Epilogue Raffa
Epilogue
Raffa
Christmas morning arrived in a wash of white.
The hills and valleys extending from the villa were layered in crystalline powder that glittered in the colorless light filtering in through low, pale clouds.
It seemed like something from a dreamscape, a landscape so pristine it could not exist anywhere outside the mind.
It was the perfect day to marry the girl of my dreams.
The woman who had taken my hand and led me out of my own personal hell into a future I had never dared to envision for myself.
Only seven weeks had passed since I had killed Tonio and Gemma had been returned to her family. Seven weeks of incandescent joy and grueling trials as I purged my organization of Tonio’s influence and Guinevere adjusted to life as a capo’s bride.
John and Elizabeth had stayed in Tuscany to oversee both their daughters, given that neither of them consented to return to Michigan.
Understandably, the Stone parents would not be parted from either child after what they had all been through, even with John’s long-standing hatred of this country and my lifestyle.
Clearly, I had underestimated the lengths the man would go to for his family.
It made for some interesting family dinners, merging the Stones with my wild, warm Romano clan and my found family of Renzo, Carmine, Ludo, and Martina, but after a few weeks, the Stones started to unwind and soften toward everyone.
It was largely due to Gemma, who was so fragile and, apparently, wildly unlike how she had been before her abduction that any conflict sent her into a blind panic only Leo could bring her back from.
But it was also because of my Vera.
After everything she had been through to be with me, it would have been reasonable for her to be bitter or afraid, spooked by the creak of a closing door or the shout of one of the children in the yard.
Instead, there was a strength and vibrancy in her that had lain half hidden beneath the sand, like treasure yearning to be dug up and exposed, when she had first arrived in Italy.
She moved through the world bravely, boldly, with an elegance and inner peace that transfixed me whenever I had the opportunity to observe her cooking with Mamma, Stacci, Delfina, and Carlotta or playing with the children or walking quietly with Gemma among the vines.
Guinevere was at peace. With me.
It was a conclusion I drew again and again each day I spent with her at my side, and yet it had not once lost its wonder.
As a boy, I had yearned for a different kind of life than my father or uncle had wanted for me and assumed that when I was forced to take up their mantle, I would lose a part of my soul in the process.
But Guinevere had proved me wrong. She had shown me I was still capable of goodness, even when the decision was hard, such as pardoning Leo for allowing himself to be blackmailed by Tonio.
She had shown me that even though I had blood on my hands and sin on my mind, I was still capable of the kind of profound love that artists and poets had written about throughout history.
Sometimes, in the darkest hours of the night, I lay awake beside her in our bed and trailed my fingers down the knobs of her spine, over the arch of her buttocks and the curve of her thigh, just to make sure she was real. Just to know she was mine.
All that sweet curiosity and keen intelligence, that steadfast loyalty and passionate fervor, wrapped up in that slim, doe-eyed frame.
In those night hours when the familiar specters of self-hatred and self-doubt visited my bedside, it helped to touch her like that and remember that she was strong enough to survive this life. To survive me.
Not only survive it, but also thrive in it.
My huntress had started working at the Romano Group, cleaning up the mess Tonio had made of the previously entirely legal enterprise so that it would not draw the attention of Sansone Pucci’s DIA.
She did not want to be CEO, because she was curious about the criminal side of my businesses too, intrigued by the loopholes and schemes we had constructed to take advantage of the government and twist their profits for our own.
“I think I have a knack for this,” she had said one afternoon, sitting in my lap in the office Carmine and I used. I had been working when she came into the room and folded herself into my lap without hesitation, clicking through the proposal I was reading as if it was her right to do so.
It was a little intimacy that took my breath away, her comfort with me and her confidence in the fact that she belonged, with me, in this house, in the Camorra and this dark world of mine.
It never failed to arouse and wow me.
So I had proceeded to show her that I had a knack too, one involving my tongue and the sweet-slick apex of her thighs.
We were both busy in the wake of Day of the Dead, Guinevere with her new work and tending to Gemma, John, and Elizabeth, but also to my nephews, who had varying degrees of trauma from the night of the fire. Zacheo in particular had imprinted on her and monopolized her time whenever he could.
Guinevere did not protest.
In fact, one night only two weeks after our confrontation with Tonio, when I was seated to the root inside her as she rode me in a sinuous, rocking rhythm like the waves rushing to shore at Livorno, she had bent to me and whispered, “I want children with you more than my next breath.”
She was still young, and we had not been together for a full year, but I knew that was in our future, filling this house with even more children to love and cherish as we did Stacci’s and Carlotta’s.
Children.
A concept I had never thought of for myself.
One that I had written in invisible ink on the inside of my heart.
Of course, my Vera could see that and offer it to me, yet another gift I would never be able to repay her for, though I would spend the rest of my life trying.
“Can I speak to you for a moment?”
I was pulled from my contemplation by John standing at the door to my office in a custom tux I had insisted on buying for him for the wedding. He had grumbled, but when Elizabeth had seen him in it and practically cooed her praise, he had actually blushed.
My imminent father-in-law and I had not magically become close over the last month and a half. Guinevere was his treasure, and I was the villain taking her away from her life in Michigan to an Italian life of crime.
But he had softened, almost imperceptibly.
I had caught him with a smile at the edges of his mouth when he watched Guinevere laugh with me, when he saw the way I treated my mother and sisters. He might have wanted to hate me, but I was the choice his daughter had made, and he respected her enough to treat me courteously.
“Certo,” I said, indicating the couch along one wall.
I took the chair across from him and waited.
The wedding would start in half an hour, and I had been relegated to my office when I had arrived this morning from Stacci’s house because I was not allowed to see the bride before the wedding.
“I understand you still haven’t decided what to do with Leo,” John said, surprising me.
We did not try to keep business discussions from John and Elizabeth, just as we did not from my family, but we mostly spoke about outfit affairs in my office. Though it was not exactly hard to discern that I did not know what to do about Leo di Conte.
He had been my best friend all my life only to betray me in order to save the life of the girl he loved. A girl who happened to be the sister of my own beloved.
I could not exactly murder him for his crimes when doing so would hurt Gemma and therefore Guinevere.
When, if I was deeply honest with myself, it would hurt me.
The problem was, I did not trust him with my business anymore, and I did not trust him in my life. He remained on the property—he and Gemma stayed in the guesthouse down the road, near Carlotta’s house, because Guinevere needed her family close—but he was not welcome in my orbit.
Nor was he particularly welcome in Guinevere’s, though she tried to be cordial for Gemma’s sake.
Even though I did not want him near, he also knew too much about my dealings for me to let him go off on his own.
“I think I have a solution,” John continued, scowling at his hands as though they had wronged him.
“I would like to hear it,” I said, leaning back comfortably in the chair so he would know he had the floor.
He rubbed a hand over his mouth, then fixed his gaze on mine, dark eyes hard with resolve.
“The Pietras are in disarray since you killed Gaetano. My sister’s boys are too young to take over, and there is no clear line of succession.
But Gemma is a Pietra, and Leo is a seasoned mafioso with knowledge of the clan.
” He did not mention that Leo’s intimate knowledge of the clan came from Tonio’s attempt to onboard the Pietras for his attempted coup.
“I am willing to stay for six months to stabilize the family and teach Leo and Gemma the ropes, as it were, before I go back to Michigan.”
My brows rose of their own volition. “This is a surprise from someone who once threatened to cut out his daughter for merely visiting the country. You are now willing to stay and dirty your hands once more? Why?”
John looked out the window as if the answer was written on the windowpane.
“You don’t have children yet, but one day I imagine you’ll understand exactly why I am offering this.
I’ve made no bones about the fact I did not want this life for either of my girls, but it is the life they both chose.
Gemma is not happy with me and the lies I told that kept her from her heritage.
All she wants is a life with Leo, and all Leo knows is this life.
” He opened his hands wide. “I thought she was dead, Raffaele. I mourned her. I organized her funeral. Second chances are so rare, and I have one. If I can help my daughters in any way, I will, even if it goes against my own grain.”