Epilogue
Evelyn
We were married in the rain, three months to the day after Dante had made me that promise on the docks, both of us soaked to the skin with sirens closing in.
He’d offered me a cathedral. Five hundred guests, a gown flown in from Milan, every white rose in Manhattan.
I chose the rooftop where he’d knelt for me, the people who had become mine, and a sky that split open the moment we exchanged our rings, as if the city itself had insisted on bearing witness.
Leo walked me down the makeshift aisle, his cane in one hand and my arm tucked firmly through the other. Marco stood as best man, charming and unreadable.
Chloe cried enough for everyone, but then she was still pining for Alexei, who’d gone to Paris for an indeterminate length of time. I was relieved nothing had happened between them, and when I’d asked, Mikhail had informed me he’d gotten into some trouble and was laying low for a time.
Izzy looked formidable in leather, while Nico kept one earbud in, and Kyle and Max both grinned at me from the front row like proud brothers.
Valentina, in a stunning dove-gray dress, watched her son promise himself to me, a small smile playing on her lips. From her, that was as good as a blessing.
And Dante stood in a black suit that probably cost more than my first year’s rent at the gallery, an intense expression on that beautiful, brutal face, looking at me the way he had from the very beginning. Like I was the only thing in the world worth looking at.
When we’d exchanged rings and been pronounced husband and wife, he took my face in both hands and tilted my mouth up to his. He kissed me like a vow, and I burned gladly in his fire.
Later that night, Dante made love to me as his wife.
When we finally lay tangled in our sheets, I traced the fine Latin script up the inside of his forearm, the words he’d never translated for me.
“Numquam obliti,” I murmured, the Latin clumsy on my tongue.
For a long moment he was quiet, his thumb moving in slow circles against my hip. Then, in the dark, my husband finally gave it to me.
“Never forgotten,” he said quietly. “It’s not for the soldiers, we knew what we signed up for.
It’s for the victims. The ones who were just there.
Civilians. Kids. People who never picked up a weapon in their lives and died anyway, because men like me brought a war to their doorstep.
” His jaw tightened against my hair. “I couldn’t save them, so I carry them around with me. Where I can see it.”
My throat closed. Of all the violence inked into his skin—the bullet hole, the dagger, the snake—this was the only piece that wasn’t about the death he’d dealt out. It was about the death he’d failed to stop.
“Now you know,” he said roughly. “You’re the only one who does.”
I pressed my lips to the words, sealing the secret against his skin.
Then I lifted my head and found him watching me, those storm-grey eyes stripped bare in a way no one else would ever see.
“Thank you for sharing it with me,” I whispered.
Outside, New York never slept. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed through the night, the city reminding us that peace was always temporary. There would be enemies waiting for us tomorrow. New battles to fight. Fresh blood spilled.
But tonight belonged to us, and I was exactly where I wanted to be.
In my husband’s arms.