She shifts in her sleep, instinctively finding me, resting her head on my shoulder, her hand on my chest, right over the heart she doesn’t know is still split in two.
I press a kiss to her hair. Soft. Reverent.
“I love you,” she mumbles, her voice thick with sleep.
I close my eyes, the ache in my chest almost unbearable. “I love you, too, baby,” I whisper against her skin.
I hold her tighter. I won’t let her go, I vow silently.
Because what I feel for her is the only thing that’s ever felt real in a life made of shadows.
Some vows are meant to be kept. Others…are made for silence.
23
THE TRUTH
LUCIAN
There’s a sound I never get tired of.
Tiny. Unsteady. New.
My daughter’s laugh.
She giggles in the next room, Calista whispering something to her in Italian. The words are soft, affectionate. The same kind of softness I used to think I wasn’t built to hold.
But now….
I live for it.
It didn’t happen overnight.
With each job I took, I told myself it was the last. I lied to myself because I knew it wouldn’t be. There was always one more. A loose thread. A name that needed crossing off.
Until I held Aria, our daughter, for the first time. Until I saw Calista’s eyes in that little face, and something inside me…broke. Or maybe it didn’t break at all. Maybe it cracked open just enough to start healing the wounds inside.
The hollowness inside me—the pit I’d carried like armor—was already half-filled with Calista. Her love, her stubborn belief in me. But now it overflowed, hot and wild and terrifying.
It wasn’t merely love. It was devotion. It was terror and awe and a kind of fierce, helpless need to protect something so pure it made my bones ache. It was a surrender, stripping me down to bone and blood, making me pray I’m enough.
I spent my life thinking the shadows were all there was. Thinking the darkness in me was permanent, that no amount of wanting, no amount of trying, would ever fill the cracks left behind.
But one look at Aria, and every jagged edge inside me softened.
Every scar I carried became a story I was proud to survive, because now I had something worth surviving for. Because now I had someone who would see me not just as the man I used to be, but the father I chose to become.
I’d burn cities. I’d tear out my soul if it meant she’d never have to wonder if she was loved. I’d kill the whole goddamn world if I had to.
For our daughter.
For my wife.
For the family I never deserved—but will never stop fighting to keep.
The night the doctor clears Calista, we make love. I’m desperate to be inside her again—I missed her so fucking much. Six long weeks of not having her were torture.
She’s soft in places where she carried our child. I love to touch her, feel her, experience her resilience, her strength, let it seep inside of me.
