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She regards me for a long moment before her eyes soften around the edges.
“He broke at twelve years old.” She follows her words with a little sad smile, the first sign of emotion she’s shown today. “He spent all the years after his father’s death and that trainer’s betrayal believing himself unlovable. He truly thinks he doesn’t deserve the effort.”
She reaches out and cups my face with a papery hand. “You’ve filled the hollows in his life with your light and warmth. For that, you have my gratitude and my protection. Anyone who threatens you answers to me and the famiglia.”
My throat tightens, and tears prick at the corners of my eyes as she hands me a small, worn pouch of faded blue velvet.
“This was mine, given by my husband the day we married. Now it’s yours. May it bring you more joy than it brought me, and may you never need to use it the way I did.”
I open the pouch and find a small derringer inside, the metal of the elegant antique cold against my palm.
“In my day,” Nonna’s voice stays quiet, “we didn’t wait for the men to save us. We saved ourselves. We had to. Remember that, little Dottoressa. Love him, yes, love him with everything you have. But never forget that you are your own best protection. You survived before him, and you’ll survive after, if you must.”
Before I can respond, she sweeps out of the room, carrying every bit of aura of a woman even the most dangerous men in this famiglia won’t cross.
The party continues around me, full of chatter and clinking glasses, but I stand frozen, with the weight of the tiny gun in my palm and Nonna’s words burning in my heart.
Later, once the guests have left and the compound has gone still for the night, I find Jenna on the terrace, gazing at the stars scattered across the dark sky.
“Hey.” I lower myself into the chair beside her, the metal cool through my clothes. “You okay?”
Jenna’s face is half covered in shadows as she looks at me and smiles, then returns to peering out into the night.
We stand here for about five minutes, no words necessary.
She breaks the silence with a sigh. “I keep thinking about what would have happened if Marco hadn’t come or if they’d kept me there longer…” She stops, her throat working. “How close I came to not existing anymore. I could’ve been just another name on a missing person report or another photo on a flyer no one reads.”
I reach out and take her hand. “But you do exist. You’re here. You survived.”
“Because of him.” Jenna shifts to look at me, her face catching the starlight. “And because of you. You loved someone dangerous enough that he’d burn the world to keep you safe, and that meant he’d burn it to save me too.” She pauses. “Is it worth it? Loving him while knowing the cost? Knowing that every day you’re risking this?”
“Yes.” The word comes out sure, steady, and certain. I haven’t felt this grounded in months. “It’s terrifying, and it hurts, and sometimes I think I can’t breathe from the fear of it. Still, he’s worth it.”
Jenna nods, processing. “I get that. I think I might want that one day too. A man who’d make the fear worth feeling.”
“You’ll get it,” I squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back, “when you’re ready. The right person will fall absolutely in love with you. And until then, you’ve got a whole famiglia of people who’d go to war for you now. You’re one of us.”
Jenna’s eyes glisten. “Yeah, I’m starting to realize that.”
When I slip into the bedroom I share with Marco, he’s waiting with his phone in his hand. His expression softens the second he sees me.
“Good party?” He sets the phone aside and draws me down onto the bed beside him.
“Perfect.” I curl against his chest and breathe in his clean, inviting scent that means home, safety, and love. “Nonna gave me a gun.”
His chuckle vibrates through his chest, then through me. “She gave me one, too, when I became Enzo’s underboss and she adopted me. She said every Benedetti man should know how to protect what’s his, then sat me down and made me promise to always carry it.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I still have it.” His arms tighten around me. “It’s in the safe next to the gift I’m going to give you tomorrow.”
“What gift?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.” He kisses my hair. “How was this afternoon really?”
I tilt my chin up to look at him in the dim light. “It really was perfect. These women are extraordinary. They’ve survived so much, and they’re still whole. They’re still able to laugh, to love, and to welcome me like I’ve always belonged here.”
“You do belong.” He brushes a lock of hair behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my cheek. “You’ve belonged from the moment you stitched me up in your ER.”
