Epilogue
EPILOGUE
DOMINIC
Five Years Later
“Mama!” Violet squeals as she takes off running, her long, dark hair swinging all around her.
Angel bends down, a wide smile breaking across her face as she drops every bag in her hand and scoops her up. I stop where I am and just stare. Every time I see her, she takes my breath away. Not because she’s beautiful but because she’s mine. Because we made it.
Not many people could survive what my Angel did. But then again, ever since the first moment she kissed my hand and asked me if I was God, she’s fought to live and mark her place in this world.
Yes, my Angel .
She never told me much, and I didn't ask. All I know is when I cut through the fence and saw her swim to our meeting place on the other side of the reservoir, she spoke the three words I’ll never forget .
“Alexandra is gone.”
She was right. In five years, I haven’t seen or heard her. The only person in Angel’s head is Angel. My Angel. My rook. The woman I fell in love with.
And the one who knew how to swim.
“How did it go?” I ask, leading the two of them out of the Naples airport. “Anything new and exciting this time?”
Angel just gives me that secret smile of hers. The one that drives me crazy because she knows it pushes my buttons. “Maybe. Let’s get this little one home first, and I’ll tell you.”
“Nooo,” Violet whines, rubbing her eyes. “Nooo, segreti !”
Angel just laughs, handing off our now pissed-off daughter to me as she opens the door. “Great. I’m being chastised by a bilingual four-year-old. You just had to pick Italy, didn’t you?”
I shrug. “I like pasta.”
She rolls her eyes. “Bullshit. You like being near your roots.”
Violet lifts her sleepy head off my shoulder. “ Non si dicci , Mama!”
Angel’s eyebrows shoot up. “Did she just scold me for cursing?”
Now I’m really laughing because—I’m sorry—that shit’s funny.
“What else have you been teaching her while I’ve been gone?”
Buckling Violet into her car seat, I give her a kiss on her forehead and climb into the driver’s seat. “Maybe to have better aim than you.”
She pretends to be offended. “This again? I shot you in the ass. Would you prefer if I’d circled around to the front? ”
I glance in the backseat, making sure Violet is asleep. “Dick threats are not funny, rook.”
She just smirks and tucksa lock of her short blonde hair behind her ear.
Five years later, and I’m still not used to her being a blonde. I don’t like it, but it’s a necessary evil. Just like the long hair that’s currently tied at my nape and driving me batshit is necessary. Like the contact lenses that turn her eyes blue and my eyes brown are necessary evils.
With death comes sacrifice.
As we make our way back to our villa in Sorrento, Angel tells me all about her trip to Los Angeles. I just shake my head. I don’t know why she feels the need to do this every year. To me, it’s tempting fate a little too much, but she claims it’s something she just has to do.
Who am I to question that?
Each time, she always takes the Infamous Hollywood Murders Bus Tour and strikes up random conversations with other ticket holders, especially when the tour stops outside the gates of the Romanov estate. Twenty years after the original murders, it’s still a hotspot and source of heated controversy.
People are free to think what they want. Only two people know the details of what happened that night, and as far as the world is concerned, both of them took it to the grave.
By the time we make it to the villa, Violet is wide awake. Once inside, she grabs her newest treasure, a pink teddy bear, and holds it high above her head while skipping around.
Shit .
I meant to intercept that before Angel got back, but with all the excitement, it slipped my mind. An oversight which has come back to bite me in the ass .
Angel folds her arms across her chest. “Where did she get that?”
I scratch the back of my head, trying to come up with an answer that doesn’t sound pulled out of my ass, when my sweet, angelic-faced daughter sells me the fuck out.
“It’s from Nonny Moose!”
Traitor.
Angel shifts a narrowed gaze toward me and cocks an eyebrow. “Nonny Moose, again, huh?”
Of all the times for my kid to not throw out some weird English-Italian hybrid shit, she chooses now.
Angel smiles at Violet, her voice gentle. “Go set up a tea party, Vi. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Violet’s pale blue eyes brighten. “Okay, Mama.”
As soon as Violet is out of earshot, Angel purses her lips. “Another ‘ anonymous ’ delivery?” Shaking her head, she chuckles and turns to face the glass door where she stares out at the Mediterranean. “Luciano is spoiling her.”
She’s not wrong. Violet looks forward to her monthly surprises from the man she’s called “Nonny Moose” ever since hearing Angel and I refer to the sender as anonymous .
I have no idea how he found us, or how he knows Violet even exists. But I’m not surprised. He has always been our protector. Not even death could break a habit like that.
Apparently, death can’t break the chains of a lost love, either. According to news reports, a shell corporation purchased the Romanov estate shortly after Rubio had Alexandra declared dead.
However, no one has ever moved in or claimed ownership. The corporation simply maintains the property and provides for the staff.
But Angel and I know it was never the lure of owning a piece of Hollywood history that prompted the purchase. It was the memorial bench tucked away near the back of the estate.
After thirty-seven years, Luciano finally found his deli girl. He’d never let anyone keep him from her again.
Walking up behind Angel, I slip my arms around her waist and tug her against me. “Of course, he’s spoiling her. She’s his granddaughter.”
“You miss him.”
My arms tighten around my wife. “I never had a dad growing up. But I always thought if I did, I’d want him to be like Luciano. Day after day, I’d watch him walk into that deli in his fancy suit. Now I know he was looking for Mom.”
“That’s where his hopes and wishes died,” she says, leaning back against me.
“All this time, she didn’t tell me.”
Angel turns and wraps her arms around my neck, trailing her nails lightly across my skin. “She knew what kind of life Luciano led. She wanted to keep you from following into it.”
Pulling her close, I hover my lips against hers, my hands seeking flesh that will forever belong to me. “Yet I still did.”
She smiles that secret smile again. “I told you. Fate always finds a way.”
The first time I kissed an angel, she died.
The second time, we both did.
As far as the world is concerned, that’s where Alexandra Romanov and Dominic McCallum’s story ends. Our tragic, bloody, heartbreaking story that will live in infamy as Hollywood folklore for generations to come.
But for Jade DeLuca and Brendan McCall, the story has just begun.
Not long after we said our vows, Angel told me that Alexandra had confessed a secret. She told her that the night I saved her, she made a promise to herself. She swore she’d find me again in another life. When she did, my pain would be hers. My heart would beat for her. She’d destroy me and set me free.
She was a woman of her word. Even if she now only exists somewhere in a quiet, serene corner of Angel’s mind.
We saved each other that Christmas Eve twenty years ago. And then we did it again fifteen years later.
The world demanded justice for a lost little girl until they got it. But when Alexandra Romanov’s justice turned out jagged and messy, public opinion took a sharp swing in the opposite direction. They idolized an icon, and when that shiny exterior tarnished, they crucified a human.
Maybe all of this could’ve been avoided if I’d never walked into the bar that day. Maybe Angel Smith would still be just another washed-up actress waiting tables in Chula Vista. Maybe Violet DeLuca and Brenda McCallum would still be alive.
But then again, maybe they wouldn’t.
Angel believes fate always finds a way. She holds firm that the universe revolves around balance and whether it takes a day or a decade, all wrongs are eventually righted.
So maybe it was fate that drew me into that bar.
Maybe fate knew Alexandra Romanov’s story wasn’t finished.
The first time I kissed Angel, I thought I chose her to make history. But maybe fate chose us to rewrite it, and then close the book for good.
A content smile settles on my face as I watch my wife chase our daughter into the surf, both of them laughing as she swings her into the air.
Once upon a time, a man taught me that wishes and hope were useless weapons. I believed him. I lived my whole life around that thought. But he was wrong. Because the man who stands with his heart open waiting for life to step up to the plate ends up with something unexpected.
Everything.
The End