Epilogue #3
“Your niece was just in here bossing around what looked like one of the popular boys in her class. And he seemed to be enjoying it. Oh, tell your eye to stop twitching. It’s innocent.”
“Is there anything innocent when teenage boys are involved? I’ve been one of them.”
“Relax. Charlotte and I had a very thorough sex talk after her birthday. She started taking her martial arts classes last month. She’s armed with knowledge and the ability to defend herself if she needs it.
But trust me, they’re just kids doing a book report.
And Liam is over there being a guard dog. ”
“Oh, you could have led with that,” he said, tugging at his tie.
“What happened with your day?”
“Never knew how hard it would be to find halfway decent associates,” he admitted. “Getting Made was always the goal, since I was a little kid. Now that I have it, it’s one giant headache.”
“For now,” I clarified. “The whole point of building a really solid foundation of soldiers and associates is so they make your life easier in the long run. It’s a temporary headache.”
“I know you’re right.”
“But it’s still a sucky day,” I finished for him.
“Something like that.”
“Look,” I said, glancing around the shop to make sure no one was still lingering. “This place is dead. How about we take a walk?”
“A walk?” he asked, brows lowering. “You… want to willingly exercise? Are you okay?”
A little laugh escaped me as I stepped forward, pressing a hand to the center of his chest, sliding up his tie, then giving it a little tug.
“Just a short walk. Around the block. Down a narrow alley. Then up a very steep set of stairs…”
“Oh,” he said, realization dawning. “Yeah, we probably should take a walk. For our health.”
“It’s very important,” I agreed, sliding my hand over his shoulder, down his arm, and slipping my hand in his.
We’d been so busy trying to start a life, find a new apartment, then move in and make it our own that we simply hadn’t gotten around to renting out the apartment over the pawnshop.
I didn’t know if he did so around his uncle, but Liam had dropped a handful of hints about being interested in renting it out himself eventually.
As much as it broke my heart that he was thinking about moving out in the near future, the other part of me understood the urge to strike out on your own. Lord knew I’d been in a rush to do the same once the Costas rescued my mom and me from the guys who’d kept us under their thumbs for years.
And while Liam hadn’t been under anyone’s thumb—if anything, he had more freedom than most kids would have been afforded—it was clear he was on a path toward becoming part of the Family business.
It was why he hustled so hard at his job.
Why he was constantly peppering me for insights into their world, to tell him the history and lore.
It made him grow up a little faster. It wasn’t a surprise his next step to proving that he was an adult would be to move out on his own.
I knew Christopher would have mixed feelings about it, since he’d been raising Liam a lot longer than I had. But I was sure he could see the logic of stashing him somewhere that we could still keep an eye on him.
Until then, though, I was happy to have a little love nest to slip away to.
I pulled Christopher’s tie over my shoulder and started up the familiar steps.
His hands and lips were on me as soon as we were in the door, clothes peeling off as we moved blindly through the apartment to tumble onto the bed, bodies crashing, cresting, everything frantic, desperate, and, yes, loud after months of having to either be quiet or find pockets of time to have unrestrained, noisy sex when the kids weren’t home.
“I say this with love—if that’s how you blow off steam, I’m okay with you having more frustrating work days,” I told him as we stared up at the ceiling after.
“Having this to look forward to would make it a lot more tolerable.”
“So, if the kids are occupied,” I said, rolling up onto his chest so I could look down at him, “what do you say we take a long, romantic walk through the home improvement store after getting some slices?”
“Only if you make me a promise not to mess with the wiring when I’m not home again.”
“It was a very small fire. But fine.”
“Then it’s a date.”
Alara - 1.5 years
“Just remember, I have a meat hook with your name on it. No expiration date,” Brio said after handing me off to Christopher at the altar.
I’d wanted a small courthouse wedding.
Charlotte would not hear of it.
So the Costa women had worked tirelessly on bringing this thing together.
“Come on, you know you want to celebrate getting your dream,” Ezzy told me when I’d complained about the pomp of it all.
She’d meant becoming a Costa.
Officially.
In my name and everything.
And maybe a part of me had always wished to be an actual part of the family in a way that couldn’t be written off by distance. But if that had been my ultimate goal, there’d been dozens of Costa men to choose from over the years.
It wasn’t about having that coveted last name.
It was Christopher.
With his big heart, his strength, his empathy, his way of getting under my guards and showing me why they didn’t need to be there in the first place.
It was the kids, too.
For adding richness and texture, connection, and love.
I wasn’t their mother. I’d never be their mother. And all of us were okay with that. Because we knew what we had. We knew it wasn’t conventional, but it was still special.
It wasn’t about being a part of the Family as an organization. It was about being a part of a family that meant the world to me.
“Noted,” Christopher said, smiling as he took my hands and gave them a squeeze.
Charlotte and Ezzy stood up behind me in pretty bruised purple dresses they’d picked out that matched the flowers.
Standing up as Christopher’s best man was, unsurprisingly, Liam, looking way too mature in his expensive suit.
And with him, Zeno. Without whom none of us were sure any of this would have been possible.
We went through our vows, laying out promises in public we’d already made in private.
While the cheers from the kiss were still echoing through the hall, Christopher pressed his forehead to mine.
“How’s it feel being Mrs. Costa?”
“It feels like I’m a mob wife,” I said, beaming. “I feel like I immediately need to go out and purchase an ungodly amount of gold jewelry and faux fur jackets…”
Christopher’s laugh rolled over me.
“Fuck, I’m gonna love spending forever with you.”
Christopher - 5 years
“Really?” I asked, plucking the book out of Alara’s hands. It featured what had to be an eight-foot-tall purple alien—shirtless, because of course he was—and his petite human clinging to him. “More alien smut? Does this one have a nub too?”
“A nub? How uninventive. He vibrates.”
“He… what?”
“Yep. It vibrates. And is ribbed. For her pleasure.”
I laughed, handing her back the book she was reading for her club, knowing that the alien and his vibrating, ribbed member would mean some wild sex for us in the near future.
“Please tell me you’re not having Char read that too?”
“While she is eighteen and perfectly capable of handling hardcore alien smut, she is still in her rom-com phase.”
Rom-coms.
That tracked with the stacks of brightly colored books all around the apartment with their illustrated covers that looked innocent enough.
“Though they’re doing all kinds of unspeakable things in those books too. There was one with an ice pop used—”
“For the love of God, please don’t finish that sentence,” I said as I walked over toward the kitchen.
This place had been our home for years now, longer than I’d ever been in one place since I was a kid.
Longer than the kids had, too. Even if Liam had long since moved out.
We still kept his bedroom for him. And he was around all the time between jobs, hustling to make a name for himself.
At his rate, he was going to be the youngest Made man in Costa history.
It had started as a major fixer-upper that just so happened to be the right size and price. Over time, we’d carefully turned it into something that felt lived-in and familiar.
A big, updated kitchen for me to cook in. Never-ending, floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases. Cat trees. Dog beds. Trinkets from trips we’d taken. Family pictures.
There was nowhere on Earth I’d rather be than this home we’d created. Though I did occasionally miss the love nest over the pawnshop since Liam started renting it out.
“What do you want for dinner?” I asked as Alara stuck a bookmark between the pages and watched me.
“Whatever will make you sluttily roll up your sleeves,” she said, making a chuckle escape me before we both fell quiet at the doorbell.
“If that is Brio with another animal…” I said, shaking my head.
We still had our black cat Binx, who practically lived in Charlotte’s room since that was his person.
We’d actually let Tuna leave with Liam because, as much as it hurt Alara to let him go, we all knew that the dog had bonded hard with Liam, and making him lose him would have been unfair.
Liam still dropped him off at the pawnshop every day so he could work, so he and Alara sort of had joint custody of the dog.
But after he was gone, Brio decided that meant we had plenty of room for other small, ornery, former street dogs.
Which, apparently, we did. Since we now had three of them.
“I got it!” Charlotte called, running out of her room in a sundress she had not been wearing when she came home from school an hour ago. I was pretty sure she’d put on makeup too.
I had a sinking feeling I knew the person on the other side of the door was a young guy who wouldn’t deserve her in any way, shape, or form.
The door pulled open.
And I was right.
He was tall, blond, and good-looking in the way that said he turned all the heads in school.
Great.