Nico approaches the group. He peers down at the baby with an expression I've never seen on his face. Something soft. Almost tender.
"She's got Pietro's nose," Nico says.
"Poor kid," Bruno mutters.
Pietro laughs. Actually laughs. "Fuck you."
"Language," Aria says automatically. "Not in front of the baby."
"She's an hour old, Mama. She doesn't understand."
"She understands everything." Aria adjusts the blanket around Isabella's face. "Don't you, tesoro? You understand your uncles are idiots."
Lorenzo snorts. Bruno shakes his head. Pietro grins through his tears.
This is family.
Not the sanitized version I grew up with. Not the simple dinners and holiday cards and polite conversations about weather.
This is messy. Complicated. Stained with blood and secrets and sins that span generations.
But it's real.
Dante stands, pulling me up with him. We approach the group. The others part to make room.
Aria looks up at us. Her eyes are wet. Her smile is radiant.
"Dante," she says. "Come meet your niece."
Dante releases my hand and steps forward. Aria tilts the baby toward him.
I watch his face as he looks down at Isabella. Something shifts in his expression. The walls he keeps so carefully constructed—the ones that only come down when we're alone—they crack.
"She's so small," he says.
"They all start that way." Aria's voice is gentle. "Even you were small once."
Dante's jaw tightens. I know he's thinking about his own family. His mother. His father. His seven-year-old brother who never got to grow up.
But then Isabella makes another sound. A soft coo. And Dante's expression softens.
"Hello, Isabella," he says quietly. "I'm your uncle Dante."
Aria beams at him. At all of them.
I step back slightly, watching the scene unfold. Sophia catches my eye and smiles. She reaches out and takes my hand, pulling me back into the circle.
"You're family too," she whispers. "Don't forget that."
I look around at the faces surrounding me. Bruno, who saved Dante from the streets. Lorenzo, who saw him as more than a weapon. Nico, who stands beside him without needingwords. Pietro, crying openly as he watches his daughter meet her family.
And Dante. My Dante. Standing in the middle of them all, looking at a baby like she's the most precious thing he's ever seen.
They've been through hell. All of them.
Giuseppe's legacy should have destroyed this family. The violence. The lies. The betrayals that stretched across decades and continents.
But it didn't.
