Chapter 27
ROSALINA
Two weeks after Patrick's death, I finally feel like I can breathe again.
The late October air is crisp and cool as I walk through the gardens behind the Salvatore estate, my hand resting on the small swell of my belly that seems to have appeared overnight.
At ten weeks pregnant, I am starting to show—just barely, just enough that my jeans don’t button quite right anymore and I have started stealing Dante's shirts to wear around the house.
Erin walks beside me, her own pregnant belly more pronounced at four months along. She is glowing today despite everything—her red hair catching the afternoon sunlight, her face finally losing some of the hollow, haunted look she wore when Dante brought her home that night.
"I still can’t believe they want me to run the Irish mafia," Erin says, shaking her head as we pass through the rose garden. The roses are dying now, their petals brown and curled at the edges, but somehow that makes them more beautiful. "Me. The girl who ran away to Texas to raise chickens."
"You are Seamus's daughter," I remind her. "His heir. It makes sense."
"But I don’t want it, Rosie." She stops walking, turning to face me with frustration clear in her expression. "I never wanted the mafia life. I wanted Dolan and our farm and peace."
I take her hands in mine, squeezing gently.
"I know. But Dante, Gabriel, and Luca have made it clear—you only run things until you are ready to pass it on.
Until you find someone you trust to take over, or until you can train someone up, or until Dante officially becomes don of the Italian family and can absorb your operations. It is temporary."
"Temporary," Erin repeats, testing the word. "And in the meantime, they help me? They send advisors and protection?"
"They send whatever you need," I confirm. "Callahan is your second-in-command. He knows everything about the organization. You just need to show your face occasionally, sign off on major decisions, and let people know that Seamus's daughter is in charge. The rest can wait until you are ready."
Erin nods slowly, processing. "And you? You are okay with all of this? With me staying here in New York instead of going back to Texas?"
"I am more than okay with it," I tell her honestly. "I get to have my sister close. Our babies get to grow up together. You are safe and protected and do not have to face this alone. Why would I not be okay?"
"Because you gave up your freedom for mine," Erin says quietly. "You married Dante to save me. And now I am asking you to help me navigate this world you never wanted to be part of."
I laugh, the sound carrying across the garden. "Erin, I am exactly where I want to be. Married to three men who love me, pregnant with a baby I actually want, building a life that is mine by choice. You did not take my freedom. You gave me the chance to find it."
"You really are happy," Erin says, and there is wonder in her voice. "Even with all the chaos and the mafia politics and sharing yourself with your husband and two other men—you are genuinely happy?"
"I am," I confirm. "Deliriously, impossibly happy."
She studies my face for a long moment, then smiles—a real smile, the first genuine one I have seen since Dolan died. "Good. You deserve it, Rosie. After everything you have sacrificed for me, for everyone—you deserve to be happy."
"So do you," I tell her. "And you will be. Maybe not today, maybe not next month. But eventually, you will find joy again. I promise."
Erin's eyes glisten with tears, but she blinks them away. "I hope you are right."
We continue walking, moving deeper into the garden toward the section where the fountain sits—a massive stone structure that Dante told me was imported from Italy in the 1920s. The sound of water trickling over stone is soothing, peaceful, exactly what I need after two weeks of chaos.
"I should tell you something," Erin says as we approach the opening that leads to the fountain courtyard. "The boys asked me to bring you out here. Said they had something they wanted to show you."
I glance at her, suspicious. "What kind of something?"
"The kind of something you should discover yourself," she says, grinning now, looking more like her old self. "Go on. I will wait here."
"Erin—"
"Just go, Rosie." She gives me a gentle push. "Trust me."
Still suspicious but curious, I walk through the opening into the fountain courtyard—and stop dead.
Dante is standing in the center of the space, dressed in one of his perfectly tailored suits, his dark hair slicked back, his blue eyes fixed on me with an intensity that makes my heart skip. The fountain behind him catches the light, sending sparkles of sunshine dancing across the water.
And he is holding something in his hands.
"Flower," he says, and his voice is rough with emotion. "Come here."
I move toward him slowly, my mind racing. What is this? What is happening?
When I am close enough to touch, Dante slowly lowers himself to one knee.
My breath catches. "Dante—"
"The first time I saw you, you were standing in front of the O’Connor garden and then shortly after you were my wife," he interrupts gently.
“You were crying, and the sun was catching in your hair the exact same way it is now.
I was standing next to my car, watching you, and I thought—how can I marry anyone else when this is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen?
That was before you two switched places and I married you. "
He opens his hand, revealing a ring box.
"I didn’t know then that you were about to become more to me than just my arranged wife.
I didn’t know you would walk down that aisle in Erin's wedding dress and change my life completely.
But I knew, even in that first moment, that you were going to be important to me. That you had to be mine for real."
The ring box opens, and my vision blurs with tears.
Inside are three stacked rings—delicate diamonds that catch the light like captured stars, interspersed with deep red rubies that match the Italian sigil tattooed around Dante's arm. The center band is wider, more substantial, clearly meant to be the anchor for the other two.
"I want you to know," Dante continues, his eyes never leaving mine, "that you are mine by choice now. Not by arrangement or deception or necessity. By choice. And I want to spend the rest of my life proving to you that choosing me was the right decision."
Movement to my left makes me turn, and Gabriel is walking toward us from the rose garden. He is dressed more casually than Dante—dark jeans and a fitted black shirt—but his expression is just as serious, just as full of emotion.
When he reaches us, he lowers himself to one knee beside Dante.
"You had me from the minute you pinned me down in the balcony," Gabriel says, a small smile playing at his lips.
"I have trained with some of the best fighters in the world, and no one has ever taken me by surprise the way you did.
You were fast and clever and absolutely fearless, and I knew right then that protecting you was going to be the most important job I ever had. "
"Gabriel—" My voice cracks, tears streaming down my face now.
"I am not finished," he says gently. "You have become so much more than someone I protect, Rosalina. You are my partner. My equal. The person I trust most in this world. And I want to spend my life standing beside you, not because it is my job, but because there is nowhere else I would rather be."
A sound to my right makes me turn again, and Luca is emerging from the other side of the garden, his curly blonde hair catching the sunlight, that familiar playful smile on his face even as his green eyes shine with unshed tears.
He drops to one knee on Dante's other side, completing the triangle around me.
"That attitude is hard to forget, Fiorella," Luca says, his voice rough with emotion.
"From the first moment you challenged me, pushed back, refused to be intimidated—I was gone.
Completely, utterly, hopelessly gone. You made me laugh when I forgot how.
You made me feel when I had gotten too good at being numb.
You made me believe that life could be more than just violence and duty. "
He reaches out and takes my hand, his thumb stroking across my bandaged knuckles. "I want to give you everything, Bella. Everything I have, everything I am, everything I will ever be. For as long as you will have me."
I am crying openly now, tears streaming down my face as I look at the three men kneeling before me—three men who came into my life by accident and became everything I never knew I needed.
"We are giving you a choice," Dante says, his voice steady but intense.
"No obligation, no pressure, no expectation.
We want you to stay with us, to be our wife, to build this life together.
But only if that is what you truly want.
If you want to leave, to go somewhere else, to start over—we will help you do that.
We will make sure you are safe and provided for.
We will love this baby and be part of its life in whatever way you allow. But we will not keep you captive."
"You are free, Rosalina," Gabriel adds. "Truly free. To choose us or not choose us. To stay or go. To build whatever life makes you happy."
"But if you do choose us," Luca continues, squeezing my hand, "if you decide to stay—we promise to love you until our last breath. To protect you and this baby and any other children we might have. To give you everything we have and everything we are."
Dante lifts the ring box higher. "These rings represent us," he explains. "Three bands that fit together but can stand alone. Three separate pieces that become something stronger when combined. Like us. Like this family we are building."
I stare down at the rings, at the three men kneeling before me, and I realize that this is not really a choice at all.