EPILOGUE

Luca

My heart was heavy.

It wasn’t lost on me that I was a different man than the one who’d died for the sake of my family.

I gripped the umbrella in one hand and used my other to brace myself against her marble stone.

Here lies a woman loved.

Raindrops slid off the black umbrella in front of my face as Frank let out a slow exhale, his breath puffing out in a cloud in front of his mouth.

I’d loved her more than anything.

So had he.

“Your children — our children,” I said gruffly to the flat, lifeless stone, “are beautiful. Dante gets his good looks from my side…”

Frank snorted.

“…and Valentina, well, she looks just like you did, same cherry red lips, same posture, she even has—” My voice cracked. “—she has your laugh.”

Frank closed his eyes briefly as I tried to regain my composure, while the wind howling around me played tricks with my old mind, bringing back memories of her scent, and the way it would wrap around a man until he was consumed with obsessive thoughts of her.

“You are… missed,” I finished, while Frank nodded numbly next to me.

“I’m getting too old for this,” Frank whispered in a hoarse voice. “Now that Dante is head of the Alfero family—”

“The way it’s supposed to be,” I added in.

He nodded. “I think I could learn to like golf.”

I smiled. “It does pass the time.”

“I think I would miss my guns, though,” Frank confessed.

The corners of my mouth turned up in a rueful smile. “Just because you retire doesn’t mean your guns retire, brother. It just means your trigger finger isn’t what it used to be.”

“Speak for yourself. I have perfect aim,” Frank joked.

I wrapped an arm around him, and we each held our umbrellas high to keep the rain from our faces as we walked to the waiting black limo.

Our driver opened the door.

We gave him our umbrellas and sat across plush leather. A cigar was waiting next to a crystal decanter of whiskey and a few bottles of wine.

Frank straightened his tie. “How long are you staying?”

I sighed. “As long as I can without being seen. I’m a ghost, remember?”

“No fingerprints?” he asked.

I waved my fingers at him. I’d done my best to wipe traces of my print the only way I knew how — with a knife. “Not if I can help it.”

The car drove smoothly over the hill, taking us back to Nixon’s fortress, and I had to smile to myself. Of all the roads I assumed the Cosa Nostra would take, these men, these new young bosses, always took the most difficult, the most painful, the one paved with the most blood.

I’d thought that by leaving instructions like you would spoon-feed a child, they would obey and all would be well.

Instead, I’d come back to betrayal.

Death.

So much death that they were wrapped in it.

When I’d left this earth, I’d left boys.

Upon my return, I’d found men.

And as proud as I was, a part of my heart was sad for them, mourned the loss of innocence as they filled our shoes better than we could have, and kept the Families stronger.

It was with sadness that I looked upon my own son and saw darkness reflected in his eyes, anger, the need to punish. And it tore at me. As a boss, I was proud; as a father, I was devastated that this is what it had come to.

The car pulled up to Nixon’s. I followed Frank out.

Dante was waiting at the door, arms crossed. Damn, if Joyce could see him now. He was too good looking to be mine. Even I, in all my vanity, could admit that. He was all the perfect parts of Joyce and the best parts of me wrapped up into one angry package.

“You’re going to leave again,” he said it as if it were truth.

I nodded. “To keep you safe, I can’t linger, no.”

“So you’re just going to abandon your own fucking kids again?”

Damn, I liked his spirit.

“Looks like it, doesn’t it?” I tilted my head. “But you know the truth now that you are boss. You know the sacrifices you make. You know their screams at night, the faces of people you’ve taken, souls you’ve damned. You know if there was any way I could have kept you from this life, I would have done it. Any way to keep you safe, and I would have taken it. I did take it. The last twenty-one years of my life have been spent creating a dynasty you would be proud of and making sure that every hair on your head is accounted for. Did I do it the right way? No. Were people killed for my secrets? Yes. Would I take it all back? Never.”

Dante’s arms fell to his side as he took a step towards me. “I want to hate you.”

“I would welcome your hate,” I admitted. “Hate is a strong emotion. I can work with hate.”

He lifted his hand. “But I’m just so damn happy you’re not dead that I can’t even find it in myself to raise my gun to your temple, even though a part of you knows you deserve it.”

My pride grew and grew, until my smile reflected it. “Unfortunate.”

His lips twitched. “Frank’s probably already drunk a full bottle of wine. We should go in. You know how Chase gets when he cooks.”

The conversation was over.

The threats said.

The “I love yous,” unnecessary because he didn’t raise his gun, and I did not raise mine. It was enough.

Chase

Three months later

The nightmares were still there, the blood caking my fingertips, and with every De Lange I took, the less human I felt, and then I would come home to dinner.

An actual, honest-to-God dinner.

In my new home.

In Nixon’s neighborhood.

That I shared with one person.

The most important person.

“Chase!” Luc wiped her hands on her apron and then tugged at her pearls. “You’re home early! I was baking bread.”

I gave my head a shake.

God sure had a sense of humor.

There I was, blood literally dripping from my hands, another ten De Lange men in body bags who refused to abide by Abandonato rules, and I come home and it was like the fifties had thrown up all over the kitchen.

My woman.

Her belly swollen with our first child.

In an apron with fucking flowers on it.

Wearing pearls and red lipstick.

It wasn’t what I’d had in mind.

It was everything the universe knew I would die for, fight for, continue to kill for, and it was mine. All. Mine.

“You shouldn’t be on your feet,” I scolded.

She was used to my gruff attitude, especially after a rough day trying to keep more men in line under a new boss, a new Family.

“My feet are fine.” She grinned. “And you’ll feel so much better once you eat.”

That was her plan: feed me until I was too stuffed to move, then ply me with wine, sex.

She was pregnant, and yet I felt like she took care of me.

From cutting fresh flowers every week and putting life around the house so I’d reflect on the good… to cooking… to just being my best friend.

She was everything.

I gave my head a shake. “What would I do without you?”

She just shrugged. “You’d be really bored. Horny. Probably dead. Alone, still in that giant mansion feeling sorry for yourself with your blood-stained bat and—”

I covered her mouth with my hand. “That’s enough.”

She just grinned and whispered, “Hey Chase?”

“Yeah, princess?”

“What are you doing in two weeks?”

I just laughed, eyed her up and down, and whispered what I always whispered, “You.”