They're still here. Still standing. Still loving each other despite everything.
And now there's Isabella. A new generation. A fresh start.
I think about what Dante told me in Denver. About the children on the streets who believe they're broken. Who think they don't deserve love.
This family proves that's a lie.
They deserve happiness. Every single one of them.
And somehow, impossibly, they found it.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Marina
"Keep your eyes closed."
Dante's hands cover my face from behind. His chest presses against my back as he guides me forward. Gravel crunches under my feet.
"If you wanted me dead," I say, "this seems unnecessarily complicated."
His laugh rumbles through me. Low. Warm.
"I would die first." His lips brush my ear. The words are quiet. Certain. "You're going to live many, many years, cara mia. And you need to take care of this."
"Take care of what?"
He doesn't answer.
Instead, his hands fall away from my eyes.
I blink against the sunlight.
And then I see it.
A house. White siding. Blue shutters. A wraparound porch with two rocking chairs.
A white picket fence surrounds the front yard. An actual white picket fence, like something from a movie I watched as a kid and never forgot.
There's a garden. Small. Neat rows of soil waiting for seeds. A trellis against the side of the house, ready for climbing roses.
And sitting on the porch steps, tail wagging so hard its entire body shakes, is a golden retriever puppy.
"What is this?" My voice comes out strange. Thin.
Dante moves beside me. I can feel his tension without looking at him.
"Did I remember wrong?" The words tumble out fast. Nervous. "You said—I thought you said—a house. With a fence. And a dog. You told me once, when we were in Denver, about what you dreamed of as a kid. Before everything. You said you wanted?—"
I drop to my knees.
The gravel bites into my skin. I don't care.
The sob tears out of me before I can stop it. Then another. Then I'm crying so hard I can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything but kneel in front of this house that shouldn't exist.
This house that he built from a throwaway comment I made at three in the morning.
This house that proves he listened. That he remembered. That every word I've ever said to him mattered enough to keep.
