Chapter 38
EVA
I'm floating.
Voices reach me through dense fog. Adriano's words. I love you. I'm sorry I left you with him. But they seem to come from miles away as I drift between awareness and nothingness.
Is this death? This weightless suspension between worlds?
Images flash before me. My father smiling on my sixteenth birthday… the first time Adriano kissed me… Mirabella's tiny face when she was born. They blur and twist like memories viewed through a funhouse mirror.
My mother appears, looking just as she did before cancer took her. She reaches for me, her smile gentle. "Not yet, Eva. Your daughter needs you."
The vision shifts. I see Mirabella crying, Adriano holding her as she screams for her mommy. My heart shatters.
Then Lorenzo Dante materializes, his eyes cold as the day he threatened me. "You were never good enough for my son."
"No," I try to say, but my mouth won't work.
The visions swirl faster. Ivan's sneering face, Alessandro's suspicion, Adriano's heartbreak when he thought I betrayed him.
Pain spikes through my temple, dragging me back toward consciousness.
Light stabs my eyes when I finally manage to open them. The ceiling above me swims into focus. I recognize the ornate molding from the Dante estate. I'm alive. And I’m at the Dantes’.
"She's awake," a man's voice says.
An older gentleman in a white coat leans over me, shining a penlight that sends daggers of pain through my skull.
"Miss Santoro, I'm Dr. Russo. You're quite lucky.
" His voice is clinical but kind. "The bullet grazed your temple and traveled under the skin along your skull. Minimal tissue damage, no penetration to the cranial cavity. We've stitched you up. You’ll have a scar, but you’re alive. It’s a true miracle considering how close range the gun was. "
I try to speak, but my mouth is dry. A straw touches my lips, and I sip gratefully.
"Mirabella?" I manage.
"Your daughter is fine. With her father."
Adriano. My heart thuds. He saw me take that bullet. He must have brought me here instead of leaving me to die at the Bratva compound. But why? In my dream, he was sorry, but I know in reality, he’d given up on me.
"How long?" My voice sounds like broken glass.
"Three days.”
Three days. The war with the Bratva could be over by now. Is Ivan dead? What about Alessandro? Does he know I'm here? What does he plan to do with me now?
Dr. Russo checks my vitals, making notes on a chart. "You'll need rest, but you should make a full recovery."
I’m grateful to be alive, but I’m not thrilled to be back in a world in which uncertainty rules my life.
"The family," I whisper, unable to form a complete question.
Dr. Russo's expression gives nothing away. "Mr. Dante has been quite concerned about your recovery."
I close my eyes against sudden tears. I'm alive, but I'm still trapped. The Dantes know what I am now. The truth I've been running from for years has finally caught up to me, and I have no more strength to flee.
The door opens, and my heart nearly stops as Adriano steps inside. He looks exhausted. There are shadows beneath his eyes, stubble darker than usual along his jaw. But seeing him standing there, whole and alive, makes me forget the pain throbbing at my temple.
"Eva." Just my name on his lips sends a wave of longing through me.
Dr. Russo quietly excuses himself, closing the door behind him.
"You're alive," I whisper, searching Adriano's face for any hint of what he's thinking. Is this tenderness in his eyes real, or am I seeing what I desperately want to see?
He approaches slowly, settling into the chair beside my bed. "So are you."
I'm acutely aware of how precarious my situation remains. The Dante family might be providing excellent care, but I'm not naive. I've seen Mafia and Bratva men nursed back to health just so they could fully experience the punishment that awaited them.
"Mirabella?" I ask.
"She's perfect. Misses her mom." His eyes soften. "She'll be thrilled to know you're awake."
Hope blooms dangerously in my chest. "You'll let me see her?"
Adriano reaches for my hand, his touch hesitant. "Of course."
I can't help the tears that spill down my cheeks. "I thought—"
"We need to talk about that." His expression grows serious, but he doesn't pull his hand away. "But not now. You need to heal first."
Is this mercy or merely postponement? I'm afraid to trust the warmth in his gaze, afraid to believe I might still have a future with him and our daughter.
But I’ve postponed this discussion for too long. It has to stop. Whatever happens, I’m ready, just as I was ready when I stopped Ivan from killing Adriano.
I take a shuddering breath and then begin. "I never wanted to spy for the Bratva.”
“You don’t have to do this now—”
“I do,” I insist, and the vehemence with which I speak makes my head hurt even more. But I don’t care. “Five years ago, my father owed them money. More than he could ever repay. Maksim Vasiliev gave him a choice—die slowly or convince me to gather information on the Dante family."
Adriano's hand tightens around mine, but his expression remains unreadable.
"The night I met you at that charity gala, I never expected—" My voice cracks. "I never expected you. The way you looked at me like I was something precious, not just a tool to be used."
His face hardens. "So I was a mark?"
"No!" I reach for his hand, needing him to know that wasn't the plan at all. "No. Falling in love with you was not the plan. I tried not to because I knew it would look like that if it came out… "
Memories flood back. Our first date, first kiss, the way he protected me from the crueler aspects of his world.
“I won’t deny that Maksim saw it like that, but not me. Not ever. I fell in love with you, Adriano. That's when everything changed. I started feeding the Bratva useless information, trying to keep my father alive while not truly betraying you."
I feel the weight of that time on me as keenly now as when it happened.
"When your father confronted me, he somehow knew I was hiding something. He didn't know what, but he knew enough to threaten me. He would have killed me, Adriano. My being pregnant was the thing that saved me."
My fingers instinctively touch the bandage at my temple. It hurts but also itches.
“He told me to leave, but I felt like the only way I could be safe, our baby could be safe from your father and the Bratva, was to fake my death. My father helped me. He paid for it with his life. Maksim killed him when he couldn't produce me."
Adriano's eyes darken with pain.
"I've spent years running, trying to keep Mirabella safe from both sides. I couldn’t believe it when some of Ivan’s men found me.
I got away and then you found me—" I draw in a shaky breath.
"I was terrified you'd discover the truth and hate me.
But I never stopped loving you, not for a single day. "
I force myself to meet his gaze directly, no more hiding.
"I'm sorry, Adriano. I'm sorry for every lie.”
“I came to save you,” he says, and the words shock me. If he was there, what happened? “But you were having dinner with Ivan, looking cozy as you discussed a job spying on us again.”
I shake my head. The movement makes the room spin. “Never. I told him you and Alessandro would never trust me again. I told him I would rather die than betray you."
I squeeze his hand, desperate for him to believe me.
"I don't expect forgiveness. I don't deserve it. But I want you to know the truth, all of it, before you decide what happens to me."
Adriano's silence feels like an eternity. I've laid myself bare, confessed all my sins, all my secrets. Now I can only watch as he processes the truth.
His thumb strokes across my knuckles. "You know what's funny? I tried so hard not to love you again. I convinced myself I could be cold, that I could just be Mirabella's father and nothing more to you."
I can’t decide if what he’s saying is good or bad for me.
"I failed miserably." A wry smile touches his lips. "Even when I thought you had betrayed me, I couldn't stop loving you."
"Adriano…" I sniff, realizing that I’m not dead to him.
"When Ivan had that gun to your head," he continues, "and I realized I might lose you for real this time… I knew. I knew I'd been lying to myself all along."
He brushes my tears away. “You sent the text, didn’t you? You warned us about the Vitales and the Bratva. You saved my life when you could have let Ivan kill me. You were willing to die rather than see me hurt.” He shakes his head in wonder. "How could I not forgive you after that?"
The weight that's been crushing me for years begins to lift. “So you forgive me?”
"I forgive you. All of it. I understand now why you made those choices. And how difficult and scary the choices were." His gaze holds mine. "What I can't do is live without you anymore."
A sob catches in my throat. "What about Alessandro?"
"Let me worry about my brother. He's seen what you risked for our family." His hand cups my face, careful of my injury. "I want to put all of it behind us now. I want you and Mirabella with me, as my family. For real this time."
"That's all I've ever wanted.” I won’t lie. A part of me wonders if I’m dead and this is heaven.
When his lips meet mine, I know it’s real. It’s true. For the first time since I met him, there are no more secrets between us, no more lies. Just truth and the promise of the future we should have had all along.
The door opens again, and Alessandro steps in. Wounded and weak, I instinctively reach for Adriano's hand, needing to draw strength from his touch.
Adriano shifts, positioning himself between his brother and my bed. His stance says he's prepared to fight for me.
"Stand down, Brother," Alessandro says, his voice calm, practically amused. "I'm not here to finish what Ivan started."
“She’s staying, even if—”
Alessandro holds up his hand. "She risked her life for you. Took a bullet when she could have let you die. Even I can recognize what that means."
Alessandro approaches the foot of my bed. "It's clear she loves you, even if she did betray our family."
I swallow hard. "I never wanted to—"
"I don't need your excuses, Eva. What's done is done." He looks directly into my eyes, and I force myself not to flinch under his scrutiny. “But if you ever betray this family again, if you ever hurt my brother, I won't hesitate to kill you myself."
I nod.
“For Adriano's sake, I'll give you one more chance."
"Alessandro…" Adriano starts.
"Don't make me regret this," Alessandro says, his eyes still locked with mine. "Prove to me that my brother's faith in you isn't misplaced."
“I will. I promise.”
Alessandro gestures toward the door. "I think there's someone who's been desperate to see you."
The door opens wider, and my heart nearly bursts when Mirabella appears, clutching her stuffed unicorn to her chest. Her eyes widen when she spots me, and for a second she freezes in place.
"Mommy?"
"Hi, baby. Come here."
She breaks into a run, unicorn falling to the floor as she scrambles onto the bed. Adriano helps her up, guiding her to be careful of my injuries, but I don't care about pain right now. All I care about is holding my daughter.
"Mommy, you’re back!" She wraps her small arms around my neck. "Daddy said you were sleeping 'cause you got hurt."
I hold her like I never plan to let her go. "I'm okay now. I missed you so much."
"The bad man took you away."
"The bad man is gone now," Adriano says, sitting on the edge of the bed. "He can't hurt any of us ever again."
I look up to find Alessandro watching us, a strange expression on his usually stoic face. He meets my eyes and gives me a single nod before slipping out of the room.
Mirabella settles against my side, chattering about everything I've missed, while Adriano's hand finds mine. We're together. Truly together.
“We’re together now,” Mirabella says, looping an arm around Adriano’s neck and the other around mine and pulling us closer.
"Yes, Princess. We're a family now."
A family. After all these years of fear and loneliness, we've finally found our way home.