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But the words felt hollow.

I grabbed my bag from the trunk and headed toward the house. The front door opened before I reached it, and there she was, my beautiful wife, backlit by the warm glow of the interior, her hand resting on the swell of her belly, her face breaking into a smile that made my chest ache.

“You’re home,” she breathed, and then she was in my arms, her body pressed against mine, her scent, floral and something uniquely her, filling my lungs.

For a moment, everything was right. For a moment, the doubt receded, the fear quieted, and all that existed was her warmth, her heartbeat against my chest, the way she fit perfectly in my arms. “I’m home,” I murmured into her hair, holding her tighter than I probably should have. “I’m never leaving again.”

She pulled back just enough to look up at me, her eyes searching mine. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

She kissed me then, soft and sweet, and I tried to lose myself in it. Tried to become the man she needed me to be. The man who could leave the violence behind, who could build a life here in the mountains, who could be a husband and a father and nothing more.

But even as I kissed her back, even as I carried her inside and kicked the door shut behind us, I could feel it.

The wrongness.

The sense that something was coming.

The first few days back were an exercise in pretending.

I woke with Madigan in my arms, her body warm and soft against mine, and tried to slip back into the rhythm we had built before Chicago. Lazy mornings. Coffee on the porch. Her hand in mine as we walked the property, talking about the baby, about names, about the future we were building.

But it was harder this time.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was wearing a costume, playing a part. The man I had been in Chicago, the soldier, the enforcer, the brother who would do anything for his family, was still there, just beneath the surface. I could feel him in the tension in my shoulders, in the way my hand automatically went to my hip where my gun should have been, in the way I scanned every horizon for threats that didn’t exist.

Madigan noticed.

“You’re different,” she said one morning as we sat on the porch, watching the sun rise over the mountains. Her hand rested on her belly, which had grown noticeably in the weeks I’d been gone. “Since you came back. You’re... somewhere else.”

“I’m here,” I said, but even I could hear the lie in it.

“Are you?” She turned to look at me, her winter eyes too perceptive, too knowing. “Because it feels like part of you is still in Chicago.”

I wanted to deny it. Wanted to tell her she was wrong, that I was completely present, completely hers.

But I couldn’t.

“I’m trying,” I said instead, my voice rough. “I’m trying to be the man you need me to be.”

“I don’t need you to be anyone but yourself, Salvatore.” She reached for my hand, lacing her fingers through mine. “But I need you to be here. With me. Not lost in whatever’s going on in your head.”

“I know.” I squeezed her hand, bringing it to my lips. “I know, baby. I’m sorry.”

She leaned her head against my shoulder, and we sat in silence, watching the light spread across the valley. But even in that moment of peace, I could feel it. The creeping dread, the sense that we were living on borrowed time.

That something was coming.

The doubt grew worse as the days passed.

I tried to lose myself in the mundane tasks of ranch life: fixing fences, chopping wood, and maintaining the property. Physical labor that should have grounded me, should have burned off the restless energy that thrummed beneath my skin.

But it didn’t help.

Every time I swung the axe, I thought about the last time I’d held a weapon. Every time I drove a nail, I thought about the violence I had left behind in Chicago. Every time I looked at Madigan, I thought about how fragile this peace was, how easily it could shatter.

You chose too late.