Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
She says nothing, rinsing a dish before placing it on the drying rack.
“I know who they are,” I continue. “I’m young but not foolish. This life… I’ve seen the worst of it and come through. I will stand next to them when things get tough. I’ll do my best to guide and support them.”
She nods, continuing to scrub a particularly stubborn pan.
“With my mother and aunt back in Maryland and my brother in rehab, I need a family,” I continue, my chest tightening. “I want that family to be you. And Rosita. If you’ll have me.”
Signora Venturi finally turns to face me, and for the first time, her eyes soften. There’s still a weight to her gaze, an unspoken warning that she won’t tolerate any harm coming to her sons. But there’s something else, too.
Acceptance.
She reaches out, brushing a wet hand over my cheek. “You’re stronger than I gave you credit for.”
I smile and blink back the sudden rush of emotion. “I had to be.”
“Us women, we have to be strong. In secret, without showing it, we bear the weight of our families, steer our men to make good decisions, and guide our children even when they seem to lose their way. It’s our burden but also our blessing.” She rubs her hands on her apron. “I’ve waited for a long time for my sons to find a woman worthy of their love. I’d given up hope for Luca and Antonio.”
“Why?”
She shrugs. “Anyone who spends too much time alone becomes hard to live with. Their hearts were cold, their minds rigid. I couldn’t imagine who would find a way to reach them. Alexis is younger, but he has too much restless energy and too much fire in his veins. I worried that no one would ever be able to pin him down.”
She cups my face in her work-roughened hands. “You must be very special to have planted love in such barren and unpredictable soil.”
I blush, feeling overwhelmed at her words, unused to being called special by anyone.
“Special,” I say. “But also lucky.”
Her eyes finally light with the genuine warmth I used to see when I was a child, and she’d pinch my cheeks and feed me extra sweets when my mama wasn’t looking.
“I love them,” I say. “For all the good and the bad, the difficult and the easy. I love them.”
She pats my shoulder and nods. “Me, too, Aemelia. Me, too.”
That night as we relax on the terrace beneath the stars, surrounded by family, I feel something settle inside me.
I’m home.
I’m loved.
And I’m exactly where I belong.
Epilogue
LUCA
UNDONE BY LOVE
The church is half-filled with guests, more on our side than Aemelia’s, but that’s to be expected. Her father's family isn’t welcome, and her mother’s is small. Most of her friends from Maryland couldn’t make it, except for a select few we offered to fly out for the weekend.
On our side is a mix of beloved family—Rosita and Raphael with baby Mario asleep in her arms, Mama looking happy and proud, cousins, friends, our crew and their wives and children, and further back, our allies, the men who control this underworld most of the time.
I glance past them because their presence isn’t about sentiment, it’s about power, about ensuring that alliances remain intact. The only way to secure a safe future for Aemelia and our family is to keep the right people on our side. There’s no walking away from this life, so we have to play the game.
By my side, Antonio and Alexis stand, dressed in matching tuxedos, hair styled, eyes bright, waiting with the same tension I feel coiled inside me.
I don’t like it when Aemelia is out of our sight. That’s one of the benefits of sharing a woman—three husbands can protect her far better than one.
We’re an anomaly in this world. Men like us don’t share. They hoard, they claim, they devour. But with us, it has always been different. Sharing Aemelia has brought me a peace I never thought possible. While it took time for our mother to understand, Aemelia’s desire to fill our home with children has softened her heart. She just wants to see us happy, and it’s impossible for anyone to deny that we are.
“She’s late,” Alexis hisses, raking a hand through his curls, ruining their styled perfection. He looks more like himself now, a little disheveled, a little reckless.
“It’s a bride’s prerogative,” I remind him.
Carmella Lambretti sits in the front with her sister beside her. Christina is even thinner than when we last saw her, but she’s hanging on, determined to witness her niece’s wedding. Who knows what will happen after? She has already outlived every doctor’s prediction.
I adjust my cuffs, my fingers grazing the links Mario gave me so many years ago. He should have been here today. He was always the one who believed in love, the artist, the poet, the dreamer.