I scoff.“Your father also wanted me dead and that didn’t go according to his plans.He should be glad he’s alive and learn to take a back seat.He’s not in charge anymore.I am.”
The worry and fear are back in her eyes.“You won’t… you’ll let him live?”
I cup her cheek and smile.“I’ll let him live.I had it coming since I did steal you from him.He didn’t know you’d fallen madly in love with me by the time he shot me.”
She smiles and kisses my hand.“That I did.And thank you.I don’t know if any other man would be so understanding.Or so forgiving.”
“My family didn’t come all the way out here to LA to follow the same old ancient rules.In fact, we came here to get away from all that,” I tell her.“So I’m not going to build my empire based on that and your father will just have to accept that.No wedding ring.No revenge.Though I think maybe we beat the curses, don’t you.”
She smiles and kisses me again.“Yes, I think true love destroyed both our curses.I thought so from the moment I first knew I loved you.But I don’t want to risk being wrong.”
“And I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen from the moment I saw you,” I say, watch her sweet, eyes soften and take away yet more pain from my body, my soul, my past.
“Married or not, you’ll always be my one and only,” I tell her.“And I’ll always be by your side from now on.Unless you want me gone.”
“I won’t ever want that,” she says and then does what I wanted her to do since the first time I woke up and she was sitting by my bed.
She lifts the covers and climbs in bed beside me, wrapping her arms gently across my stomach.
“But no more dangerous stuff, OK?”she says.“I couldn’t bear sitting by your sick bed again, hoping and praying you’ll wake up.”
“Deal,” I say and hug her tight.And it’s a good thing she’s not looking at my eyes, because she’d know I’m at least partly lying.
“I know it’s not a promise you can make, but at least promise me you’ll try,” she adds with all the wisdom of a mafia wife that’s seen it all.All that wisdom is in her eyes too as she looks at me.
I didn’t know I could love her more than I already do, but it turns out I can.And I’m glad to learn that.
Because I plan on spending the rest of my life finding more and more ways in which I can love her more, better, forever.
I kiss her this time, soft at first, gently like she kissed me.But then I deepen the kiss.Because she’s not close enough, I need her closer.From now, until eternity.Forever.And beyond.
And from the way she kisses me back, the way she presses her body to mine and wraps her arms around me, I know she wants the same.And that’s a dream come true all in itself.Just one of many happy dreams she already has and will continue to make come true for me.
And I can’t wait to live every one of them.
Epilogue
About three years later
GIANNA
The sun is startingto set over the ocean in the distance, the first hints of gold in the sky promising a majestic display.Not as majestic as the sight of my whole family and Matteo’s whole family gathered in the garden, laughing, eating, drinking, talking, being happy.
I had to take a step back, look at it from a distance, set it into memory like a photograph, one that will need no frame because it will forever hang in my mind, never fading.I have so many such photographs already hanging up.
My sisters and I, happy and smiling, gossiping like in the old days.One with my mom and dad, both tanned, both smiling at their little baby grandson, Antonio Ricardo Codelli Rovina named for my brother and Matteo’s.We call him Ricco, he omits the R himself, but he’ll grow into it.
My sister Chiara feeding her husband Angelo a spoonful of chocolate cake topped with so much whipped cream he had no hope of swallowing it whole.That one is from earlier today.As is the one of my sister Lidia and Rafaelle, kissing behind the magnolia tree, thinking they’re well-hidden and that no one knows they’re together.Everyone knows.But even my dad and my mom are letting them tell us the news in their own time.
Then there’s the image of Matteo’s sister Isabella inking the most gorgeous golden rose I’ve ever seen onto his chest.Along with my name.And the name of our first-born son.And all the important dates of our happy moments.And more pretty pictures to cover all the symbols of death on his body.Three years of good memories to wipe away the bad.With so many more to come.
That is my prayer every night before I go to sleep and my life every morning when I wake up.
We all gathered today to celebrate our son’s third birthday.Chiara and Angelo, the husband she very clearly does not hate anymore, came all the way from New York.They’re expecting twins in a few months, which is why they drove rather than fly here, doing so in a luxury camper van that’s like a palace on wheels.
Isabella and Blade are here too, along with their baby daughter Vivian—named after Matteo and Isabella’s mom.Vivi can barely walk, but insists on running around after Ricco all the time anyway.
Then there’s Lidia and Rafaelle trying to pretend they’re not madly deeply in love.I hope they stop soon so we can all celebrate it with them.And Matteo’s cousin Nico and Bianca, the Sarge of Rogue Angels MC.She looks as gorgeous in her light summer garden party dress as she looks badass in her biker outfit.And Nico looks happier than I’ve ever seen him.They’re like brothers, Matteo and him, and he’s been invaluable in helping Matteo rebuild the Rovina family empire here in LA.Not just rebuild… make it better than it was before, according to Nico and everyone other than Matteo, who is too modest about all he has achieved as far as I’m concerned.
