"I love you, Alexei Volkov," I say, squeezing his hand.
"I love you, Sofia Rosetti. Soon to be Sofia Volkov, if I have anything to say about it."
"So possessive," I murmur, but I press closer to him, needing his solid warmth.
"Always."
Standing here with his hand in mine, blood still drying on the meeting hall floor, my brothers' absence aching like a phantom limb, I finally feel it. The click of becoming exactly who I was meant to be. Not just his, though my body will always respond to him like he owns it. But also mine. Sofia Rosetti, who chose love over blood and will live with both the triumph and grief of that choice forever.
His.
And finally, impossibly, perfectly, my own.
Epilogue - Nico
Three weeks later
Four hundred and twelve.
Four hundred and thirteen.
Four hundred and fourteen.
The pull-up bar bites into my palms, skin already raw from the first three hundred. My shoulders burn. My lats scream. I keep going.
Four hundred and fifteen.
Sofia used to call this my "processing mode." When words failed and feelings had nowhere to go, I hung from a bar and pulled until my muscles gave out before my mind did. She understood, even when the others didn't. Understood that some men fall apart in stillness, and the only way I stay whole is through controlled destruction of my own body.
Four hundred and sixteen.
She's been gone three weeks. Walked out of the compound with her hand in Alexei Volkov's grip, and I let her go. Watched her leave and said nothing because what was there to say? She chose. I trained her to make hard choices, to commit fully once a decision was made. I just never imagined she'd choose to leave us.
Four hundred and seventeen.
My arms give out at four hundred and twenty-three. I drop to the concrete floor of my apartment, chest heaving, sweat pooling beneath me. The burn is good. Clean. Easier than the hollow space where my little sister used to live.
Dawn light creeps through the single window, painting a gray rectangle on the gray floor. My apartment looks like what it is: a place to sleep between missions. Mattress on the floor, military corners. A rack of weights. The pull-up bar I installed myself, bolted into a load-bearing beam. A small kitchen I rarely use—protein powder, eggs, water. No art on the walls. No photographs. Nothing soft.
Marco calls it a "monk cell." Luca calls it "depressing as fuck." Sofia used to bring plants whenever she visited, convinced she could make the space livable. They always died within a week. I don't have whatever it takes to keep soft things alive.
I shower in water cold enough to make my teeth ache. Another form of discipline. Comfort breeds complacency, and complacency gets people killed. The military taught me that. Eight years as a Marine, four deployed, two in Force Recon before I came home to find my family fractured and my baby sister a ghost of the girl I'd left behind.
So I made her into something that could survive. Taught her to shoot, to fight, to lie with her whole body. Taught her to kill, when it came to that. Built her into a weapon because weapons don't break the way people do.
And then she walked away from us anyway, hand-in-hand with the enemy.
I dress in the dark: black tactical pants, black t-shirt, boots I can run or fight in. My body moves through the routine without conscious input. Four years of this same apartment, this same morning sequence, and I could do it blind. Have done it blind, on days when the headaches from my last deployment made light feel like ice picks.
Breakfast is six eggs, scrambled, no seasoning. A protein shake that tastes like chalk and regret. I eat standing at the counter because sitting down for meals alone feels like admitting something I'm not ready to admit.
My phone buzzes. Marco.
I consider not answering. It's Sunday. Even soldiers get a day of rest, and I've been running point on security for three straight weeks while the family processes what Sofia's departure means for our alliances, our vulnerabilities, our future. I'm tired in ways that have nothing to do with the four hundred and twenty-three pull-ups.
But I'm also a Rosetti, which means I answer when the Don calls.
"Yeah."
