Epilogue – Elaria
The table is old oak. Polished till it gleams.
Allegra sits to my right, legs crossed, her heels planted. One finger swipes across the iPad screen while the other hand curls under the tablet, steady. She's wearing slate-grey—subtle, tactical. Her earrings glint, a quiet warning.
I am seated at a table with twelve men. Italian families who run in my turf.
“House Albinari,” she says, voice low but clear. “Up to date. Funds cleared. Inventory matches.”
The man across from her nods, his hands folding in front of him.
“House Ferretti,” she continues, without looking up. “No discrepancies. Confirmed.”
Another nod. Slower. Grateful.
I lean back slightly, one hand resting against the arm of the chair, the other wrapped loosely around a pen. Not for notes.
The pen is matte black. Weighted. A gift from Cassian, though he didn’t say so. I found it resting on my desk. I’ve used it ever since.
Allegra pauses. Her mouth draws tighter.
“House Mondelli,” she says.
The man in question adjusts his collar. He’s young—not green, but not smart enough to hide tension. His records scroll across Allegra’s screen. The numbers are close. But not clean.
Allegra narrows her eyes. “Quarter four delivery claims don’t match port records.”
He blinks. Leans forward slightly. “That—there must’ve been a logging error. I’ll—”
I lift my hand a centimeter. Allegra goes silent.
The pen turns once between my fingers. I don’t look at him. Not yet. I tap the pen once against the table, letting the sound land.
He exhales through his nose.
Then, under his breath, not meant to carry—
“Che puttana.” Bitch
Allegra hears it.
Her fingers tighten against the iPad. One knee shifts, heel dragging back, ready to rise.
I touch her wrist. Her eyes snap to me. I look at him.
I pick up the pen. My fingers wrap around it once. Then, with a flick of the wrist, I hurl it across the room.
It whistles past his face—misses by less than an inch—and buries itself in the wall behind him with a sharp thud.
I tilt my head.
The man swallows. “I—I apologize. That was uncalled for. I’ll have the numbers reconciled by tomorrow. Personally.”
My fingers brush my knee. I stand, walk over to the wall and I retrieve my pen and I return back to my seat.
Then Allegra turns back to the iPad. “Next.”
The next man speaks with more care. His hands stay flat on the table. No one else breaks eye contact after that.
Allegra straightens beside me, slips the iPad under one arm, and flicks a strand of hair from her shoulder with two fingers.
“See you all next year,” she says smoothly, already turning toward the door.
Not a single reply.
I push my chair back, stand and I walk toward the exit.
Allegra follows. Behind us, a voice—low, careless, like it thought the distance would protect it.
“Does she ever speak?”
It floats to the surface, tossed lightly between two men.
I stop. I turn my head.
Their voices cut off mid-breath. One of them lowers his gaze. The other fakes a cough. No one else dares move.
I let the silence hold a second longer than necessary.
Then I turn forward and walk out.
After Fausto’s death, I was the only Fontanesi standing. He had no heir, his businesses were linked with my father’s. It all became mine. When Cassian publicly backed me up, I was no longer the disgraced consigliere’s daughter or the traitor's daughter. I had real power.
Cassian showed me how to run it all. The ports, the smuggling lines, the family accounts. He taught me to handle a room without speaking, and to measure respect by what people don’t say when I enter. He taught me how to make decisions that don’t need explaining.
He didn’t teach me to speak. So I don’t speak, what’s the need for that?
The marble under our shoes doesn’t echo. Too much carpet in this wing. The doors close behind us, sealing in the tension. I hear it as it settles back over the table, the way people exhale when they think the moment has passed.
Allegra walks ahead of me, her pace steady. She doesn’t speak as we exit through the portico. Outside, the light is softer than I expected. The clouds are gathering again. It’s going to rain before we reach the city.
The car is already waiting. Black, discreet, identical to the others in the fleet. The driver stands by the rear door until we reach it. He nods once, then returns to his seat without a word.
We climb in. Allegra first, then me. The car pulls forward.
Allegra glances down at her screen once more, then locks it and sets it aside.
“What do you want for your birthday?” she asks, shifting in her seat to face me. “Would you like a party?”
Before I answer, the voice beside me speaks.
“Oh yes, very important question. What do you want?”
Giovanna sits with her hands folded in her lap, watching me with that half-smile she used when she was pretending to be patient. She looks good today—her hair pinned up, earrings that sparkle when the light moves across them. She leans in slightly, expectant.
I smile without meaning to. A small breath escapes me, and it almost sounds like a laugh.
Giovanna sighs, head tilting. “Don’t say anything, miss. Last year was chaos. Fire. funerals. We didn’t get a proper moment. This year, we should mark it.”
“I don’t know about a party,” I say quietly, watching the road ahead. “Maybe lunch. Something small. Cassian and I. You and Lorenzo could come.”
Allegra groans softly and rests the side of her head against the window for a second.
“No, thank you,” she says. “It’s already hard enough being the one speaking for the two of you at work. Lorenzo and I can’t carry a whole meal by ourselves.”
I turn to her, and the corner of my mouth lifts.
“So that’s what the two of you have been bonding over lately?” I ask. “He’s been sleeping a lot in your room.”
She coughs then reaches for the bottled water at her feet.
“I’m asking if you want a cake,” she says, her voice a little too casual. “Chocolate? Almonds? Something shaped like a crown?”
Giovanna nods from the far side of the seat, clearly pleased. Her legs are crossed, her toe tapping gently against the floor mat. The dress she wears isn’t one I remember owning, but it suits her. She looks younger today.
I let my head rest back against the seat.
She is always here. In the quiet moments, in the choices I don’t question, in the things my hands do before I think about them. Sometimes I feel her in the way I lift a glass, in the instinct to stand before anyone else does. She sits beside me even when I don’t look. I never have to check.
I’m not alone.
Allegra doesn’t stop talking the entire ride.
She leans toward the center console, one foot tucked beneath her, speaking to no one in particular.
“We could use the garden, maybe. If it’s not too hot. I know the caterer with the citrus tartlets Cassian liked at the spring thing. You’d like them too. Unless we want to do something indoors. But then I’ll need to move the mirrored table backup from storage, and that thing weighs—”
I reach across the seat and take Giovanna’s hand.
She’s sitting beside me again, her fingers folded neatly around mine, head tilted like she’s listening to Allegra with vague interest.
“You could at least pretend to be invested,” Giovanna murmurs, amused.
I give her fingers a quiet squeeze and smile. She knows that means I am.
The car slows as we turn past the gates. The Rivetti house comes into view, rising out of the green. Allegra stops talking mid-sentence.
Two figures are in the garden.
Cassian is crouched near the planter beds, shirtless, a bag of mulch open beside him. His hair is tied back. Dirt coats his forearms. Lorenzo is nearby with a trowel, sleeves tied around his waist, face red from the sun. They’re both sweating. Neither seems bothered.
Allegra opens her door and climbs out, her eyes narrowing. I follow, my sandals clicking once against the stone.
Before we speak, Lorenzo calls out.
“He canceled his meeting,” he says, pointing toward Cassian with the handle of the trowel. “Wanted to plant her favorites himself.”
Daffodils. Mine and Giovanna’s.
Cassian doesn’t look up right away. He’s smoothing the earth with his palm, pressing gently as if making room for something fragile. When he stands, he wipes his hands on his trousers and walks toward us.
Lorenzo reaches Allegra first. She opens her mouth like she’s about to comment, but he wraps his arms around her in a loose hug, brushing a kiss against her forehead before she can step away.
She elbows him lightly. “Don’t,” she mutters.
Lorenzo lifts both hands as if accused of something, then gives a wide, overly innocent smile that makes her roll her eyes and glance quickly around the front of the house. Her fingers linger just a second longer on his arm before letting go.
I turn toward Cassian as he comes to stand in front of me.
I reach for him. His arms come around me, and I settle into his chest. He smells of sun-warmed grass, faint sweat, and lavender. His hand slides up my back and rests there.
Giovanna steps close. Cassian lifts his gaze and sees her and he hugs me tighter. And she smiles, he smiles too.
He exhales softly and brings his hand to my cheek. His thumb brushes there, grounding again.
“When will they bloom?” I ask, voice low.
Cassian looks over his shoulder toward the rows of half-buried bulbs.
Before he can answer, Lorenzo calls out.
“He has no idea. Man’s never planted a thing in his life. We are lucky if they sprout straight.”
Cassian lets out a breath through his nose and rests his forehead against mine for a moment, the corners of his mouth turning up.
Allegra steps forward, brushing a strand of hair off her face.
“The meeting?” Cassian asks, his voice quiet again.
“Great,” I say.
“She used the pen,” Allegra adds, shifting the tablet under her arm. “Very effective.”
He nods once. No questions. He’ll hear about it later, probably from Lorenzo.
“It’s too hot,” Lorenzo complains, tugging at the hem of his shirt. “Can we go inside? I need a drink.”
He leans against her slightly, sliding a hand along her waist with the confidence of someone who’s gotten away with it before. She gets his wrist before it climbs higher and steps neatly out of his reach.
“Public area,” she says. “Behave.”
Lorenzo lifts both eyebrows and moves toward the steps, grumbling under his breath.
Cassian stays beside me. His hand remains on my back. I glance to my right.
Giovanna stands just behind me again. She reaches out, and I offer her my hand. Our palms meet, fingers intertwined.
“Well done, birthday girl,” she whispers.
I smile. She squeezes gently.
Her outline softens. Her fingers warm mine once more before the pressure fades.
She dissolves into the quiet like she was always part of it.
The marble cools beneath our feet as we step inside. Allegra sighs the moment we cross the threshold.
She slides off her shoes without looking and nudges mine with the tip of her toe.
“Come on,” she says. “You can’t wear those in here. They deserve a break.”
I step out of them and leave them beside hers in the entry. She stretches her arms above her head and tilts to one side until something in her back clicks. Her blazer slips off her shoulders and she tosses it onto the bench beside the staircase.
She sinks onto the couch like it’s the first thing that’s gone right all day. She tucks one leg under herself and pulls her hair over one shoulder, already examining the spot on the coffee table where wine should go.
Moments later, Lorenzo enters with two bottles tucked under one arm, and Cassian follows with four glasses balanced between his hands. The label on the bottle is hand-painted—deep reds and golds faded slightly with age.
“Valpolicella?” Allegra lifts an eyebrow. “Did you go into the cellar?”
“Cassian did,” Lorenzo says, offering her the bottle like it’s proof of effort. “I’m just the assistant.”
Cassian passes out the glasses and pours carefully, the bottle tilting without a single drop spilled. The wine is dark and in the glass, almost purple in the low light. He sits beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch. Lorenzo passes Allegra her glass, then sits on the armrest beside her with the second bottle still in hand.
“So,” he says, stretching the word like taffy, “what are we doing for Her Highness’s birthday?”
Allegra rolls her eyes. “I’ve been trying to get an answer out of her for days. She just stares at me like I suggested a summit meeting.”
Cassian sets his glass down on the table and reaches for my hand. His fingers find mine and he gives the slightest squeeze.
He is asking me what I want.
I turn my head, meet his gaze, and point.
At him.
His mouth curves—not a full smile, just the kind that lingers in the eyes. The kind he gives only when something lands exactly the way he hoped it would. The warmth behind it sinks under my skin.
Lorenzo watches, then groans loudly and falls back onto the cushion.
“Oh come on, they can be lovey-dovey in broad daylight, but we have to pretend we’re still strangers in the hallway?”
Allegra stiffens. “Don’t start.”
Lorenzo turns to us, gesturing loosely with his wine glass. “Can you believe her? She kisses me first, then acts like I’m some guy who drove her home from a party and never texted again. That’s cruelty, is what that is.”
Allegra makes a choking sound. “I—I didn’t kiss you.”
Lorenzo’s eyebrows shoot up. “A mistake, then?”
“A mistake,” she repeats firmly.
He leans forward, grin widening. “A thirty-minute mistake?”
She bows her head, glass clutched in both hands. Her ears flush.
Lorenzo shifts closer. His voice drops. “Is it really so hard to say you like me?”
“I don’t,” she snaps. “I don’t.”
“But you want me every night.”
“Oh my God,” she says, setting her glass down with more force than necessary. She grabs the bottle and storms out, muttering something that sounds like his full name and possibly a threat.
“Allegra—come on—baby, I’m sorry!” Lorenzo scrambles up after her, nearly knocking over a cushion in the process. “You’re so sensitive!”
We sit in the quiet they leave behind. Cassian leans back, arm settling across the back of the couch.
His fingers slide against my wrist and pull gently. I shift, and he draws me closer until I’m tucked against his side. His mouth brushes the curve of my neck.
For the past two years, he’s been like this.
He remembers how I take my coffee. He makes sure my car is warmed before I step outside. He speaks only when he knows it matters. He taught me how to carry power without apology—and never asked me to perform softness to make others comfortable.
He earned my love, just like he said he would.
His hand slips behind my neck, fingers brushing the edge of my jaw. He kisses me until the only thing I can feel is the pull of him—in a way that draws heat out of my chest and leaves it in my throat.
His arm slides under my knees. He lifts me easily, and I don’t protest.
I wrap my arms around his shoulders and tuck in close. His breath skims across my temple. His chest rises and falls beneath me, and everything else—the creak of the floorboards, the way my hair shifts across his arm, the press of my hand against his back, our clothes falling away—feels secondary.
My skin is still warm from the last touch of his mouth, but when he wraps his arms around me and guides me down onto the sheets, everything burns all over again.
He doesn’t push me flat. He pulls me sideways into his body—chest to back, thigh sliding between mine, his arm curled tight around my middle. We fit like this. Like we were carved to meet in this shape.
His hand slides over my hip, steady, fingers curling just beneath the dip of my stomach. He tilts me slightly forward, just enough, and I feel him press against me—thick, hot, his cock nudging the soaked heat between my thighs.
Then he whispers my name.
He pushes in.
The stretch steals my breath—his cock sliding deep, inch by inch, until he’s seated fully inside me. His chest flush against my back. His breath thick against my shoulder.
My mouth falls open. I exhale a soft moan, reaching back to grip his thigh, needing to anchor myself as he starts to move.
He thrusts in long, steady strokes.
I feel every inch of him drag along my walls, every press deep, every grind of his hips against my ass.
And all the while—he kisses me.
Not just my shoulder, but the side of my neck, the back of my ear, the curve of my spine. Soft endless kisses. His lips press to every inch he can reach, like he’s trying to soothe something raw in both of us.
I whimper as he shifts his angle, hitting deeper, slower.
My hand slides down to where we’re joined, feeling the place where his body becomes mine. I circle my clit softly, just enough to match the rhythm of his thrusts, and my breath starts to shake.
He buries his face in my neck.
His hips rock into me again, deep and smooth, and the sound that slips from my throat is more a sob than a moan.
I groan—soft at first.
My hand between my legs keeps circling my clit, tighter, in time with every stroke of his cock inside me. My body tenses—tighter, hotter—every nerve winding into something electric and dangerous.
I groan again, louder this time, hips grinding back against him, greedy for it. For him.
My thighs are trembling. My breath is ragged. He kisses my neck again, and that’s what does it.
The tension snaps.
I come—hard, clenched around him, spasming from the inside out. My cunt grips his cock like it doesn’t want to let go, wetness spilling out between us as I cry out and melt into his chest, shaking, moaning his name like a plea.
He slows—lets me ride it out—then pulls out of me, thick and slick and twitching. I’m still gasping, boneless, eyes fluttering.
But when I turn to look at him—
He’s still hard.
His cock stands flushed and swollen, slick with my release, the head glistening, the shaft thick with need. He’s panting, chest rising, muscles trembling, but he hasn’t come.
I lick my palm—never breaking eye contact. Then I reach down and wrap my hand around his length. His eyes flutter closed immediately, hips twitching. I stroke him, watching the way his jaw clenches, the way his breath stutters with every pass of my fist.
His cock pulses in my hand, heavy and desperate.
I straddle him. Line him up.
And with one roll of my hips, I sink down onto his cock, sliding him back into the heat of me.
We both moan this time—together.
And I start to move.
****
My shoulder rests against his chest, skin still flushed where his mouth had moved. The air smells like the two of us—faint traces of the lavender soap he always keeps in the bathroom drawer. One window’s cracked open. The breeze moves gently across the back of my neck.
Cassian kisses the curve of my shoulder. Then again, slower.
His fingers trace small, absent shapes against my hip. I can hear his heart. It hasn’t slowed entirely.
He shifts beside me and reaches for the side table.
I think he’s going for water.
Instead, he returns with a small, black box.
He holds it in his palm, Then he opens it.
Inside is a ring. A diamond ring.
His voice is quiet when he speaks.
“Would you marry me, Elaria?”
I don’t answer right away—not because I hesitate, but because I feel her before I see her.
Giovanna appears on the edge of the table, perched like a memory made flesh. Her dress moves in a breeze that doesn’t touch the room.
She leans forward slightly, lips parted in a whisper that carries like wind in the trees.
“Say yes. Say yes. Say yes.”
I smile. My hand finds Cassian’s, steadying the box between us.
“Yes.”
He exhales, he slides the ring into my finger and he kisses my finger.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.
“I love you,” he says.
And I answer the only way I know how.
“I love you too.”
Beside the table, Giovanna fades with a smile. She doesn’t vanish all at once—she lingers at the edge of the moment, soft and proud.
And then she’s gone. But not gone.
Never really.