Chapter 10 - Always
Three months later, the spring thaw finally broke over Westchester County.
The lake outside the bedroom window shimmered like polished silver under a warm morning sun. Dogwood trees were blooming along the shoreline, their white petals drifting lazily across the water like scattered snow.
Inside the house, the silence was no longer the heavy, suffocating silence of an empty empire. It was soft, peaceful, and filled with light.
Luca sat in a wooden rocking chair beside the large glass doors. He wasn't wearing a custom Milanese suit; he wore a simple black cashmere sweater and jeans, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. In his lap was a leather-bound notebook—not a ledger of sins or corporate accounts, but Emma’s journal.
Across the room, propped up against a pile of plush pillows, Emma watched him read. She was thinner, pale, her energy fading day by day as the spring flowers bloomed outside, but her gray-green eyes were clear, bright, and filled with a profound, untroubled peace.
Luca looked up from the page, his expression softening as he met her gaze.
“You were very hard on me in these pages,” he said softly, a faint, self-deprecating smile touching his lips.
Emma smiled back, her voice a low, musical murmur. “Truth usually is, Luca. Did you finish it?”
“Every word,” he said, closing the notebook gently and setting it on the side table beside her medicine bottles.
He stood up, walked over to the bed, and sat down on the edge of the mattress, taking her hand in his. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small gold band—the ring she had dropped on the marble floor of the Manhattan penthouse three long months ago.
He slid it back onto her left ring finger. It fit a little looser now, but it stayed in place.
“You know,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a register of absolute, quiet devotion, “I spent my whole life believing that power meant holding onto everything—money, territory, control, fear.”
Emma squeezed his fingers weakly, her thumb brushing over the gold band. “And what do you believe now?”
“I believe,” Luca whispered, leaning down to press his forehead gently against hers, “that the only thing worth keeping is the person who loved you enough to save your soul when you were too blind to see you were drowning.”
Emma closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of him—her husband, not the mob boss, not the legend of New York, just the man who had finally found his way home.
“You’re late,” she whispered with a faint, teasing smile.
May you like
“I know,” Luca replied, kissing her eyelids, her cheek, her lips, holding onto her as the morning light flooded the room. “I’m always late. But I’m here now. And I’m never leaving.”
Outside, the wind whispered through the pines, and for the first time in a decade, the world went quiet, keeping their secret safe in the palm of the spring.
