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January 21 - February 1, 2025
It had seemed so obvious when I looked at Mira in the alleyway that day. She had a passing resemblance to Cosima that would be easy to emphasize with the right dress and veil. Dante and Alexander were almost identical when you stripped away the different coloring and wildly opposing personalities.
A little hair dye late last night and a pair of contacts procured from Capo Leonardo Esposito’s wife who worked in film, and we were set.
Alexander and Cosima were the perfect stand-ins while Dante and Mirabella got the hell out of Dodge.
“You know now that I have two children I was not allowed to parent for most of their lives. Only in the past few years did Cosima find out the truth about our relationship, and Caprice has asked me not to tell Sebastian.”
“But I was lucky enough to have a son by choice. A man who saw everything I was and everything I did, the bad and the ugly, yet he still chose to take my side. He chose to be my family, to be my son and my ally. I will never stop grieving for Chiara, but in death, she gave me the greatest treasure. Dante is the best man I know. It does not shame me to admit I learn from him every day. I am proud to be the father of his heart, so proud I could burst.”
“I am very grateful now, too, that he has found his anima gemella.” His soul mate.
“Only a strong woman, a fearless one, could be with figlio mia, and I could not have dreamed of one so perfect as you.”
“I’m not fearless,” I confessed thickly, watching blindly as he tossed the rope, and it was tied down to a metal prong. “I’m far from perfect.” “Ah, but that is in the eyes of the beholder,” he argued, turning off the boat and turning to me with an extended hand. “And the man who believes you are his treasure is waiting for you now.”
“Che la vostra vita insieme sia come il buon vino.” May your life together be like fine Italian wine.
Dante and I had only been together romantically for one month. One month of car chases and abductions. Of sex and exploration. Of romance and tension. A single month that felt like an entire lifetime. A lifetime I never wanted to end.
So, I didn’t care. Not a single fucking bit about any of the reasons I shouldn’t marry Edward Dante Salvatore. The man who had taught me how to love and live again. The man who had brought me back to myself.
“Crying is the body's way of expressing emotion that’s too big for words. It doesn’t make you weak, Lena, and I’m happy to hear you’re just feeling again.”
“Ti amo. Sono orgogliosa di essere tua sorella.” I love you. I’m proud to be your sister.
“I hope you know that he loves you more than I’ve seen any man but Alexander love another woman,”
“I guess you don’t need my blessing to hand her over.” “I don’t need anyone’s blessing but her own,”
“I would do anything for you, Elena. Men have said that to women before, but they couldn’t know what it means, not really. I will kill and die for you, but I will also shop for you because I like you in the clothes I’ve bought, and I’ll cook for you because I love to watch you rediscover the joy of indulgence. I will make love to you when your heart is aching and lonely, echoing with the past, and I will fuck you when you can’t stand to be empty of me for one second longer. I am capo dei capi of the New York Camorra, but that is not the most important title I have anymore. In fact, it means
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“Resta con me per sempre. Be my donna and my wife. My forever love.” Stay with me forever.
“Yes,” I rasped through my heart beating in my throat, threatening to choke me with love and overwhelming gratitude for this man and this moment. I reached up to clutch his neck, my thumb finding his pulse as he so often did with me. “Before you, I was empty and cold, a locked room in the deepest dungeon. Now, I can breathe again, feel again, burn again. You proved to me that I am worthy of love, and I want to spend the rest of my life proving to you that you’re the best man I’ll ever know, and you made the right decision in trusting me with your endless heart.”
“Let’s get married, Dante. I want you to be my husband.”
“Now, that sounds better than any curse or please from your lips. Say it again.” “Husband,” I teased. “Husband. Husband.”
I went from Elena Lombardi, the coldhearted, lonely lawyer, to Elena Salvatore, Donna and wife to Don Edward Dante Salvatore.
I was whole for the first time since I was sixteen.
It amused me to think I ever fancied myself in love with her when my feelings for Elena so easily eclipsed that tenderness I felt for her sister. Our love was violent.
Later, I’ll fuck you until even your teeth ache. Now, we aren’t getting on a plane. We’re going to end Rocco Abruzzi’s reign over Napoli.”
“This is how a man loves a woman with his body, Lena. He takes his time to pull her apart seam by seam until she is unraveled completely in his arms.”
“I love you,” she said straight into my ear like a secret before she kissed the lobe. “I love you so much it terrifies me, but I’m not even mad because even that makes me feel alive. I’ve thought a lot about what your mama said about all our choices and the choices of our ancestors before us, leading to this moment right now. It makes me believe in fate.”
“In any life I might have lived before, you were mine,” I agreed, running my nose down her cheek. “And I was yours. Still, I am sorry you’ve had to give up so much to be with me. I promise, I will fix it so that we can go home.” “New York isn’t home without you. I don’t care about that.”
“You don’t talk about her. In fact, you shut your mouth unless I ask you a goddamn question, or I’ll kill you right now.”
“I hit you like a bitch because you are one,”
She wanted revenge herself. The gun fired, the recoil smashing back into her hands. She didn’t even flinch. I looked at Rocco who was staring at her in stupefied horror, clutching his chest with his undamaged hand. At first, I thought she’d missed, but then Rocco’s chin tucked to his chest and his hand fell away from his torso, revealing a bubbling hole in his right side. Straight through his lung. His breath wheezed in and out, trying to gather enough air to speak. I knew he wouldn’t die for a long time with a wound like that and I was glad. Elena wasn’t meant to be a cold-blooded killer.
“Thank you for killing the man who made my family suffer for so long.”
“I hope you know that since I met you, you’ve been the hero I never knew I needed.”
And despite everything, I thought it was a fitting wedding night for two villains in love.
“Sono con te, lottatice mia,” he reminded me, “anche quando non lo sono.” I am with you, my fighter, even when I am not.
“I can withstand anything if it’s by your side, but asking this? Asking me to be okay with you spending months or even years in prison awaiting a trial that the prosecution and judge had already decided you would lose despite the fact they had no concrete evidence? You’re not just asking me for some little thing here, Dante. You’re asking me to live my life without you.”
“I have to go in, but I’ll get out.” “Don’t you lie to me, Edward Dante!” “Hush, cuore mia, I am not lying. Do you think I want to be apart from you for even a moment? That my chest isn’t aching because I’ve already carved out my heart to give to you for safekeeping while I’m away?”
“I won’t forgive you for leaving me like this. I left my whole life for you, and now, what, you’re asking for me to take it back?” “Mai,” he snapped, shaking me a little as if I was losing my mind. Maybe I was. “Never, Elena. You are mine, and I am yours. No space or time will change that.” “Death will.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Elena? Fighting for love is an endless battle and it’s also the most epic war you’ll ever wage. I promise you, you find the right person, you’ll be willing to die on that battlefield, scarred and victorious. Why do you think I’m willing to do this?”
“I want to take ownership of my actions so that you have choices. So that you don’t have to spend the rest of your life as a fugitive from a country you fought hard to be a part of and succeed in. I won’t take that from you because I love you.”
Do you remember? Chi vuole male a questo amore prima soffre e dopo muore. Whoever is against this love, suffers and then dies.”
You’re whole now, and you have much more to do with that than I do.”
“Flowers don’t thank the sun for shining on them or the rain for its wet. Whatever happened to you because of knowing me was always in you to give. I think you just needed a little love to realize how magnificent you are. How magnificent you’ll continue to be even while I’m gone.”
“Some people have hobbies, art, music, playing sport. Mine is learning you.”
I am proud of my wife, Elena. I want anyone who looks at you to see that you are unmistakably mine.
“I like the gray because it is the color of your eyes,” he told me, grasping my chin lightly to look into them. “I like the black because our soul shines brightest in the darkness.”
loving you was worth losing it all.”
“I told you once that you reminded me of my mother,” he said softly, almost distractedly as he looked over my shoulder to the artificial stars of the city nightscape. “The truth is, you are so much stronger than her. She was crushed by the weight of Noel’s dark world, and you just seem to rise and rise like some star in my dark sky. I can turn myself in knowing that you are strong enough, that you have enough coraggio, to withstand the loneliness and worry. Not only that but to rise above it and find a way for us to be together again, free of this RICO case and Dennis O’Malley. You told me I
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“It will make me feel better to know that my mother and her ancestors are watching over you while I’m gone.”
“Ti amo, Capo,” I whispered against his lips. “Ti amo, martio mio.” I love you, my husband. He smiled against me, his hand reaching up to palm my throat. “Sono con te, lottatice mia, anche quando non lo sono.” I am with you, my fighter, even when I am not.
Actually, I would have given nearly anything to be within sixty feet of him again soon.
