Page 84 of Mercy of the Mafia Doctor
There is one thing left that is mine to finish. The Bellanti server bank sits in an alcove off the loading bay, still humming like nothing upstairs has changed. I hit the final sequence—the massacre evidence, the money trails, twenty years of ghost-signatures, every byte of it packaged, duplicated, and stripped of the traps Vane built to poison the evidence—and I send it through Natalia’s protected legal channels. They won’t just lose the money. They’ll lose the names, the shells, the judges, the clean exits.
The screen flashes green across every line. Ten years of my life, delivered in eleven seconds.
A few minutes later, I hear the footsteps. Alessio. I don’t have to look to know it’s him. I know the rhythm of his walk, the way he moves with a heavy, purposeful grace. He stops behind me, and I feel the heat radiating off him.
“Lorenzo is done,” he says.
“Is it?” I ask, staring at the raindrops splashing into an oily puddle on the concrete. “The money is gone. Lorenzo is finished. The ledger is closed.”
“Amara.” He turns me around, his hands gripping my shoulders. His eyes are dark, searching mine. “It’s over. You don’t have to hunt him anymore.”
“I know,” I say. And that’s the problem.
For ten years, my life has been defined by the hunt. I woke up every morning with a goal. I went to bed every night with a purpose. My brother’s memory was the only constant I had. Now the hunt is finished, and I don’t know what his memory becomes without it.
The silence in my head is terrifying.
“I don’t know what to do with my hands,” I whisper. I look down at them, pale and empty in the dim light. “They’ve been holding onto a grudge for so long, I don’t think they know how to hold anything else.”
Alessio takes my hands in his. He brings them to his lips, kissing my knuckles with a tenderness that makes my heart ache.
“Start with me,” he says. “Then coffee. Then a drawer. Then tomorrow.”
I want to believe him. I want to sink into him and let the world go away. But the instinct is there, pulsing in the back of my brain like a neon sign. *Run. Get out before the silence swallows you. Get out before you realize there’s nothing left.*
I’ve never made a home. I’ve never stayed anywhere long enough to see the seasons change. I’m a creature of motion, of exits and escape routes. And now, for once in my life, there’s no reason to move.
It feels like a cage.
“Amara, look at me.” Alessio’s voice is firm, pulling me back from the edge of the spiral. “You’re thinking about the door. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I’ve always had a door, Alessio,” I say, my voice trembling. “I’ve always had a bag packed by the bed. It’s how I stayed alive.”
“You’re not just staying alive anymore,” he says, his grip tightening. “You’re living. With me. With the family.”
“The family,” I repeat. The word feels heavy. “I don’t even know who I am without the case, Alessio. I’m just… a woman with a dead brother and a lot of anger. What happens when the anger is gone?”
“We find out,” he says. “Together.”
I look past him, into the dark recesses of the warehouse. The brothers are coming out of the office now. They look exhausted, their shoulders slumped, their faces weary. They’ve won the war, but they’ve lost their father figure and their peace of mind.
We’re all just survivors now.
It’s Dominic who finally says it. He is staring back at the warehouse like a man reading a headstone. “We don’t heal here,” Dominic says. “Not yet. I want ground with no graves in it.”
“The mountains,” Alessio says. His hand tightens around mine. “Lucia’s town. Pine Valley.”
Dominic nods once, and just like that, the decision has weight. “The mountains. The first group moves within the week. We take the family somewhere it can breathe, and then we decide what we rebuild.”
“We need to get back,” Alessio says, his hand sliding down to interlace with mine. “Dominic wants to head to the compound. We have to bring Turi home.”
The mention of Turi brings a fresh wave of grief. The man who raised them. The man who betrayed them. The man who died to save them. It’s too much. It’s all too much.
We walk out to the cars in silence. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, a misty shroud that clings to everything. The drive back to the North Side is a blur of city lights and wet asphalt. Alessio doesn’t say a word, but his hand stays open between us, close enough for me to take if I need it.
The compound is quiet when we arrive. The lights are low, and the air feels heavy with the weight of the day’s events. The women are waiting in the foyer with phones, first-aid supplies, and faces carved by exhaustion. When we walk through the door, the tension breaks in a wave of hushed voices and tearful embraces.
I watch them. I watch Sienna throw her arms around Dominic. I watch Natalia pull Enzo close. I watch the way they hold the room together while the men come back bloody and hollow.
