23. Amara #2
I want to believe him. I want to sink into him and let the world go away. But the instinct is there, pulsing in the back of my brain like a neon sign. *Run. Get out before the silence swallows you. Get out before you realize there’s nothing left.*
I’ve never made a home. I’ve never stayed anywhere long enough to see the seasons change. I’m a creature of motion, of exits and escape routes. And now, for once in my life, there’s no reason to move.
It feels like a cage.
“Amara, look at me.” Alessio’s voice is firm, pulling me back from the edge of the spiral. “You’re thinking about the door. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I’ve always had a door, Alessio,” I say, my voice trembling. “I’ve always had a bag packed by the bed. It’s how I stayed alive.”
“You’re not just staying alive anymore,” he says, his grip tightening. “You’re living. With me. With the family.”
“The family,” I repeat. The word feels heavy. “I don’t even know who I am without the case, Alessio. I’m just… a woman with a dead brother and a lot of anger. What happens when the anger is gone?”
“We find out,” he says. “Together.”
I look past him, into the dark recesses of the warehouse. The brothers are coming out of the office now. They look exhausted, their shoulders slumped, their faces weary. They’ve won the war, but they’ve lost their father figure and their peace of mind.
We’re all just survivors now.
It’s Dominic who finally says it. He is staring back at the warehouse like a man reading a headstone. “We don’t heal here,” Dominic says. “Not yet. I want ground with no graves in it.”
“The mountains,” Alessio says. His hand tightens around mine. “Lucia’s town. Pine Valley.”
Dominic nods once, and just like that, the decision has weight. “The mountains. The first group moves within the week. We take the family somewhere it can breathe, and then we decide what we rebuild.”
“We need to get back,” Alessio says, his hand sliding down to interlace with mine. “Dominic wants to head to the compound. We have to bring Turi home.”
The mention of Turi brings a fresh wave of grief. The man who raised them. The man who betrayed them. The man who died to save them. It’s too much. It’s all too much.
We walk out to the cars in silence. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, a misty shroud that clings to everything. The drive back to the North Side is a blur of city lights and wet asphalt. Alessio doesn’t say a word, but his hand stays open between us, close enough for me to take if I need it.
The compound is quiet when we arrive. The lights are low, and the air feels heavy with the weight of the day’s events.
The women are waiting in the foyer with phones, first-aid supplies, and faces carved by exhaustion.
When we walk through the door, the tension breaks in a wave of hushed voices and tearful embraces.
I watch them. I watch Sienna throw her arms around Dominic. I watch Natalia pull Enzo close. I watch the way they hold the room together while the men come back bloody and hollow.
They are a family. A real, messy, blood-soaked family.
And I’m standing on the edge of it, still wearing my damp jacket, still feeling the phantom weight of a duffel bag on my shoulder.
“Amara?” Alessio is watching me, his brow furrowed. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lie. The word tastes like ash. “I just… I need a minute.”
I turn and walk toward the stairs, my feet moving on autopilot.
I don’t go to the bedroom. I go to the library, which should be the last place I want after everything Turi hid there, and maybe that is why my feet take me there.
I need to be surrounded by books, by things that have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
I need to feel something solid beneath my feet.
I find a chair in the corner, one of the heavy leather ones that smells like old paper and tobacco. I sit down and stare at the empty fireplace.
It’s over. The thought keeps looping in my head until the words stop sounding like language.
The silence of the house is different tonight. It’s not the expectant silence of a war zone. It’s the hollow silence of a graveyard. The war is won, but the cost has teeth. Turi is gone. Lorenzo is finished. The vendetta has nowhere left to stand.
I feel a sudden, sharp pang of loneliness that nearly takes my breath away.
I’ve been alone for ten years, but I’ve never felt lonely. I had my brother’s memory. I had the hunt. Now, I’m in a house full of people, with a man who says he loves me, and I feel like I’m drifting in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.
I look at the door. It’s right there. I could walk out. I could try to find my car, try to grab my bag, try to become motion before anyone could stop me. I could go back to being the girl who doesn’t have a home. I could go back to the familiar comfort of the run.
It would be so easy.
I stand up, my heart pounding against my ribs. My legs feel weak, but the impulse is growing, a frantic, screaming need to get away from the quiet. To get away from the weight of the Costa name. To get away from the eyes that look at me and see a hero, when I only feel like a ghost.
I take a step toward the door, then another.
“Where are you going?”
I freeze. Alessio is standing in the doorway, his silhouette blocking the light from the hall. He hasn’t changed out of his dark clothes. He still looks like a soldier, but his eyes are full of a desperate, searching light.
“I… I just needed some air,” I say, my voice cracking.
“The air is out there,” he says, gesturing toward the window. “The door is back that way.”
He walks toward me, his steps slow and deliberate. He doesn’t stop until he’s inches away, his heat enveloping me. He reaches out and takes my face in his hands, his thumbs stroking my cheekbones.
“Don’t do it, Amara,” he whispers. “Don’t run.”
“I don’t know how to stay, Alessio,” I sob, the first tear finally breaking free. “I don’t know how to be the person who stays.”
“You learn,” he says, pulling me into his chest. He wraps his arms around me, tight at first, then loosens them enough for me to choose to stay. “You learn one day at a time. You stay for coffee in the morning. For the way the light hits the floor. For yourself first. For me when you can.”
I bury my face in his shirt, breathing in the scent of him—soap, rain, and the faint, lingering smell of gunpowder. It’s a terrifying smell. It’s a beautiful smell.
“I’m scared,” I whisper into his chest.
“I know,” he says, his hand moving to the back of my head, holding me close. “I’m scared too. The ghosts are quieter now,” he says. “That’s a start.”
I cling to him, my fingers digging into the fabric of his shirt. I want to believe him. I want to let go of the door. I want to believe that the silence isn’t a graveyard, but a clean slate.
But as I stand there in the dark library, held by the man who found me in the middle of a war, I can still feel the ghost of my brother’s hand on my shoulder, urging me to keep moving. I can still hear the siren song of the open road.
The war is over. The vengeance is done.
But the battle for my own soul is just beginning.
I pull back slightly, looking up at him. His face is weary, his eyes shadowed with the weight of everything he’s carried for eleven years. He’s tired. He’s so, so tired.
“Go to bed, Alessio,” I say softly. “You need to sleep.”
“Not without you,” he says, his gaze unwavering.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I promise. “I just… I want to sit here for a moment. In the quiet.”
He hesitates, his protective instinct warring with his exhaustion. Finally, he nods, leaning down to press a long, lingering kiss to my forehead.
“Don’t be long,” he says. “I need you there when I wake up.”
“I’ll be there,” I say.
I watch him walk out of the room, his shadow stretching across the floor. When he’s gone, the library feels even larger, the silence even deeper.
I sit back down in the leather chair. I don’t look at the door. I look at the empty fireplace.
I think about Curtis. I think about the forty thousand dollars. I think about the way his eyes looked when he laughed. I try to hold onto the memory, but it feels different now. It feels lighter. Like a photo that’s started to fade in the sun.
He’s at peace. I know he is.
But am I?
I stay in the chair for a long time, watching the shadows dance on the walls as the city lights flicker outside. The rain has stopped now, leaving the world in a damp, expectant hush.
The house is quiet. The family is sleeping. The war is over.
I stand up and walk toward the window. I look out at the Chicago skyline, a glittering map of a thousand lives I’ll never know. I think about all the times I’ve looked out windows like this, wondering where I’d be next week, next month, next year.
I don’t have to wonder anymore.
I know where I might be. In this house. With this man. Part of this family of survivors.
The thought should be comforting. It should be the ‘happily ever after’ I’ve spent my whole life avoiding.
But as I turn away from the window and walk toward the stairs, my heart is still a frantic bird in a cage. My feet are still light, ready to pivot at the first sign of trouble. My mind is still mapping the exits, even as I walk toward the bed I’m supposed to share.