that,” I say.
“I did most of it.” She gives me a cheeky smile. “And, against my will since someone tampered with my birth control.”
“That’s fair.”
Stefano stirs, so I lift him and hand him over to his mama.
Elizabeth settles him in her arms with a competence that feels both new and ancient, as if she was always meant to hold him like this.
Our son blinks sleepily, makes one annoyed sound, and then calms the second she touches him.
Every time I look at them, something inside me goes silent.
I always thought love would feel louder. With them, it feels like coming home.
When she’s done feeding him and Stefano drifts back to sleep against Elizabeth’s chest, I know it is time.
I’ve been carrying the ring for weeks.
Not because I lacked certainty. Because I wanted the right moment. Elizabeth notices the look on my face immediately.
“No.”
I stop with my hand halfway inside my jacket. “No?”
She narrows her eyes. “If you are about to do what I think you are about to do, I just had a baby three days ago. I look terrible.”
“You look perfect.”
“Liar.” She snorts. “But this would explain why Rosa and the rest of the staff have been grinning at me like they know something I don’t know.”
I smile, because they do know.
I kneel beside the bed and her breath catches. Good. Mine has been caught since the second I walked into that hospital room in Kansas City over a year ago.
I take the box out, open it, and for a moment all I do is look at her. At the woman who survived me. At the woman who chose me anyway. At the mother of my son.
“Elizabeth,” I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I intended, “I should have asked you a long time ago.”
She goes very still.
“But I’m glad I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because before,” I tell her, “I would have asked you to belong to me. Now I’m asking if you’ll let me belong to you too.”
Her mouth opens, and for one brutal second I actually think I may have managed to silence Elizabeth Miller.
I keep going before she can recover.
“I can’t promise it will be easy. You know me too well for that.
I’ll still get angry. I’ll still want to solve problems with force first and patience second.
I’ll still terrify our son before he learns I’m softer than I look.
” A faint smile touches her mouth through the tears at that.
“But I will never cage you again. I’ll never use love as an excuse to own you.
And I’ll spend the rest of my life proving that I learned the difference. ”
I glance at Stefano sleeping in her arms and feel something impossible and fierce and clean move through me. This is my family and I want the world to know.
“Marry me, Elizabeth.”
She laughs through tears, and it nearly destroys me.
“You already know I’m stupid enough to love you.”
“Yes,” I say softly. “But I would still like to hear you say yes.”
She looks at me for a long moment.
“Yes.”
I exhale like I have been holding that breath since the day I first touched her.
I slide the ring onto her finger. It fits perfectly. Of course it does. There are some details I refuse to leave to chance. Then I kiss her. When I pull back, she looks dazed.
“You know,” she murmurs, glancing down at the ring, “I still haven’t forgiven you for some of the things you’ve done.”
I laugh. “I know.”
“And you snore.”
“I do not.”
“And Stefano is definitely going to have your temper.”
“He’ll have your mouth,” I say darkly. “God help us.”
That makes her laugh, and the sound of it in this bright room, with our son between us and the morning light all over her hair, feels like something better than absolution.
I touch Stefano’s head. Then her hand. Then the ring.
Elizabeth watches me, amused and too perceptive as always. “What are you thinking?”
I lean down, kiss her temple, and answer honestly.
“That I behaved very badly when someone touched what I loved.”
Her smile deepens. “I noticed.”
“No,” I tell her quietly. “You still have no idea.”
And maybe that is true.
Because if she did, she would know that every bloody thing I have ever done in my life led me here— to a house full of light, to a sleeping son, to a woman wearing my ring, and to the impossible, grateful certainty that for once, I got to keep what I loved.