"It’s what he deserves." Alessio’s hand moves, his thumb brushing the line of my jaw. His skin is warm, slightly rough, and entirely too possessive for nine o'clock in the morning. "His name won't be a secret anymore, Amara. It’ll be a door."
I lean my head back against his stomach. He’s solid. No part of him is soft, yet he’s the only place where my muscles actually go slack. The old reflex—the phantom itch in my calves telling me to check the perimeter—is quieter today. It’s being drowned out by the sound of the Costa family in the kitchen.
It’s a different kind of noise than the Chicago compound. There, the noise was a shield, boisterous and loud to cover the war still beating under the floor. Here, it’s just life. The clatter of pans, the smell of bacon, and the constant murmur of brothers who don't have to check the locks every five minutes.
"Dominic wants everyone in the main room," Alessio says, his fingers tangling in my hair. He’s been doing that a lot lately, claiming pieces of me as if I might evaporate without his touch. "He’s made a decision."
"Does it involve more bulletproof glass? Because I’m partial to the view out of these regular windows."
"No more glass," Alessio promises. He leans down, his lips brushing the crown of my head. "Move. They’re waiting."
I stand, joints popping. I’ve spent so long coiled tight that the process of unfolding actually stings. We walk into the greatroom, a space dominated by a stone fireplace and windows that look out over a valley that seems to stretch into infinity. The adult Costas are all there.
Dominic stands by the hearth, his face etched with the kind of exhaustion that sleep can't touch. Matteo stays in the corner, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Dante, Enzo, Fabio, Nico—the whole family is gathered, and for once, no one is holding a weapon.
Dominic waits until Alessio and I are settled on the edge of the group. He doesn't look like a Don. He looks like a man who has carried a mountain on his back and just reached the summit.
"Twenty years," Dominic starts, his voice carrying through the room with effortless authority. "For twenty years, we’ve lived in a house built on grief. We fought for the North Side because it was ours, but every corner of that compound learned the names of our dead. Every corner of that compound holds a memory we keep bleeding on. Every time we sat at that dinner table, we were sitting with the people we lost."
He looks at Matteo, then at Alessio. The silence is heavy, but it isn't suffocating. It’s the kind of silence that comes before a storm breaks.
"The war is over," Dominic continues. "Alvarado Vane is dead. Lorenzo Bellanti is finished. The empire they built is a pile of frozen assets and legal filings. But Chicago... Chicago is the past. And I’m done living in the past."
Matteo looks up, his brow furrowed. "What are you saying, Dom?"
"We’re not going back to live there," Dominic says firmly. "Not in that compound. Not the way we were. We’ve spent our lives defending a territory that gave us power and grief in equal measure. I want ground with no graves. I want a place where our children can grow up without knowing the layout of a panic room before they know their ABCs."
He pauses, his gaze sweeping over his brothers.
"We’re moving in waves. All of us. Pine Valley first, then whatever we build from there."
The name hangs in the air. Pine Valley. It’s been mentioned in whispers—the place where Lucia, the sister who built a life there. It’s a mountain town of bikers and clean air where people don't flinch at the name Costa.
"Pine Valley?" Fabio asks, a slow grin spreading. "The place with the trees and the lack of car bombs?"
"The very one," Dominic says, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "Lucia has secured land. Enough for all of us. We build there. We start over. No more hiding in shadows."
The room erupts. Not into cheers—the Costas aren't the cheering type—but into a frantic hum of realization. They’re talking about floor plans and moving trucks. In the corner, Matteo stays quiet. He slips out the sliding glass door onto the deck, his movements stiff. He’s vibrating with a tension that the rest of them have managed to shake.
I look at Alessio. He’s watching Matteo too. There’s a bond there—the healer and the heart. They both loved Turi in ways that are going to hurt the longest. They both carried the weight of the old man’s betrayal like a physical wound.
"Go," I whisper, nudging Alessio with my elbow. "He needs to hear it from someone who isn't the Don."
Alessio shakes his head slowly. "Not me. I’m the one who kept the secrets, Amara. I’m the one who saw the logic in the betrayal. Matteo... he just saw the father. He needs someone who understands what it’s like to lose a brother to a lie."
He’s right. My chest tightens. I’m the one who can look at a slaughter and see the data, but I’m also the one who lived in the silence for ten years.
I walk out onto the deck. The air is sharp enough to cut, the kind of cold that makes the lungs feel scrubbed clean. Matteoleans against the railing, his knuckles straining where he’s gripping the wood. He doesn't turn, but his shoulders lock. He’s a Costa; he heard me the moment I stepped onto the wood.
"It’s a lot to take in," I say, leaning against the railing a few feet away. I look at the mountains, not him. "The idea of a place where checking the perimeter isn’t the first thing you do."
A low growl rumbles in Matteo’s chest. "He died for me, Amara. The man whose debt opened the door to our dead... he stepped in front of a bullet for me."
"I know."
"How do I live with that?" He turns to me then, and the raw grief in his eyes is enough to make me want to look away. "How do I move to a mountain town and bake bread and pretend the man who raised me didn't break the world before he saved my life?"
"You don't pretend," I say, my voice steady. "You don't have to forgive him, Matteo. You don't even have to understand him. But you can't let the betrayal be the only thing he left you. He gave you fifteen years of warnings. He gave you his life in that courtyard. That doesn't erase what he did twenty years ago, but it’s part of the ledger now."
