Page 79
Three years later…
The plane hummed beneath me—a steady vibration that I had learned to find almost meditative. Almost. Nothing was truly peaceful anymore. Not since I learned what it meant to have everything and then lose it in the space of a single morning. Not since I discovered that happiness wasn’t a destination I reached but a fragile thing I held in cupped hands, terrified that the slightest movement would make it slip through my fingers.
I sat in the leather seat, staring out at clouds that looked like cotton pulled thin, stretched across an impossibly blue sky that seemed to mock me with its serenity. The world at 35,000 feet looked so simple, so clean. Up here, I couldn’t see the mess below—the broken lives, the shattered promises, the people who disappeared without warning. And I remembered waking up in that bedroom at Sinclair’s mansion three years ago, disoriented and confused in those first few seconds before reality crashed down on me. The sheets were still warm where she had been, still bearing the impression of her body. The scent of her perfume lingered in the air like a ghost, that floral blend she always wore, the one that used to drive me crazy in the best way. And I’d been left with the devastating, crushing realization that she was gone.
Again.
I had lain there for a long time, staring at the ceiling with its ornate crown molding that probably cost more than most people’s cars, feeling something inside me calcify into stone. Not breaking this time. Breaking would have been a mercy. Breaking was what happened the first time, when I was younger and still believed that pain eventually faded. No, this was something harder. Something that couldn’t be shattered because it had already been compressed into its densest form, subjected to pressures that would have destroyed a lesser man.
Pure. Unbreakable. Resolve.
I flew home to Henry that same day, barely remembering the drive to the airport or the flight itself. Those hours were a blur of numb automaticity. That first night home, I’d held my son, our son, and made him a promise I intended to keep even if it killed me, even if it took everything I had left to give: I will bring your mother home. He was still a baby then. He didn’t fully understand why she’d left or where she’d gone. How could he? I barely understood it myself. But he knew enough to cry, to cling to me with his small arms wrapped tight around my neck, and that nearly broke me all over again.
The flight attendant approached, her practiced smile already in place, and asked if I needed anything. I said nothing, my gaze remaining fixed on the clouds below. She retreated quickly, her footsteps hurried on the carpeted aisle.
They all did that now. Something about me had changed in the past three years, something fundamental and irreversible, something that made people instinctively keep their distance. I saw it in their eyes, a flicker of uncertainty, maybe even fear. I had become someone I barely recognized when I caught my reflection in mirrors.
Giovanni said I’d become cold.
Lorenzo said I’d become distant.
Antonio said I’d become focused, and my sister, Illyria, was worried.
When in reality, I’d just become what I needed to be.
The first year was the hardest. Not because of the longing that never got any easier, that never dulled, never became something I could ignore. But because I was still learning how to function as two separate people: the father who read bedtime stories, made breakfast and tried to explain why Mommy couldn’t come home yet, and the man who was systematically dismantling every obstacle between us.
Then Antonio informed the family about Grace, and everything changed in an instant.
I remembered the shock of seeing her at Antonio’s penthouse that day with crystal clarity. Her gentle, smiling face as she cupped her rounded belly, the maternal gesture instantly bringing back memories of how Madigan had done the same thing when she was pregnant. The way Antonio rushed to her side the moment we arrived, positioning himself next to her protectively, his hand finding the small of her back as he waited for one of us to say something—anything. The silence stretched on, thick and uncomfortable, until finally it was Grace who eased the tension and broke through the shock of seeing my brother’s wife for the first time. She stepped forward with a warm smile and extended her hand, introducing herself with a grace that matched her name.
Grace was beautiful in a way that went beyond the physical. She was gentle, soft-spoken yet confident, radiating a quiet strength that balanced Antonio’s intensity perfectly. She was perfect for Antonio in every conceivable way—the yin to his yang, the calm to his storm.
And I hated every second of it.
Not because of Grace herself—she was genuinely kind, remarkably intelligent despite her young age, and clearly loved my brother with her whole heart, with a devotion that was almost painful to witness. No, I hated it because their relationship was a mirror held up to my face, a constant reminder of what Madigan and I should have had. What we could have been if circumstances had been different. The warmth and easy acceptance of family and friends. The ability to stand together openly, without shame or secrecy. The simple pleasure of introducing the woman I loved without fear of judgment or repercussion.
The drama that followed Antonio’s announcement was predictable, though no less devastating. Tensions rose sharply as various family members voiced their opinions, some supportive, others skeptical. But the real danger came from Bianchi, a vile, power-hungry man who worked for the Society and saw Antonio’s relationship as both a weakness to exploit and a threat to their carefully maintained order. Bianchi tried, and damn near succeeded, to break Antonio psychologically and emotionally, using every tool at his disposal to drive a wedge between him and Grace. He almost killed Grace in the process, orchestrating an “accident” that sent her to the hospital and nearly cost her the baby.
And through it all, through every crisis and confrontation, I kept working. Kept planning my own moves in the shadows. Kept pulling threads with patient, methodical determination until the tapestry of the Society unraveled, one carefully loosened thread at a time.
But then came the Golden Wedding.
I closed my eyes against the memory, but it didn’t help. The images flooded back regardless—the scent of gunpowder mixing with the screams that echoed through the night.
Some things were burned too deep to avoid. Some memories had seared themselves into the very fabric of my soul, branded there by fire and blood and loss so profound it had reshaped who I was.
Luciano.
God, Luciano.
He had been more than my brother. He had been my compass, my conscience, the voice of reason when rage threatened to consume me whole. He had been the one who taught me that strength didn’t always mean violence, that power could be wielded with precision instead of brutality. He showed me that a sharp mind and carefully chosen words could accomplish what a hundred-armed men could not. He had been the one who checked in on me after Madigan left, when I was drowning in bourbon and fury and self-destruction, and said, “Don’t lose yourself in the darkness, Salvatore. She’ll need you whole when she comes home.”
I hadn’t understood what he meant then. I thought he was talking about being physically present, about staying alive long enough to see her again.
I understood now. He had been talking about my soul, about not letting the violence and vengeance that defined our world strip away everything that made me human. He had been warning me not to become the monster that circumstances demanded.
The Golden Wedding was supposed to end everything. A second chance for everyone. Freedom from those who controlled everything—the Society, that shadowy organization that had manipulated the underworld for decades, pulling strings I hadn’t even known existed. Instead, it was a bloody massacre, a carefully orchestrated ambush that turned a day of hope into a nightmare of carnage. Bodies littered the ground, and all it did was show how unprepared we all were and how far the depth of the Society’s reach truly was. They had infiltrated everything: our security, our businesses, even our closest confidants.
