"Let's go home," I agreed.
We got in the car. The drive back to Manhattan stretched ahead—two hours of processing, of coming down from the adrenaline.
Two hours before we were alone together. Before we could reconnect after everything that had happened.
Before we could be just Cesare and Paola, not the Don and his strategic asset.
Just two people who'd survived another night together.
CHAPTER 13
Paola
The digital clock on the dashboard read 10:47 a.m. when we finally pulled away from my family’s estate–the one I’d left as soon as I could, when I turned eighteen. We had another long drive in front of us. Time to process what I’d just done.
What I'd become.
I pressed my forehead against the passenger window, watching Long Island blur past. The glass was cool against my skin—grounding, real. Everything else felt distant, like I was watching my life happen to someone else.
"You okay?" Cesare's voice cut through the silence.
"I don't know what I am."
His hand found mine on the center console. Rough palms, calloused fingers. The hand of a man who'd built an empire through violence and strategy.
The only real thing in my world right now.
I held on like he was the only anchor keeping me from floating away.
Trees gave way to suburbs, suburbs to city sprawl. The skyline rose ahead—Manhattan's towers piercing the morning sky like promises or threats. Maybe both.
"I keep thinking about what Bianca said," I murmured. "How she was the favored daughter but felt trapped. Used."
Cesare glanced at me, jaw tight. "Does that excuse what she did to you?"
"No. But it helps me understand it." I turned my hand over, lacing our fingers together. "We were both pawns in Father's games. She just escaped first."
"And you escaped today."
Had I? It felt less like escape and more like... transformation. Chrysalis to butterfly, except the butterfly had claws and knew how to use them.
I'd disowned my father. Agreed to lie for him one last time. Walked away from the only family I'd ever known. My sister was locked up in a penthouse not far from here, guarded by men with weapons.
And I felt relieved.
The thought should terrify me. Instead, it settled into my chest like truth.
We reached the penthouse just after 1 p.m. Nearly nineteen hours since the anniversary celebration began. Nineteen hours of chaos, confrontation, impossible choices.
It felt like nineteen years.
The elevator ride up was silent but charged. Awareness crackling between us like static electricity. Every breath, every shift of weight, impossibly loud in the small space.
When the doors opened, the penthouse looked exactly the same. The staff had cleaned up—no evidence of our frantic war room from early this morning. Everything polished, perfect, normal.
But nothing was normal. Nothing would ever be normal again.
I walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows, stared out at the city ninety floors below. Tiny cars threading through streets. People living their ordinary lives, unaware that mine had just been completely dismantled and rebuilt.
