“Same thing,” I scoffed.
Archie only grinned, completely unbothered, before steering our daughter—shoes and all—out of the room.
Outside, music carried across the hills, soft and warm in the late afternoon air.The Tuscan estate stretched beneath the sun, gold light spilling over the vineyards and olive groves like molten honey, bathing everything in that strange, quiet kind of peace I’d once thought wasn’t made for people like us.
Getting married here, in our own home, had been the only real compromise I’d managed to drag out of Archie Popovich.
A small ceremony, with family only.
The people who mattered.The people who had bled beside us, buried our dead, and stood in the fire when it counted.
Somehow, Tuscany had become home in a way I never expected.Not just a place to hide.But somewhere we could build a life.Our life.
We’d built it together—piece by piece, scar by scar.
When I stepped out, Raze was waiting at the end of the hall, Marigold at his side, with his son Kai beside her—not much older, but already carrying himself with the same watchful stillness his father wore like a second skin.
Marigold went first.
She scattered flower petals down the aisle with the grave concentration of a tiny, slightly intoxicated empress, her little fist opening in uneven bursts.
Half the petals landed in one tragic heap by her feet.The rest barely made it past her shoes.
But she was trying.And somehow, that made it perfect.
Archie stood waiting for me at the altar beneath the old olive tree, and for one suspended moment, the world narrowed to just him.
When I reached him, his hand found mine.It was steady.Warm.Certain.
The vows were simple.We didn’t believe in grand speeches and theatrics.That wasn’t us.
Instead, we chose each other in front of the people who had watched us survive becoming who we were today.
And when he kissed me, Marigold shouted, “Cake now!”
The entire ceremony dissolved into laughter.
Later, after food and wine and enough whiskey to soften even Atlas’s edges, the family spread out across the terrace.
Marigold was asleep in Raze’s lap.Which was absurd.Raze looked offended by her unconscious trust in him.
Atlas sat beside Neve.They were married now.Settled.If Atlas Cavalho could ever be called settled.
Neve rested against him, visibly pregnant with their first child.
Atlas’s hand never left her.He was protective without making it obvious.
He was still a terrifying man, but somehow softer with her.Only her.
Gianni and Mikayla argued over dessert.Nothing had changed there.Except now that Mikayla was on her fifth pregnancy, Gianni looked marginally less homicidal on a daily basis.
Progress.
Marcello sat with Samira.Quiet.Solid.
Samira’s hand was in his.Marcello still carried grief in him like old weather, but Samira had taught him how to live beside it instead of destroying himself.
Atlas was saying something to Rasputin.
