Page 96 of Mercy of the Mafia Doctor
“We're going to build something on that mountain, Amara,” I say, my voice thick with a promise I intend to keep until my last breath. “A house with big windows. A garden. A room for every child we have. And no one—not the Bellantis, not the dead, not the past—is ever going to take it from us.”
She smiles, a small, weary thing that fills me with more pride than any victory in battle. “A room for every child? You’re getting ahead of yourself, Costa.”
“I'm a man of vision,” I murmur, my hand sliding down to cup her rear, pulling her flush against me. “And right now, my vision involves you never wearing clothes again while we’re in this house.”
She laughs, the sound light and musical, chasing away the last of the darkness. “I think I can live with that.”
We lie there in the quiet, the moonlight slowly shifting across the floor. I watch her until her breathing becomes deep and even, until sleep finally claims her. I don't sleep. I can't. I just focuson the way the light hits the curve of her shoulder, the way her eyelashes cast long shadows on her cheeks.
I think about Turi. I think about the blood on the courtyard stones and the look in his eyes when he died. He was a traitor, yes. But he was also a man who loved too much and in all the wrong ways. He spent fifteen years sending warnings against a debt that could never be settled.
I won't be that man. I won't spend my life looking backward. I have the woman. I have the future. The war is over. Not clean. Not simple. But over. It wasn't won with bullets or ledgers, but with the simple, terrifying act of staying.
I lean down and whisper into the crown of her hair, a secret for her ears only. “I’ve got you. I’ve finally got you.”
The house is still. The mountains are waiting. For the first time in twenty years, the weight in my chest loosens.
The rhythm of her heart is the only thing that matters. I let the exhaustion finally take me, drifting into a dreamless sleep, knowing that when I wake up, the bed won't be empty. She’ll be there. My partner. My future.
The morning will come, and with it, the long drive to Pine Valley. We’ll leave the city behind, leave the graves and the sirens and the cold, gray concrete. We’ll climb until the air is thin and the world is green, and we’ll start over.
But for now, there is only this. This room. This bed. This woman.
I am Alessio Costa. I am the man who took what he wanted and held on until the world stopped trying to pull her away. As the first light of dawn begins to touch the horizon, I feel whole enough to believe in morning.
I pull the blanket tighter around us, my hand resting protectively over her. It’s an instinctive gesture, a claim on a future that hasn’t even begun yet. The steady thrum of her pulse against my palm echoes my own.
We are survivors. We are the ones who made it through the fire. As the sun rises over the trees, casting long, golden fingers across the room, the fire is finally out. There is only the warmth of the sun and the woman in my arms.
I drift off, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. The road is behind us. The mountain is ahead. We are going where we belong.
The fragments of my old life—the cold instruments, the blood-stained ledgers, the solitary nights—they feel like another man’s memories. That man is dead. He died on that highway, in the ten minutes he spent waiting for a woman to choose him. The man who is left is new. He’s raw, he’s tired, but he’s alive.
She stirs in her sleep, her body pressing closer to mine, seeking my heat. I adjust my position, making sure she’s comfortable, making sure she feels the solid weight of me behind her. I want her to wake up every morning for the next fifty years and feel that weight. I want her to know, before she even opens her eyes, that she is safe and loved.
The dead of Chicago can keep the city. They can haunt the warehouses and the clinics, the alleys and the boardrooms. We’re going to a place where the air might finally teach us how to breathe. We’re going to a place where we can finally breathe.
I press one last kiss to her shoulder, the skin smooth and warm under my lips. “Go to sleep, Amara,” I whisper, even though she’s already there. “I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere.”
I know where I’m going. I'm going home.
27
AMARA
The airin this house doesn't taste like ozone or old gunpowder. It tastes like cedar, cold wind, and the kind of silence that usually triggers a sprint toward the nearest exit. I’m hunched over a heavy oak table in the transition house, a place tucked so far into the foothills that the GPS signal started dying ten miles back. The laptop screen glows, but bank statements and offshore shells have been replaced by a logo.
It’s a simple design. A stylized book with a silhouette carved into the spine. Underneath, in a font that looks clean and stubborn: The Curtis Osei Memorial Scholarship.
My windpipe narrows until the oxygen has to fight its way through. Ten years. For a decade, my brother’s name was a line item in a folder labeled Cold Case. It was a forty-thousand-dollar invoice signed by Vane. It was the reason I never owned more than two pairs of shoes or a set of dishes that matched.
Now, it’s a promise.
A shape falls over the screen. It’s broad-shouldered and smells of sandalwood and the sharp, clean scent of the mountain morning. Alessio doesn't ask for permission. He doesn't hover. He plants his hands on the back of my chair, his presence aphysical weight that anchors me to the floor. If I tried to bolt, I’d only trip over the sheer mass of him.
"The scholarship fund is active," he says. His voice is a low rumble that vibrates through the wood of the chair and into my spine. "The first five million is in the trust. The board is being seated by the end of the week."
"Five million." My fingers hover over the keys. "That’s a lot of students who won't have to look over their shoulders because they found a way out that doesn't involve a courier bag."
