Epilogue
It was on a winter morning when the House of Moretti gardens filled with white lilies and tailored silence.
The world called it a wedding.
We called it a coronation.
Dominic stood at the altar in a black suit, cuffs gleaming gold, a faint scar cutting through the edge of his temple. It was a reminder that death had failed to keep him.
I walked down the aisle with my mother on one side and Aahil on the other. The air was thick with history and rebirth.
Every step echoed through marble and memory.
When I reached him, he smiled.
Not the grin he used to wear when he wanted to disarm me.
Not the one he wore when he dislocated my arm.
Something deeper. Steadier.
“I’ve waited long enough,” he murmured under his breath.
I smirked faintly. “Then say it before I change my mind.”
The priest began, his voice carrying over the hush of the crowd:
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the sacred union of Dominic Cassian Moretti and Versace Aratrika Arabella Versace. In the eyes of heaven, and before the bloodlines of earth, may this bond stand as testament to loyalty, to strength, and to love reborn through fire.”
The words blurred. All I could see was him. All I could feel was the ghost of every night I thought he was gone.
And when it was time—when the vows came—I didn’t speak promises of yesterday.
I spoke of war and resurrection.
“Dominic Cassian Moretti,” I said, voice steady but soft enough for only him to hear.
“You have been my undoing and my becoming. I have buried you once and brought you back in every dream. You taught me that love isn’t gentle—it’s sharp, it cuts, it bleeds, and still, it survives.
I vow to choose you in every world, in every lifetime, even when choosing you burns me. I vow to rule beside you, not behind you. To raise our children in light and vengeance, in grace and iron.
And when the world bows, it will bow to both our names.”
He exhaled, eyes glistening under the winter sun.
“Versace Aratrika Arabella,” he said slowly, each word like a prayer he wasn’t worthy to speak.
“I have died once, and the only thing I remembered in the dark was your name. You turned my ruin into reason. You made me believe in something stronger than survival.
I vow to protect you, not because you need protection, but because you are the only thing worth dying for.
I vow to love you in the silence and the storm.
To build a world where our children never have to choose between peace and power.
And when the time comes, I’ll follow you into whatever hell we create, because you are my heaven in it.”
The priest smiled faintly, eyes glinting.
“Do you, Dominic Cassian Moretti, take Versace Aratrika Arabella Versace as your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, to lead and to stand besides, for all your days and beyond?”
Dominic’s gaze didn’t waver. “I do.”
“And do you, Versace Aratrika Arabella Versace, take Dominic Cassian Moretti as your lawfully wedded husband, to share in strength and power, in loyalty and in love, until death. Or fate, parts you?”
“I do.”
When the rings slipped onto our fingers, something shifted.
The air itself-seemed to bend—Versace and Moretti, finally united.
“You may kiss the bride.”
His hand found the back of my neck, and when his lips met mine, the world held its breath.
Aurelio raised his glass later at the reception, tone dry but eyes softer than usual.
“To peace that tastes like vengeance,” he said, “and to love that survived it.”
The toast rang through the hall.
Shiloh giggled from his grandmother’s arms.
Sienna babbled like she understood everything.
And for a heartbeat, the world felt whole.
Dominic crouched to lift Shiloh, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“He’ll bear my name and be my heir,” he said quietly. “Shiloh Ambrose Versace-Moretti.
And Sienna…” He turned to me.
“She’ll have yours. Sienna Aureline Moretti-Versace.”
I smiled. “A fair trade.”
He looked down at the children again, emotion softening every line of him.
“They’ll grow up knowing both sides of our world—the light and the fire.”
The afterparty had begun.
We danced beneath chandeliers, the reception glittering like sin reborn.
Outside the glass doors, a shadow lingered—Zorian.
Watching from the edge of the estate, coat caught in the wind, unreadable eyes following me as I stepped onto the balcony for air.
When our eyes met, he gave a small, respectful nod.
“Zorian.”
“You didn’t have to give me the Ducati,” he muttered.
“My mother said the best revenge is making sure your enemies are well fed,” I said evenly. “The Ducati is a parting gift.”
Regret flickered behind his gaze.
“Goodbye, soldier,” I whispered. “You should be lucky I left you alive. Come visit sometime. Not as a shadow, but as yourself.”
He smirked faintly, fading into the night.
By the time I turned back, he was gone.
The music swelled. The chandeliers glimmered. Dominic wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me close as we watched the world spin under gold light.
“Finally,” he murmured. “You’re mine in every way.”
“I am.”
“Come.” He tugged as he pulled me deep into the mansion and we stopped at two brass doors I hadn't noticed before.
Had this always been here?
“Open it.” He said, leaving my hand as he stood behind me. What could it be? The last time he gave me a surprise was when he brought my best friend from the dead.
No, there was no way Sanaa was behind these doors.
The heavy doors to the conservatory clicked shut, muffling the roar of the reception and the clinking of champagne glasses. The silence that followed was thick with the scent of jasmine, white roses, and damp earth.
I stood frozen in the centre of the room. My white lace train pooled around my feet like a fallen cloud, but all I could see were the flowers. Thousands of them. They lined the walls, hung from the glass ceiling, and overflowed from marble vases.
My breathing hitched. Every petal felt like a memory of the funeral wreaths that had crowded my childhood home after the accident—the silent bribes from people who were too afraid to touch a grieving girl. To me, flowers had always meant goodbye.
“Ara.”
Dominic was right behind me. He didn’t touch me yet; he simply let his presence ground me.
“Why?” I whispered, my voice trembling with a jagged edge of pain. “I told you I hated them. They’re just consolation prizes for people who don't show up.”
Dominic stepped around into my line of sight. He didn't look like the cold Don who had just spent the evening negotiating with syndicates. He looked like the man who had sat by my hospital bed and counted my breaths.
“You don’t hate flowers, Ara,” he said, his voice dropping into that low, steady rasp that always made the world stop spinning. He reached out, his thumb catching a stray tear before it could ruin my makeup.
“You hate flowers so much because you never got them from the right person.”
I looked up at him, my heart hammering against my ribs.
“Let me be your right person,” he whispered.
The walls I’d built since I was eight years old—the Versace pride, the Armor of independence—simply dissolved. I looked around the room again, and for the first time, I didn't see a funeral. I saw a man who had shown up.
A sob ripped out of my chest, raw and messy. I clutched the lapels of his tuxedo, burying my face against his chest as the weight of twenty years of loneliness finally lifted.
“T-they truly look pretty,” I sobbed against his shoulder, my fingers wrinkling the expensive fabric.
“Cry it out,” Dominic murmured, his arms wrapping around me like iron bands, shielding me from the world outside those doors. “No one sees you here but me. You’re safe, Ara. I’m here. I’m always going to be here.”
In that room, surrounded by the blooms I had spent a lifetime loathing, I finally found the one thing a name or a lineage could never give me: Peace.
Dominic didn’t let go of me. Even as my sobs turned into quiet, shaky breaths, his hands remained anchored on my waist, holding me as if I were the only thing keeping him grounded too.
The scent of the lilies and roses felt different now—no longer like a funeral, but like a garden being born from the ashes.
"The music is playing out there," he whispered, his voice rough against my temple. "But I don't want to share you with them. Not yet."
He stepped back enough to take my hand, his fingers lacing through mine. With his other hand, he guided my arm to his shoulder. There was no orchestra in the conservatory, only the distant, muffled beat of the bass from the ballroom and the sound of the wind against the glass roof.
He began to move, a slow, swaying step that forced me to follow.
"I can't dance in this dress, Dominic," I murmured, a ghost of a smile finally touching my lips despite my tear-stained cheeks. "It’s too heavy."
"I’ve got you," he said, and there was that Don authority again—the strength that made me feel like I could finally stop fighting. "Lean into me. I’m not letting you fall."
We danced in the narrow path between the flowers.
My white lace train swept over fallen petals, and for a moment, the world of blood, betrayal, and the Versace name didn't exist. There was only the weight of his hand on the small of my back and the way he looked at me—not as a pawn, not as a victim, but as his equal.
I rested my head against his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heart. It was the same rhythm I’d heard in the medical mansion when I was terrified and lost.
"You were right," I whispered into the silk of his vest.
"About what?"
"About the flowers. About the right person." I looked up, meeting his dark, intense gaze. "I think I’ve spent my whole life waiting for someone to lock the door and just stay."
Dominic stopped moving. He pulled me flush against him, his eyes burning with a fire that was purely protective. "I locked the door the day I found you, Ara. And I threw away the key."
He leaned down, catching my lips in a kiss that was slow, deep, and tasted of salt and jasmine.
In the middle of the room, she once would have called a nightmare, Ara finally found her home.
I traced the inside of his hand, stopping when I felt it, a tattoo.
A small, elegant V, inked into the side of his thumb.
My breath caught. “You—”
He smiled. “Marked myself long before the ring.”
I kissed him, slow and sure, whispering against his lips, “Then so did I.”
Because on my wrist, hidden under lace, was the same mark.
Two letters.
Two lives.
Finally, one empire.
The night glittered. The city bowed.
And the Versace bloodline burned brighter than ever.
Love endured.
Power remained.
And for once,
peace didn’t feel like surrender.
It felt like survival.