“Are you two okay?”
“Happy tears,” I tell him quickly, mustering up a watery smile. “I’ll tell you more about it later.”
He doesn’t look completely convinced. “If you say so…”
“We do,” Aunt Irina tells him, her voice returning to its normally chipper tone. “Now, I have to run off and fix my makeup. Nadya wants to get bubble tea and manicures today.”
“Have fun,” I tell her, waving as she leaves.
“Happy tears, hmm?” Matteo asks, his hands surrounding my waist and tugging me close. “Does that mean you’re up for a little adventure with me in say…an hour?”
“Hmmm,” I hum, playfully considering it. “This adventure you speak of, will there be kisses involved?”
“There might be.”
“And where would we be going?”
“The beach,” Matteo says, brushing a kiss to the apple of my cheek. “We don’t have to stay long, but there’s something I want to show you there.”
My eyebrows rise. “Oh?”
“Mhm,” he agrees. “But there’s something I want to tell you first. You can tell me to stop talking at any time if you’d rather not hear it, okay? It’s not bad, at least, I don’t think it is. But it might be uncomfortable to hear.”
Confused by his sudden change in mood, I understand something must be weighing on him and take his hand in mine. “You can tell me anything.”
“Nico and I, we killed the men who hurt you. The ones that escaped before your father and your brothers could get to them. We tortured them for—” He shakes his head, cutting himself off. “We made them suffer, but I never brought this up, in case it would be upsetting to hear about it.”
“You…” I trail off, blinking. “You and Nico?”
“Yes.”
“Dad never said what happened when he told me that they got the last ones. But I could finally sleep for more than a few hours at a time when I got the news.” I swallow hard, refusing to let myself think too much about those dark days. “You’re the reason that I felt safe enough to close my eyes at night?”
Matteo exhales a held breath and nods slowly. “Well, me and Nico. Remo helped too, but just in locating them. Torturing and killing isn’t really his thing.”
“It isn’t yours, either,” I point out.
“Believe me, I was glad to do it. You weren’t the only one who slept better after they died.”
Overcome by this news, I pull him down into a fierce kiss, holding him close to make sure that he’s real and I’m not imagining him.
“Matteo, do you want to marry me?”
His jaw drops and for a moment, he freezes. But then he laughs, tossing his head back as his shoulders shake. “Oh, fuck, baby,” he says through more laughs. “Please, never fucking change.”
“Why are you laughing at me?” I pout, eyebrows scrunching in confusion.
He finally gathers himself and puts a hand in one of his pockets, digging around and coming back with a little black box.
My eyes widen and my mouth goes dry.
Can it be?
“If you would have waited an hour,” Matteo says, holding the box up. “You wouldn’t have asked such a silly question.”
Oh my God, it is.
“I was going to do this on the beach,” he starts, lips twitching like he can’t help but be amused that I’ve derailed his plan. “The ice cream parlor staff were going to light candles for us, and then give us each a cone after…”
