“I’m not being a martyr,” he says, voice rising. “I am trying very hard not to excuse what I did just because I did it to survive.”
“You did it to disappear.”
“I did it to come here,” Vincenzo snaps. “I did it to get out of a structure that was closing around me and would have kept closing until it used you as the blade or the wound. I did it because the summit wasn’t just a political threat anymore. It was a cage collapsing in real time, and if I stayed King, one of us was going to die for real.”
“I thought you did die for real!”
“I know!” Vincenzo shouts, and his own control finally cracks wide enough for the sound to reach the sea. “I know, Nikolaj! I heard what that did to you before the line cut. I heard you begging me to stay alive, and I still had to let it happen because if there was one inconsistency in your grief, one sign you knew, one slip from Kai or Maksim or Tatiana or anyone close enough to you, it would have exposed the whole thing before I got out.”
I stare at him, breathing hard.
He drags both hands through his hair, shaking now. “I hated it, every second of it. I hated knowing what you would feel. I hated knowing what I was doing to you. I hated myself for it—I still do. But I did it because it was the only way to kill Vincenzo Vieri without killing the man underneath.”
The words hit me strangely.
Kill Vincenzo Vieri.
He looks at me then, chest rising hard, tears still on his face. “Vincenzo Vieri died in Bucharest,” he says.
My brow pulls down. “Don’t.”
“No,” he says, stepping closer despite the warning in my face. “Listen to me. Vincenzo Vieri died. The King of the Five Families died. Arabella’s husband died. Salvatore’s heir died. The man every enemy knew how to find,died.”
I stare at him, confused despite the rage. He reaches into his pocket slowly and pulls out a small leather wallet. Not his usual one, but something plain. New. He opens it and holds it out between us.
I don’t take it, so he turns it slightly.
New passport.
New name.
The letters sit there in clean black print, absurdly calm for the amount of destruction they carry.
Vincenzo Dragovich.
For a second, I cannot make sense of it.
Then I do, and the world tilts.
He closes the wallet slowly. “Vincenzo Dragovich lives. That is the identity Kieran built for me. That is the life I bought with everything I left behind. I’m not the King of the Five Families anymore. I’m not Arabella’s husband. I’m not bound to Rome, the council, or any throne that needs me empty to function.”
His eyes hold mine.
“I’m yours,” he says. “Legally, privately, practically, dangerously, completely. I have nothing, but I am yours.”
My heart does not know what to do. It’s still screaming from the month in the grave. It is still on the floor of my bedroom at Saint Helena with Tatiana’s arms around me. It is still in the car, the line dead. It is still in the main hall, handing over the family.
But it is here now, looking at a man who gave up an empire and took my name because he wanted to live with me more than he wanted to rule without me.
I don’t know what to think. I don’t know how to hold rage and relief this large in the same body without one killing the other.
“You took my name,” I say.
Vincenzo’s mouth trembles. “Yes.”
“You let me mourn you for a month.”
“Yes.”
