Page 162 of Forsaking All Others

The fire trucks would be here soon, but was it soon enough?

“Dario,” I called out, stepping away from the broken tarp to the base of the window. “Jump down, and I’ll break your fall.”

A loud coughing laugh filtered down to us. “You’ll break your fucking neck.”

“Better mine than yours,” I said, so conditioned to put his life first I couldn’t even think of an alternative. “Come on, get your ass out here. You’re scaring Fia.”

There was a long pause, just the crackling of flames and the groans of a house under siege.

And then something fell from the window.

I leaned forward to snag the glittering object and knew before I even opened my palm what it was. I closed my eyes to the ache that burned like an out-of-control blaze in my own chest and let Fia pry my hand apart to get to the treasure.

“No,” she whispered as she stared at the square gold pendant Dario always wore, the one the previous capo dei capi before Lando had owned.

She stared at it, then flipped it around as if it held secret answers to Dario’s survival.

It didn’t, but I did flip the catch, revealing that it was a locket.

Dario had a photo of Fia within it, her sleeping face at peace.

“Dario,” Fia called to him, tears streaking down her face. “Please, come down.”

As if he could just float to the ground.

Like a ghost.

Only of the two of us, that was my role not his.

I didn’t want him to end like this, burned up in our parents’ house because of Carla’s fucking greed. I wanted him to live a long life with me now that we had a future where we could actually be brothers instead of two halves of the same miserable person. I wanted him to find a love like the one I had for Fia, a love that had taught me how to dream for the first time in my life.

“Dario,” I yelled up at him. “Brother, please.”

“Be happy,” his rough disembodied voice called out. “Both of you, for me. Take care of her.”

“No!” Fia shouted through the sobs that raked her entire body.

I curled my arms around her, and she sank into me as if her body couldn’t hold her own weight.

“He’s not coming down,” she whispered brokenly.

“No,” I agreed.

“I love you, Fiammetta,” he called, his voice a thin creak of sound followed by horrific gasping coughs. “Please be happy now.”

His wife sobbed in my arms, clutching the necklace he wore as a talisman in her hand pressed to her breast. I didn’t feel jealousy, didn’t think for a moment that Fia wasn’t mine.

We were joined in our grief as flames suddenly spouted out the open window, licking toward the sky like greedy fingers grasping for the night.

We didn’t hear from Dario again.

“We’ll be happy,” she begged as she turned fully into me, her bloody, broken arm hanging by her side while her other hand tugged at my hair. “Promise me, no matter what. We’ll be happy now. Together.”

“Te lo prometto, principessa,” I swore. “Per sempre.”

I promise, princess. Forever.

Epilogue