Chapter 24
GIADA
‘Where are you taking me?’ I ask.
Renzo glances at me, one corner of his mouth lifting. The grin is familiar, teasing – but there’s something ruthlessly serious beneath it now. Purpose. Finality. The look he wears when he’s already decided something and the world can either catch up or get out of the way.
‘You’ll see,’ he says.
The city slides past the windows, New York moving around us like nothing happened.
Like we didn’t just stand in a frozen castle halfway across the world and face the woman who shattered everything.
Like we didn’t leave her behind knowing she wouldn’t see another season, another sunrise that mattered.
I think about St Petersburg.
About Renzo standing perfectly still while fury burned through him, choosing restraint when violence would have been easier.
About how he never once treated me like something fragile to be locked away, even when fear gnawed at him.
About the vow he carries inside him – not just about women and children, but about control.
About choosing who he is, every single day.
I want to be worthy of that. I want to stand beside him while the weight eases. While the cracks begin to close.
He’s my everything.
I don’t say it yet. The words feel too important to rush. Instead, I place my hand on his thigh. Solid. Warm. Real. A quiet promise.
His hand covers mine immediately. He squeezes once, steady and grounding, like he understands exactly what I’m offering without needing it spoken.
We turn down a narrow street. Then another. The car slows.
Recognition blooms in my chest, soft and sudden. ‘Oh,’ I breathe.
The church rises ahead of us, stone worn smooth by time and prayer. It’s ordinary. Modest. Almost forgettable. The last place either of our families would ever think to look.
That’s why we stole away and came here before, as teenagers. Then as something more.
It was invisible. Safe. Ours.
Renzo cuts the engine and steps out, rounding the car to open my door like he always does. It’s such a small thing, but it still makes my heart stutter. He takes my hand and leads me inside.
The air is cool and still. Candle wax. Old wood. Dust and devotion. The hush of something sacred holding its breath.
He walks me down the aisle slowly.
My chest tightens. I can’t help imagining it differently – white dress instead of dark clothes, sunlight instead of shadows, his eyes on me like this but with no secrecy left in them. Promise instead of hiding, not that we need to hide any more.
We stop beneath the altar and Renzo tilts his head back, looking up at the cross. ‘Well,’ he says lightly, ‘I figure we’re even now.’
I gasp despite myself. ‘Renzo Salvatore, that is sacrilegious.’
He smirks. ‘Nah. Me and the Man Upstairs? We’ve got an understanding.’
He tugs gently at my hand, but I don’t move.
I look up at the carved figure above us. The suffering. The sacrifice. The forgiveness offered freely, even when it wasn’t deserved.
I close my eyes.
Thank you, I think. For sparing us. For guiding us back to each other. For love that survived what should have destroyed it.
Renzo waits. He always does. He never rushes me when it matters.
When I open my eyes, he’s watching me with something close to awe. Like he’s seeing me clearly for the first time.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key.
I blink. ‘You just… have that?’
‘Always did.’
Of course he did.
The special room waits behind an unassuming door. Same narrow cot. Same small window. Same hush that once held our secrets and our fear and our want.
He closes the door behind us.
This time, there’s no urgency. No fear of footsteps outside and no countdown ticking in our heads.
He reaches for me slowly, deliberately, as if the moment deserves patience. I help him undress, my fingers relearning him like it’s a vow written in touch. He does the same for me, reverent, unhurried, as though my body is something precious he never intends to take for granted again.
‘Giada,’ he says quietly, forehead resting against mine. ‘I almost lost you.’
‘You didn’t,’ I whisper.
‘I will never let that happen again.’
I cup his face, feeling the stubble under my palms, the strength beneath the restraint. ‘I know.’
We come together gently, deeply, reclaiming each other with no rush. Just a breathtaking closeness and heat. The steady truth of us settling into place.
After, we lie tangled together, his arm around me and my head on his chest. His heartbeat is slow and strong beneath my ear, proof that we’re here. That we survived.
‘I love you,’ he says, voice rough and certain. ‘I’ve loved you longer than I had the right to.’
Tears gather before I can stop them. I lift my head to look at him properly.
‘I love you too,’ I say. ‘I think I always have.’
We don’t need witnesses. We don’t need vows spoken aloud.
We’ve already given each other everything.
And nothing is waiting in the shadows to tear it away.