Chapter 46
VIOLET
The cereal-box castle has survived a month and sits on the kitchen floor in the corner by the pantry, fortified with cardboard buttresses Gianni engineered during a Saturday morning construction session.
The blue paper moat is slightly crumpled but intact.
Dragon stands on the highest tower, surveying his domain.
Patrick, the head architect himself, is in the process of shoving his PJs into his backpack with total intensity—a sleepover is happening tonight, and he’s not messing around.
"Do I need two extra pairs of socks or one?" he asks.
"One should be fine," I say from the kitchen island, where the manuscript is sitting in front of me. Printed. Bound. Four hundred and twelve pages. My name on the cover—my real name. Well, my new real name.
"Two," Gianni says. "Always pack an extra-extra pair. You never know. And there’s nothing worse than being stuck in wet socks. Trust me, I know.”
"See, Mama? Two."
"Two it is."
“I think my other shoe is under the couch,” Patrick says.
“Allow me, young man,” Gianni replies.
I watch them from the kitchen island, Gianni on his hands and knees, dressed in the henley-and-jeans combo I can’t get enough of. With a strain and an expression of total focus, he reaches under his massive couch for a sneaker that probably cost ten dollars.
I watch the muscles of his arm work, licking my lips as I do. God, the man has an effect on me that I can’t even begin to understand—even after everything we’ve been through.
Patrick squats beside him, offering tactical advice. "I think it went behind Dragon's castle. Check by the moat."
This is my life now. And I still can't believe it.
The sneaker is recovered. Patrick shoves it into the backpack, zips it with triumphant finality, and throws the backpack over his shoulder.
"Bug, go brush your teeth before Nina gets here."
"I already brushed them."
"When?"
"This morning."
"That was twelve hours ago. Go brush them again."
He sighs and trudges to the bathroom.
Gianni stands and catches my eye across the room. He's got dust on his shirt and a smudge of something on his jaw that might be chocolate from the cookie Patrick was eating earlier, and he looks so far from the CEO and Camorra boss he is at all other times that it’s almost comical.
The elevator chime goes off and the doors open. Nina strolls out with her usual easy warmth.
"Marco's mom texted," Nina says. "Rudi's making empanadas and the boys are building a fort in the living room. Security detail is already downstairs."
"Thank you, Nina."
“Take the rest of the night to yourself after you drop Patrick off,” Gianni says. “No arguments, no cleaning up any messes.”
Nina chuckles and offers a sly salute. “You got it, boss.”
Patrick comes barreling out of the bathroom, toothpaste on his chin, backpack bouncing. He hugs my legs first—tight, fast, the perfunctory squeeze of a boy who has places to be.
"Bye, Mama."
"Bye, bug. Be good. Love you."
"Love you too."
Then he turns to Gianni. And something shifts in his face—not dramatic, not a moment of grave realization. Simpler and softer. He wraps his arms around Gianni's waist.
"Bye, Dad," he says.
The room stops.
Patrick doesn’t notice, of course. He’s already grabbing Nina’s hand, going on about the new X-Men Lego set Marco just got. Nina most certainly did notice, however, and reacts by offering us an expression of total surprise over her shoulder as she and Patrick head for the elevator.
Nina glances at me. I give her a look that says go, just go, please go before I completely fall apart. She reads it perfectly, steers Patrick to the door, and they disappear into the elevator with a security guard joining them.
The door closes.
I look at Gianni. He hasn’t moved. He’s standing in the middle of the living room with his arms at his sides and an expression on his face I haven’t seen before. It’s almost like something cracked inside of him… but in the best way possible.
He also looks like he has zero idea how to react to what just happened.
"Did he just—" he starts.
"Yeah."
"He called me—"
"Yeah."
We stare at each other. Neither of us moves. The apartment is quiet—the tick of the kitchen clock, the hum of the city through the windows, and the echo of what Patrick said still lingering in the air.
My heart feels warm, a smile slowly spreading across my face. I want to say something—hell, I want to jump up and down with joy. But the greater part of me wants to just… let the moment exist.
I clear my throat. "Whiskey?"
"God, yes."
I grab two glasses and set them down on the kitchen island before heading over to the liquor cabinet. I smirk when I spot one of the bottles.
“There’s the Macallan,” I say. “But if you’re in a more sentimental mood, there’s still the Evan Williams from my place.”
He laughs. “You brought that?”
“What, and let perfectly good booze go to waste? Of course I did.”
He starts towards me. “Evan Williams it is. Reminds me of our first night together.”
We settle at the kitchen island. The manuscript sits between us. I take a sip—water for me—and he takes a sip of the good stuff, and for a moment we just sit in the quiet of a home that belongs to both of us.
"So," I say. "I heard Lance took the plea deal."
"Fifteen to twenty. Federal facility. No parole eligibility for twelve years.
" Gianni turns the glass in his hand. "His parental rights were terminated by the family court last week.
The judge reviewed the criminal case and the domestic violence record Kylie unearthed—the one Lance spent a decade burying. It was… decisive."
"And no trial."
"No trial. No cameras. No courtroom. No audience." He looks at me. "For a man like Lance, that's worse than the sentence. He disappears. Nobody watches. Nobody cares. He just—stops existing."
I think about that. The narcissist's worst nightmare—not punishment, but irrelevance. God, how he’d love the chance to get in front of some cameras and grandstand about the injustices done to him. But he won’t get that chance.
He’ll be erased, just like he forced me to be.
"Theresa?" I ask.
"Cooperated fully. Testified against Lance and Marino. Reduced charges—accessory, conspiracy. Three to five years, but she'll likely serve eighteen months." He pauses. "When she gets out, there won't be a door open for her. Not in New York. Not anywhere my name reaches."
"Which is everywhere."
"Which is everywhere."
I don't feel sorry for her. I tried—in the weeks after the cabin, I tried to find compassion for a woman who was manipulated by a narcissist and used by a crime boss.
But I remember the smirk in the alley. The way she leaned against the wall with her arms crossed and watched Lance take my arm.
She knew what he was. She knew what he'd done to me. And she helped him anyway.
Compassion has limits—and she found mine.
"And Marino?"
“Arrested.”
“Damn. They didn’t waste any time.”
“They didn’t need to. The feds had Kylie’s evidence plus Theresa’s testimony. That was more than enough for the Bureau to get the RICO indictments they wanted.”
“So… Marino’s seat is empty now, if I’m getting how this works.”
“You are. And it is. Younger man named Michael Soprano.”
“Wait, Soprano? As in—”
“The same name. It’s not too uncommon, actually.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “A guy named Soprano in the mob.”
“He’s… sensitive about it. But competent in every way that matters. Just don’t do any Tony impressions around him.”
“Hadn’t planned on it, but noted.”
“And the most important thing is he’s ready to work with us, to put all of this fighting and backstabbing behind us, focus on making money, keeping the peace.
“That’s all that matters.”
He nods. “That’s all that matters.”
It's over. The part that was trying to kill us is over.
Right at that moment, a text arrives from Kylie.
Hey! Lunch tomorrow, don’t forget!
I heart react, tell her I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
“That Kylie?” Gianni asks before taking a sip.
“Sure was. That easy to tell?”
“She seems to have a sixth sense for when we’re having a conversation she’d like to be a part of. She can’t seem to resist gossip.”
I grin. “What’re you suggesting, she’s got the place bugged?”
“With her, you never know.” He turns his attention to the manuscript. “At the moment, I’m less interested in Kylie’s tech antics and more interested in that.”
I slide the manuscript across the island. "It's finished."
Gianni sets down his glass. Looks at the manuscript—the printed pages, the binding, the title page. His name isn't on it, but he's on every page. He knows, I know, and soon, everyone who reads it will know.
He opens it. Flips past the first chapter, past the second. Stops somewhere in the middle—a passage he seems to find by instinct, the way he's always found the parts of me I was trying to hide.
He reads aloud.
“He’s not a good man, and he never has been.
Then again, he’s never pretended otherwise.
He’s done things that would make most people toss and turn for the rest of their lives.
But he’s not most people. At first I thought he was cruel, maybe even evil.
But now I know the things he does he does for a reason.
And right now, that reason has red hair and green eyes and is carrying his child. ”
He stops. Looks up at me.
"The first time I read your manuscript," he says, "you wrote a fantasy. A man who looked like me but wasn't me. A version you invented because the real one was too complicated."
"I remember."
"This isn't a fantasy."
"No. It's not."
"This is me. The real version. All of it—the dark parts, the violent parts, the parts you saw in the factory and the parts you’ve seen with Patrick." He closes the manuscript and sets his hand on the cover. "You finally got it right."
My throat tightens. "You're a tough subject."
"I'm an impossible subject. You made it look easy."
"It wasn't easy. It was the hardest thing I've ever written."
"Is that why it's the best thing you've ever written?"
I look at him—this man who read my secret manuscript and offered to, ahem, help with research, who knelt on a hospital floor and kissed the place where our child is growing.
This man who stood over the worst person I've ever known with a gun in his hand and chose not to pull the trigger because I asked him not to.
"You know," I say, "in the first chapter, you told me you wanted to see how it ends."
"I remember."
"It doesn't end."
"Good."
He stands and comes around the island and places his hand on the back of my head in that way I love, holding me close, making me feel safe. I close my eyes and smile, leaning into his touch.
"I have some notes," he says.
"Notes."
"On the final chapter. Some of the physicality is..." He tilts his head. That almost-smile. "Lacking specificity."
"You're going to help me with research again."
"I'm going to help you with everything. Again." His other hand finds my waist. Pulls me off the stool and against him. "Starting now."
He kisses me. Slow, deep, perfect. The manuscript sits on the counter between our abandoned glasses, four hundred and twelve pages of everything we are, and his mouth is on mine and his hand is in my hair and the night is just beginning.