Epilogue
Maya
The morning of my wedding begins with Erin standing on my bed in a robe three sizes too big, holding up two pairs of shoes as if someone has appointed her to public office.
“These,” she says, lifting the white heels. The silver flats droop from her other hand.
“Not these.”
I sit in front of the mirror while Dolores pins the last piece of my hair into place. “Why not those?”
“Because they are boring.”
“They are comfortable.”
“That is what boring people say when they do not want to admit they have bad taste.”
Dolores makes a sound behind me, equal parts laughter and prayer for patience.
Across the room, Heath sits in the seat beside the window, already dressed in the black suit Stefano had made for him. He keeps fixing his tie when he thinks no one is looking.
“You are both going to make her late,” he says.
Erin turns on him. “You took twenty minutes to choose a pocket square.”
“I chose the black one.”
“You picked up every single one first.”
“That was checking them.”
“That was panicking.”
His mouth tightens.
Then, quietly, he says, “It is a big day.”
The room softens around the words.
Erin lowers the shoes. Dolores’s hands pause in my hair. I meet Heath’s eyes in the mirror, and he holds my gaze.
A year ago, he would have swallowed that thought whole. He would have waited until the house was asleep and tried to carry fear without giving it a name.
Now he says it.
“It is,” I tell him.
His fingers smooth over the front of his jacket. “You are still doing it though.”
“Yes.”
“Even though Stefano is scary.”
Erin gasps as if he has said something scandalous.
I smile at Heath’s reflection. “Especially because Stefano is scary.”
That earns me the smallest trace of a grin.
The venue is a restored stone conservatory on the edge of the city, all tall windows and ironwork, bare branches visible beyond the glass.
It is not as majestic as Stefano could have made it.
There are no cameras, politicians, or endless tables of strangers calling themselves family because the Savarese name gives them something to hold onto.
Instead, there are fewer than forty people in the room.
There are fewer than forty people in the room.
Dolores stands near the front in deep green silk, already dabbing at her eyes.
Omar is next to her in a black suit, looking like he would rather face a firing squad than a flower arrangement.
Victor and Alex sit in the first row with their hands linked between them.
Raven is near the aisle in a dark blue dress, skeptical enough to suggest she might arrest someone if the vows become too sentimental.
Everyone seems held in place by the moment.
Stefano waits at the end of the aisle.
The sight of him nearly stops me.
He wears black, of course. Perfectly fitted suit, dark shirt, no tie.
His hair is swept back, his jaw tense enough to tell me he has been standing there too long, pretending he is not nervous.
He turns the ring on one finger while he watches the doors, like he is guarding the threshold of his own future.
Then he sees me.
Everything in his face changes.
Not the way it did at the auction, when he looked at me as if he had already decided I belonged to him.
This is quieter.
Like the whole room has fallen away, and I am the only thing he sees.
My hand finds Heath’s arm.
He is walking me down the aisle because that was what he wanted. He asked in the kitchen three weeks ago while Erin colored at the table and Alex pretended not to listen.
Can I walk with you?
Not give you away. Not take anyone’s place. Just walk with you.
“Yes,” I had said before he finished asking.
Now he looks up at me, his small hand tucked firmly around my arm.
“You okay?” he whispers.
“I was about to ask you that.”
“I am okay.”
“Are you sure?”
He nods. “I have you.”
“You do,” I tell him. “Always.”
Then we start walking.
The music is soft beneath the sound of shoes against stone. Erin goes first, scattering white petals from a basket she has been carrying like a revered object. She takes the job seriously for four steps, then throws an entire handful into the air and beams as they rain down around her.
Omar rubs a hand over his face.
Dolores starts crying in earnest.
Stefano does not look away from me.
By the time Heath brings me to him, my chest feels too full to breathe properly, and the distance between us seems to disappear.
Heath stops in front of Stefano and looks up.
For a second, Stefano’s expression hardens against whatever emotion rises too quickly in his throat. Then he places a hand on Heath’s shoulder.
“You did well,” Stefano says.
Heath’s chin lifts slightly. “I know.”
A small laugh moves through the room.
Then Heath steps beside Erin, and Stefano takes my hand, the shift from one to the other almost seamless.
His fingers close around mine.
Warm. Steady.
“You are beautiful,” he says under his breath.
My throat contracts as the officiant begins.
I hear the words. I answer the questions. When asked whether I have come here freely, I say yes, and the word feels different now than it would have a year ago.
Freely.
I am not blind to what Stefano has done. I have not forgotten Boston, Alice, or the way he once turned every room into a place where I had to fight for space.
I say yes because I know all of it.
Because he knows I know.
Because love without truth is only another kind of control.
When it is time for our vows, Stefano takes both my hands. The room seems to hold its breath with us.
“I spent most of my life believing love made people weak,” he says. His voice is low, but it carries through the room. “I believed needing someone gave them the right to hurt you. I believed protecting people meant deciding for them.”
He looks at me fully.
“I was wrong.”
No one moves.
“I believed protecting people meant deciding for them.” His grip tightens just enough for me to feel it. “It is choosing them every day, even when they make you face the parts of yourself you would rather bury.”
My eyes burn.
“I cannot promise you a life without danger. I cannot pretend I will become harmless.” His voice lowers. “But I will never make you smaller to fit inside my world. I will build a life where you have room to stand beside me.”
He pauses.
“And when you tell me no, I will hear you.”
It is not a perfect vow.
It is better.
The officiant turns to me.
I look down at our hands. Stefano’s are scarred and strong. They have held weapons. They have hurt people. They have learned, slowly and painfully, to open instead of close around everything they want.
Then I look at him.
“I used to think choosing someone dangerous meant I had failed myself,” I say. “I thought love was supposed to make you feel safe before anything else. Easy. Certain.”
“But safety can be a practice. It can be a person showing up after they have failed you and doing the work of becoming someone you can trust.”
Stefano’s jaw tightens.
“I will not promise to be quiet when you scare me. I will not promise to make myself easier to love.”
His eyes darken.
“I love you because you never asked me to be easy,” I say. “You asked me to be honest. You challenged me. You infuriated me. You made me want things I was terrified to want.”
Even Raven’s mouth twitches.
“I choose you with my eyes open. Not because I need you to save me. Because I want this life. I want our daughter. I want the twins at our table. I want the arguments, the late nights, the ruined coffee, and the way you look at me when you think no one else can see.”
I squeeze his hands.
“And I want you beside me when I build something that is mine too.”
Stefano closes his eyes for one brief second.
When he opens them, there is no distance left in them.
The rings are simple bands of platinum. Mine is engraved inside with one word.
Choice.
His has the same.
When he slides the ring onto my finger, his hand shakes once.
Barely.
Enough that only I notice.
The officiant says we are married, and the words land softly before anything else can break them.
Stefano does not wait for permission to kiss me. His mouth finds mine with a softness that feels nearly private despite the room around us, as if the ceremony has opened into something more subdued and more absolute.
His mouth finds mine with a softness that feels almost private despite the room around us. His hand cups my jaw. Mine settles against his chest.
For one second, he is not the don. Not the man people fear. Not the man who once bought me in a room full of monsters.
He is my husband.
When we pull apart, Erin is crying openly. Dolores is crying harder. Omar looks furious at everyone for making him stand through this. Heath watches us for half a second before he steps forward and wraps his arms around us both.
Stefano freezes.
Then he bends and holds him.
Erin crashes into us a second later, and suddenly there are too many arms, too many flowers, too many people laughing through tears.
It is messy.
It is perfect.
Later, after dinner and dancing and Omar reluctantly allowing Erin to pull him onto the floor for one song, Stefano and I slip away to the small suite above the conservatory, leaving the noise behind us.
The city glows through the windows.
My dress is half-unbuttoned. His jacket is gone. The room is warm and ours for a little while.
He stands behind me at the mirror, brushing his mouth against the arc of my shoulder.
His hands rest on my stomach. The baby kicks again beneath his palm, and the man who has stared down guns and enemies without blinking looks undone by one small movement beneath his hand.
I turn in his arms.
“What are you thinking?”
“That she will have your eyes.”
“You have no way of knowing that.”
“I have decided.”
“That is not how genetics work.”
“It should be.”
I laugh, and he kisses me again.
Slowly.
No urgency. No fear waiting behind it. Pure warmth and the gentle certainty of his hands on me, his mouth against mine, the future already moving below my heart.
When he draws back, his thumb catches a fine strand of hair near my cheek.
“We still have not named her,” I say. “You suggested Gianna.”
“It is a beautiful name.”
“It is your mother’s name. I do not want our daughter turned into a family memorial before she has a chance to become herself.”
He watches me for a moment, then nods. “Fair.”
“I do not want a name picked because it sounds like a Savarese either.”
His mouth curves. “You married a Savarese today.”
“I married you. There is a difference.”
The smile fades into something warmer.
“Yes,” he says. “There is.”
I turn back toward the mirror and lay my hands over his on my stomach.
“I keep coming back to Isabella.”
He does not answer.
I look over my shoulder. “You hate it?”
“No.”
“Then say something.”
His eyes hold mine in the reflection. “I thought of it too.”
I blink.
“What?”
“Before Boston. I wrote it down because it sounded right. Then I put the paper away because I told myself I had no business thinking about children.”
For a second, I cannot speak.
“You liked it before I said it?”
“Yes.”
“That is irritating.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to think I found the perfect name first.”
“You did.”
“But you already liked it.”
“I liked it because it would be yours.”
He brushes his mouth against my temple.
“Isabella,” he says quietly. “It suits her.”
“It feels strong.”
“She will be.”
“She could be soft too.”
“She will be whatever she chooses.”
The answer settles between us.
Not a future chosen for her.
Space left open for her to choose it herself.
I turn in his arms and thread my fingers through his.
“Then Isabella,” I whisper.
His gaze drops to our hands.
“Isabella Savarese.”
“She gets my name too.”
His brows lift.
“Maya.”
“I am serious. Reeves-Savarese or Savarese-Reeves. We can decide later.”
“You are naming our daughter and renegotiating surnames on our wedding night.”
“You married me knowing I multitask.”
A low laugh leaves him.
Then he takes my face in both hands and kisses me, slow enough that it feels less like hunger and more like a vow no officiant could have written for us.
When he pulls back, he rests his head against mine.
“Isabella Reeves-Savarese,” he says.
The baby kicks again underneath my palm.
I smile.
“Seems like she approves.”
For once, I do not need to run from the future.
The End?