Chapter 22
DANTE
The table is full.
I can’t remember the last time I saw it this lively. All of us, gathered. Gia drove in from the hospital. Nico made it back from wherever he disappears to. Even Marco is here, and for once he’s not vibrating with that desperate energy that makes me want to send him away.
Nonna Rosa moves between us, setting down platters, filling glasses, murmuring in French when someone reaches for bread before she’s ready.
The dining room smells like her cooking.
Rich, savory, the scent of every Sunday I can remember.
Candles flicker in the iron holders Mama brought back from Palermo. Crystal catches the light.
And Cassia.
Cassia at my right. In the chair that’s been empty for years.
She’s not replacing anyone. She’s taking her own place.
I let my gaze travel the table. Cataloging. Assessing. Old habits.
Renzo at my left, silent as always. His eyes track the room even now, even here, even surrounded by family. One hand rests on the table. The other is in his lap, near his pocket. The rosary. He thinks we don’t notice.
Gia beside him, her dark hair pulled back, still in the silk blouse she wore to work.
She looks tired. She always looks tired.
But her eyes are bright as she leans toward Renzo, saying something too low for me to catch.
His mouth twitches. Not a smile. But close.
The closest I’ve seen in longer than I care to count.
Nico is mid-story, hands moving, voice carrying that easy rhythm that makes people lean in. He’s telling them about a card game in Baton Rouge. A politician, a marked deck, and a bottle of bourbon that turned out to be iced tea.
“And the man looks at me, dead serious, and says ‘I’ve been playing poker for forty years.’” Nico pauses, timing perfect. “So I said, ‘That’s funny. I’ve been cheating for thirty.’”
Marco laughs. Open and unguarded, the sound startling in a room where he usually fights so hard to be heard. Gia rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. Even Renzo’s expression softens a fraction.
This is what Mama built. Sunday dinners. Every damn one of us at this table, no matter what blood had been spilled that week.
And now I sit where Papa once sat. At the head of a table full of people I would burn the world down to protect. Looking at a woman who walked into my life in her sister’s place and became irreplaceable.
Cassia catches me watching. Her lips curve. Just a fraction. A private thing, meant for me alone.
My grip tightens on the glass.
Cristo.
I look away. Reach for my wine. Take a long swallow and let the burn settle me.
Tonight, this ends.
Romano sits three seats down, eating Nonna Rosa’s food, laughing at Nico’s jokes, wearing thirty years of trust like a mask.
The bastard. He has no idea that Renzo and I have been planning his death for two days.
That the evidence of his betrayal sits in my study, every document signed with his own hand.
After dessert. After coffee. After he’s fat and comfortable and certain he’s gotten away with everything.
Then we move.
“Dante.”
Gia’s voice pulls me back. She’s looking at me with that knowing expression, the one that makes her look so much like Mama it hurts.
“You’re brooding.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Same thing, with you.” She reaches for her wine. “Try eating instead. Nonna Rosa made the gravy from scratch. She’ll be offended if you let it get cold.”
I take a bite to appease her. It’s good. It’s always good.
“Better,” Gia says. “You look human again.”
“Don’t push it.”
She grins. Turns back to Renzo.
“What about you? When’s the last time you ate and weren’t standing over a sink at three in the morning?”
Renzo gives her a flat look.
“That’s what I thought.” She pushes a roll toward him. “Eat. Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re a surgeon.”
“Still a doctor. Eat.”
He takes the bread. Doesn’t eat it. But he takes it, and the concession makes Gia’s shoulders relax.
They’ve always had this. The two of them. A language no one else speaks. Gia, who never stopped trying to reach him. Renzo, who lets her closer than anyone else alive.
Fuck.
What would have happened to him without her. If there would be anything left of my brother at all beneath the enforcer he’s become.
Movement at the other end of the table catches my attention.
Cassia is leaning toward Marco, who’s saying something I can’t hear. Her expression is intent. Interested. Like whatever he’s telling her matters.
Marco’s whole face changes. The tension bleeds out of his shoulders. The hungry, desperate edge softens. He laughs again, quieter this time, and I see the kid he used to be. Before the anger calcified. Before he started mistaking being overlooked for being dismissed.
She sees him.
Cassia sees Marco. The way she sees everyone. The way she saw me, that first night, when I was drowning in duty and grief and she offered herself like it was nothing.
She notices the ones who think they’re invisible.
My youngest brother. The one I underestimated. He saw what I missed. Did the work I should have done. And he went to my wife because he didn’t trust me to listen.
Dio. Another thing I need to fix. Later.
Cassia asked. In the space of weeks, she asked. And now my youngest brother is laughing at Sunday dinner like he belongs here. Because he does. He always did. I just stopped seeing it.
Cazzo.
I’ve been so focused on keeping this family alive that I forgot to let them live.
I reach for my wine again, but my hand pauses halfway to the glass.
Cassia is looking at me. That quiet, steady gaze that strips me down to nothing. That sees past the Don, past the duty, past every wall I’ve built.
She smiles. Small. Real.
I want this. Not just tonight. Not just until Romano is dead and the threat is neutralized. I want Cassia at my right hand. In my bed. In my life. For as long as I can keep her.
My jaw sets. My grip tightens on the stem.
I raise it anyway.
The table falls quiet. All of them looking at me. Waiting.
“To family.”
Simple. Two words. But they feel like a vow.
“To family,” they echo.
Glasses lift. Crystal rings against crystal.
I drink. The wine is rich, full-bodied, one of the bottles Papa kept for special occasions.
Cassia’s hand finds my knee beneath the table. Squeezes once.
I don’t look at her. Don’t need to. I know what I’d see.
After the threat is gone. I’m going to tell her. Everything.
Twenty minutes later, Nico is finishing another story. I’m not listening.
My body knows before my mind catches up.
It starts small. A blur at the edge of my vision. I blink, and it clears. Tiredness. Stress. Less than six hours of sleep in the past three days.
But then my hand trembles when I reach for my glass.
I freeze. Stare at my fingers. They’ve gone numb. Clumsy.
Across the table, Gia laughs at Nico. Marco is arguing with Renzo about territory. Or respect. Nonna Rosa is clearing plates.
No one notices.
I curl my fingers into a fist. The tremor stops. I force myself to breathe.
Nothing. Just exhaustion.
I’ll sleep tonight, after it’s done.
My tongue goes thick.
I try to swallow. The motion is wrong. Sluggish. Like my body has forgotten how.
The hair on the back of my neck stands. Every survival instinct fires at once.
Cazzo. No.
I turn to Cassia. Try to speak. Try to say her name.
Nothing comes out.
My mouth moves. Forms the shape of the word. But my throat won’t cooperate. Won’t produce sound.
She’s laughing at Gia. She hasn’t noticed yet. None of them have.
I reach for her. My arm doesn’t obey. It moves too slow, too heavy, like I’m underwater.
Cassia.
The name is trapped in my chest.
My vision fractures. The room tilts. Colors bleed together. Candlelight and crystal and the dark wine in my glass, all of it smearing like wet paint.
Fuck. Fuck.
I try to stand. Need to stand. Need to warn them. Need to tell Renzo.
My legs won’t hold me.
The chair tips. Or I tip. I can’t tell anymore. Everything is sideways and wrong and my heart is pounding too fast then too slow then not at all.
Poison.
The word cuts through the fog. Clear. Certain. Too late.
Romano. That son of a bitch.
My shoulder hits the table. Glass shatters. Someone screams.
Then I’m falling.
The floor rushes up. Distant. Like it’s happening to someone else.
I see Cassia’s face.
She’s standing now. Her mouth is open. She’s screaming my name. I can see my name on her lips, can see the terror in her eyes, but I can’t hear her. Can’t hear anything except a high, thin ringing and the desperate thunder of my own failing heart.
No.
Her hands reach for me.
No. Not yet.
I didn’t tell her.
Cassia.
The ringing swallows everything. Her face breaks apart. Fragments. Fades.
I try to hold on. Try to keep her in focus. Try to say the words I should have said weeks ago, months ago, the night she walked into my study and offered me everything.
Darkness. Heavy. Complete.
The last thing I recognize is her hand in mine.
And then nothing at all.