Epilogue Isabella
One year Later
Christmas Eve in the penthouse smells like cinnamon and coffee and something savory in Matteo’s giant roasting pan.
Again.
I’m beginning to suspect the man missed his calling as a chef.
“Hands off the potatoes,” he barks without looking up as Nico reaches for the tray.
“I wasn’t touching them,” Nico lies.
“He absolutely was,” I say, sliding past them with a bowl of salad.
Letty zooms through the kitchen in an explosion of tulle and sparkles, chasing the cat with a Santa hat held aloft. “Come back, Mr. Whiskers, you’re not festive enough!”
“Don’t torment the cat,” Adi calls from the table, where he’s setting out plates with the same precision he brings to corporate audits.
“I’m not tormenting him,” she says. “I’m beautifying him.”
My mother, seated at the island with a glass of wine, hides a smile behind her hand. “She has your stubbornness,” she murmurs to Adi.
He gives her a look. “I’ll pretend that’s a compliment.”
“Why did you have to get her a kitten, anyway?” Matteo asks from his place in the kitchen.
“Because she nagged me until I gave in.”
Nico snickers. “Whipped, by a tiny terrorist.”
Adi snorts and rolls his eyes. “Like you can talk. Isabella only has to say she likes something, and you’ve bought it before she can finish her sentence.”
“Not true.”
I walk toward my husband of three months, and slide my arms around his waist, putting my lips to his ear. “Kinda true.”
He hooks me closer and kisses me hard, just how I like it, not a care that our family is around and I sigh into him. “You’re meant to be on my side.”
“I’m always on your side, Nic.”
His lips find my ear, and he whispers low in that voice that drives me wild. “Or your back, or front, or bent over the kitchen table.”
A blush steals over my cheeks as I think about last night, when he had me on my hands and knees in his office.
“Behave.”
“Never.”
He laughs and it’s my favorite sound in the world, and one I hear a lot more now. It hasn’t been easy but we’re here, and stronger for what we went through.
The tree is up again, this time with fewer arguments about wreaths and more laughter about last year’s chaos. The Santa-with-a-gun ornament hangs in his rightful place near, but not at, the top, because “you’re still a work in progress” as I informed Nico when I hung it earlier.
He rolled his eyes and then kissed me senseless in front of it, so I think we’re both happy with the arrangement.
Rossi is propped on the sofa, writing place names for the table. Who knew the man had such impeccable handwriting. His recovery was slower than he would have liked, but he had people around him to help, and he and my mother have grown close, though both deny it’s anything more than friendship.
“I’m fine,” he grumbles as I bring him a mug of coffee. “You’d think I died.”
“You almost did,” I remind him, easing down beside him. “Twice.”
“Details,” he says, taking the mug. His eyes soften. “You did good, kid.”
“I had a very loud teacher,” I reply, laying my head on his shoulder.
His gaze flicks to Nico, who’s currently arguing with Matteo about the proper ratio of marshmallow to sweet potato.
“I mean it,” Rossi says quietly. “You kept your head. You kept mine attached. That’s more than most.”
Emotion swells in my throat. “Thank you,” I say, and it doesn’t feel like enough.
He just grunts, the verbal equivalent of a shrug, and focuses on pretending his coffee is spiked when it isn’t. The doctors have him on a strict regimen; Nico enforces it with terrifying zeal.
The television in the corner plays a muted news report about the fall of a “once-feared Brighton Beach figurehead.” Orlov is finally out of play, snared in a net of federal indictments, financial charges, and a few well-placed leaks that came from sources who will never see their names in print.
I wander to the window and look out at the skyline lit up with lights and feel a contentment I didn’t know was possible.
One of those sources was mine.
The Ledger ran my latest piece last week.
This time, the tip came from me.
No anonymous package. No shadowy “insider” whispers. Just months of legwork, documents Rossi smuggled out of old safe boxes, and a very careful collaboration with ISM’s legal team to blow up what was left of Orlov’s empire without giving anyone an excuse to come at us with guns.
My editor cried when he read it. Patrick sent flowers. The comments section called me everything from “sell-out” to “hero” to “mafia mouthpiece.” I didn’t read more than three.
For the first time in my career, I wrote a story that didn’t leave me feeling like I’d broken something that couldn’t be repaired.
It feels… good.
I’m not na?ve. The world doesn’t bend to one article. But sometimes it shifts an inch.
Sometimes that’s enough.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Nico murmurs behind me.
I tilt my head back against his chest as he slides his arms around my waist. He smells like rosemary and aftershave and home.
“Bit expensive,” I say. “They’re mostly about carbs.”
He laughs quietly, breath warm against my ear. “I can provide those.”
His fingers brush over my left hand, where the ring sits.
It isn’t flashy, no twenty-carat rock, no ostentatious family heirloom.
Just a simple band with a small diamond and a tiny engraving on the inside, marking the date we met.
Our wedding was the same, just the people we love the most, watching as we said our vows.
He’d gone red when he explained it, saying he’d fallen in love with me that day.
The timer on the oven dings. Matteo yells something about “get your asses in here before this goes cold,” and the living room begins to empty as people drift toward the table.
I turn in Nico’s arms and look up at him. “You happy?” I ask.
He thinks about it, which I appreciate.
“Scared,” he says, honest as always. “Always a little angry. Still cleaning up messes I didn’t make. Domenico didn’t walk in here alone, and whoever opened that door and betrayed us is still breathing, still hiding. But… yes. I’m very happy.”
“Me too,” I say, not stalling on the topic of the traitor in our ranks. That will come out. I’ve no doubt these men I call family now will find them.
Outside, snow has started to fall, soft flakes drifting past the glass. The city glows under it, diffused and gentle.
Inside, the house is full.
My mother arguing with Matteo about gravy. Letty climbing into Rossi’s lap with a storybook, and Adi is throwing him a smirk. Nico’s arm around my waist, his thumb drawing circles against my hip like he can’t not touch me.
Legacy sits in the room, too, of course.
Enzo’s picture on the shelf. The ghosts of his choices.
The weight of a name that means something very different now than it did thirty years ago.
His bauble is joined now by my father’s and Nico’s mom’s, too.
Each of them is with us in the memories we carry.
But it doesn’t feel like a chain anymore.
It feels like a story we get to rewrite.
“Nico?” I say.
“Yeah?” he answers.
“Thank you,” I say, and when he starts to protest, I cut him off. “For letting me in. For trusting me. For listening when I told you there was another way to do this. For not letting them turn me into a weapon against you and then walking away because it was cleaner.”
He presses his forehead to mine. “You did the same,” he murmurs. “You could have taken what Domenico said and walked. You didn’t.”
“I thought about it,” I admit. “For about thirty seconds. Then I remembered the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention, and I realized he was full of shit.”
He smiles. “I’m not that subtle.”
“You are very subtle,” I insist. “For a man who walks like a tank.”
He kisses me. It’s soft, slow, easy in a way that makes everything we’ve survived feel like a prelude instead of an exception.
“Come on,” he says when we part. “If we let Matteo serve without us, he’ll give all the good bits to your mother.”
“Fair,” I say.
We walk to the table together.
This time, when Nico raises his glass and says, “To new beginnings,” it doesn’t feel like hope.
It feels like a promise.
I take Nico’s hand under the table, feel his fingers close around mine, and think:
This is the life we almost lost.
This is the one we chose instead.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Adi looking at his phone, a small smile ghosting across his lips at a message. Matteo smirks when he catches it.
“Who’s that?” I ask, because, after everything, normal curiosity feels like a rebellion.
“New nanny agency,” Matteo says too quickly. “Adi’s very diligent.”
Adi rolls his eyes. “It’s your friend from London,” he says to me. “Casey. Apparently, she’s decided New York needs her, and she’s very insistent that I hire her before anyone else gets the chance.”
A laugh bubbles up in my chest, lighter than I thought I had in me. “Oh, God,” I say. “You’re not ready for Casey.”
He arches a brow. “We’ll see.”
Nico’s fingers curl at my hip as I give him my I told you so look.
The sparks between those two at Thanksgiving when she visited were a fire hazard, and I’m here for it.
“We’ll see,” he replies, and there’s a spark in his eye that says he’s almost looking forward to watching his brother squirm.
“Yes, we will, and I can’t wait.”