20. Sal
— · —
Sal
Three Years Later
I had killed men without blinking. Stared down prosecutors. Survived assassination attempts. Built an empire from nothing and defended it against everyone who tried to take it from me.
None of it prepared me for this.
“I hate you.” Cami’s hand crushed mine, her grip strong enough to grind bones together. She was drenched in sweat, her hair plastered to her forehead, her face contorted with pain. “I hate you so much. You did this to me.”
“I know, baby.” I tried to sound soothing. Failed miserably. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be sorry.” Another contraction hit and she screamed, her back arching off the bed. “You should be very fucking sorry. This is all your fault.”
“I know.”
“Your fault!”
“I know.”
The doctor, a calm woman who had clearly seen this exact scene play out a thousand times, looked up from between Cami’s legs.
“You’re doing great, Mrs. Fiore. One more big push and we’ll have a baby.”
“One more?” Cami laughed hysterically. “You said that three pushes ago.”
“This time I mean it.” The doctor smiled. “Ready? On the next contraction, give me everything you’ve got.”
The contraction came.
Cami screamed. Pushed. Crushed my hand so hard I heard something crack.
And then there was a cry.
Thin and furious and absolutely perfect.
“It’s a girl.” The doctor lifted a tiny, squalling, red-faced creature into the air. “Congratulations.”
The world stopped.
Everything I thought I knew, everything I thought I was, everything I had built and destroyed and survived... none of it mattered. None of it existed. There was only this moment. This room. This tiny, screaming person who had just changed everything.
They laid her on Cami’s chest.
She was so small. So impossibly, terrifyingly small. Red-faced and scowling, her tiny fists waving in the air like she was already ready to fight the world. Already disappointed with everything she’d found.
“She looks like you.” Cami’s voice was exhausted but full of wonder. She touched the baby’s cheek with one trembling finger. “Poor kid.”
“Shut up.” I couldn’t stop staring. “She’s perfect.”
I reached out. Touched one impossibly small hand.
The baby’s fingers closed around mine. Tiny. Fragile. Holding on with a strength that shouldn’t have been possible.
A wall I had spent my whole life building broke open in my chest.
The thing behind it, the thing I had guarded with violence and silence and the certainty that I would never let anyone close enough to hurt me again.
It shattered. Completely and irreversibly.
“Hi.” My voice came out rough. Cracked. “I’m your dad.”
The baby opened her eyes. Dark, like her mother’s. Already fierce.
“And I am going to spend the rest of my life making sure no one ever hurts you.” I leaned down, pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I promise.”
Cami was crying. I was crying. Even the nurse in the corner was dabbing at her eyes.
“What should we name her?” Cami whispered.
I’d thought about this. For months, ever since we’d found out she was pregnant. Considered a hundred names, rejected them all, until finally one settled in my chest and refused to leave.
“Gianna.” My throat tightened around the word. “After my grandmother.”
Cami looked at me. Saw everything I wasn’t saying. The grandmother who had raised me after my mother died. The woman who had shown me what love looked like before I’d locked that knowledge away and forgotten it existed.
“Gianna Fiore.” Cami smiled through her tears. “It’s perfect.”
The baby yawned. Completely unimpressed with her own naming ceremony.
We laughed. Both of us. Wet and exhausted and happier than I had ever been in my entire life.
***
Later, the room went quiet.
Cami was asleep, finally, after hours of labor and the chaos of the first few feedings. Gianna was in the bassinet beside the bed, wrapped in a pink blanket, making soft snuffling sounds that I had already memorized.
I stood at the window and watched the sun come up.
The city stretched out below me, still sleeping, unaware that everything had changed. That Salvatore Fiore was no longer just a crime boss, a businessman, a man who had clawed his way up from nothing.
He was a father now.
My phone buzzed. A text from Pedro.
Security update: Logan Caldwell denied parole. Twenty-five years minimum. Thought you’d want to know.
I stared at the message for a long moment.
Twenty-five years. Logan would be old and broken by the time he got out, if he ever did.
Greta was rotting in a federal cell, convicted on multiple counts, her reputation destroyed.
The Brennans were on their own now, mending by themselves, dealing with the consequences of their choices without Cami there to smooth things over.
They’d made their bed. Now they could lie in it.
I deleted the message.
None of them mattered anymore. Logan. Greta. Linda. John. Rosalie. They were ghosts from another life, shadows that had no place in the world we were building now.
What mattered was the woman in that bed. The child in that bassinet. The family I never thought I would have.
I crossed the room. Pressed a kiss to Cami’s forehead.
She stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, hazy with sleep.
“Baby okay?” Her voice was thick, barely conscious.
“Perfect.” I smoothed her hair back from her face. “Go back to sleep.”
“Love you.” Already drifting off again.
“Love you more.”
“Impossible.” A faint smile curved her lips as she slipped back into sleep.
I settled into the chair beside her bed. Took her hand in mine. Watched the sun paint the room in shades of gold and pink.
A new day.
A new life.
A new beginning.
THE END