Page 76 of The Kingpin’s Bride

Angelica stopped short and stared at my hands with wide eyes. Elisa, the quietest, just reached up with both arms.

I crouched because there was no other option. Angelica patted my cheek like she was checking for fever. Elisa climbed into my lap without asking and put her small head against my chest, right over the place that felt torn open. Santino watched the whole thing with a look I could not quite read.

Aurora appeared at the end of the hallway. Bare feet. Soft black sweater. Hair pulled back. She took in the scene in one sweep: the girls all over me, the blood on my shirt, the way Santino was standing just behind my shoulder like he was ready to catch something.

She did not smile.

“Girls,” she said, voice calm but firm. “Go find the cook in the kitchen. Tell her Uncle Matteo needs coffee and something with sugar.”

Francesca looked ready to argue. Aurora raised one eyebrow.

The three of them peeled off in a storm of complaints and small feet, Elisa pausing just long enough to pat my face one more time before she ran after her sisters.

The second they were gone, Aurora crossed her arms.

“Where’s the baby?” I asked lamely.

“Selena is asleep,” my sister said. “Where’s your wife?”

I stayed silent.

“She left.” It was not a question.

“Yes.”

Aurora looked at Santino, then back at me. “And you’re not dragging her back.”

“Not until I have her little sister.”

She studied me for a long moment. The same sharp intelligence that had once stared down Santino in a bloodstained wedding dress was fully present now.

“Good,” she said finally. “If you had said anything else I was going to hit you with something heavy, maybe a pancake pan”

Santino made a low sound that might have been a laugh.

Aurora ignored him. “She’s not like us, Matteo. She wasn’t raised in money. She doesn’t have the armor. I didn’t either, once. You keep treating her like a problem to contain and she will keep choosing the knife. The same way I almost did. You bring her the little girl first. Then you get on your knees if you have to. Clear?”

“Clear.”

She nodded once, sharp, then turned to Santino. “You’re both covered in someone else’s blood and you smell like a warehouse. Shower. Change. The secure room is ready. I’ll keep the girls occupied.”

She walked away without waiting for an answer. Santino watched her go, something soft and permanent in his expression, then looked back at me. “I married a terrifying woman.”

“You did.”

“Come on. Before she comes back with actual weapons.”

The secure room in the lower level was all concrete, monitors, and clean weapons. We stripped out of the ruined shirts, cleaned up, and re-armed in silence for a few minutes. Santino tossed me a black long-sleeve and watched me pull it on.

Then he did something I did not expect.

He reached for my left wrist, unfastened the watch he had given me months ago, and turned it over in his hands. Angelo’s watch. The one with the thin scratch on the underside that never polished out.

“You remember why I gave you this?” he asked quietly.

I did. But I let him say it anyway.

“Angelo was the part of me that knew how to love people without setting them on fire. When he died I lost that. For a long time I thought it was permanent.” He looked up. “I gave you the watch because I saw the same crack starting in you that he used to keep me human. I needed you to remember you had a choice about what kind of man you were going to be when things got bad.”