Vasilisa melts into me, hugging the journal to her chest like it’s something holy. “That’s so beautiful,” she whispers. “Santo… why are you—” She pulls back enough to see my face. “What’s wrong?”
I take a sharp breath, unable to hide the emotion thick in my throat.
“When my mother died I thought…” I pause. “When I met you,I thought she would never get to meet the woman I love.”
I swallow. “But shedid.She held you. She saw you. She touched the one person who would save me.”
Vasilisa’s face breaks; soft, overwhelmed, glowing with the kind of love that destroys men like me.
“Oh Santo, it’s our invisible string.”
I tilt my head. “What?”
“The string the universe uses to tie us together, we were always meant to be together, nothing could have taken what fate meant for us. It’s a perfect fairytale.”
I chuckle at that. “Yes I’m sure married to the underboss of Cosa Nostra is a fairytale Dea.”
“It’s my fairy tale,” she says firmly, touching my face. “You’re exactly what I wanted.”
“You wanted a dangerous man in organized crime?” I raise an eyebrow.
“Hey! I was born into this life and I wantedyou.” She leans up and presses a soft kiss to my jaw. “Just you, Santo Amato.”
Something in my chest expands, that same feeling I get every time she looks at me like I’m something good instead of something to fear.
I pull her closer against me, inhaling the scent of cinnamon and vanilla that clings to her hair.
“Read me more,” she whispers, settling her head against my shoulder. “What else did your mother write about that day?”
I take the journal back, flipping the page carefully. My mother’s handwriting flows across the page, elegant and precise, just like her.
“She says you had the biggest blue eyes she’d ever seen,” I murmur, scanning the lines. “And that you didn’t cry, even though you were so small. You just stared up at her, she wanted to take you home.”
I chuckle, shaking my head.
My mother, the bleeding heart.
Vasilisa makes a soft sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Could you imagine if she did?”
“No thank you, you’d be an adopted sibling Dea,” I shake my head cringing.
She shrugs casually. “Maksim’s parents are step-siblings, you know.”
I pause mid-page turn, brows arching. “That... explains a lot.”
Her eyes widen in horror. “Oh no. I wasn’t supposed to spill that to anyone. That’s aBratva-levelsecret.”
I smirk, setting the journal aside. “I’m not‘anyone,’Vasilisa. I’m your husband.”
She groans, burying her face in my shoulder. “Maksim would kill me.”
The shift is instant. Scythe rises like a shadow behind my ribs. My hand clamps protectively around her hip, voice dropping.
“No one willevertouch you, Vasilisa. Not even him.”
She softens immediately, curling deeper into my side.“You know,”she murmurs, tone quieter now, “it’s not that complicated. My mother was adopted as a teen after my aunt was. Then grandma married grandpa and grandpa already had a son, Uncle Nikolai. Then aunt Valeria and Uncle Nikolai fell in love.”
I let that settle, watching the way her fingers tangle into each other like a memory. “Fell in love,” I echo, a little dryly.
