"We're a disaster," I said.
"We are," he agreed.
And then he did something I didn't expect.
He knelt in front of me, on the floor of the room. The Don of the Naples Camorra, the man who'd killed my father with a dagger six hours before, knelt in front of me and rested his forehead against my belly.
"Ciao," he said, low, to my belly. "It's me."
I cried.
This time it wasn't grief, it was relief.
It was the first time we made love with nothing on our backs.
No attack. No blood. No Salvatore alive on the other side of the sea. No secret between the two of us. No eve of war. No goodbye.
Just us.
It was slow. It was tender in a way Luca hadn't been before—slow, careful, with his hand open on my belly the whole time now, no disguise, no pretending it was there by accident.
He kissed me like a man who has the rest of his life to do it. In no hurry at all.
"Slow," I murmured, out of habit.
"My whole life, bella mia," he said. And this time it wasn't just that night.
It was a real promise.
It's the first time, I thought, in the middle, his forehead against mine. The first time I make love with no weight on my back. No hatred. No fear. No death tomorrow.
When it was over, he pulled me to his chest, my head over the tattoo, and his hand stayed on my belly. We were quiet for a while, listening to the sea down below.
Then I picked up the phone.
It was two in the morning, but Francesca answered on the third ring, because Francesca, like me, never slept right a day in her life.
"Bella?" Her voice, thick with sleep. "Madonna, what time is—"
"Fra."
"What happened. Are you all right?"
"It's over," I said. "My father. It's over, Fra."
"You're alive," she said, finally. "And him?"
"No."
Another silence. I heard her take a deep breath, in her way, holding something back.
"Cazzo, bella," she muttered, and her voice was choked, but she made a joke anyway, because that was how she'd been saving me since we were fourteen. "So you've become the first mafiosa in the world to be widowed of her own father. And look, I have to tell you, with the life you lead, I'd already given up on seeing you make it to thirty."
I laughed out loud, my eyes full.
"Fra. There's one more thing."
"What?"
