“And you?” I look at Saul. “You’re really okay with me marrying the woman you love?”
“No,” he says honestly. “The idea of her being legally yours makes me want to put my fist through something. But it’s the saftest option. And I love her more than I hate the idea.”
The room goes quiet.
“I need to think,” I say finally.
“Take your time,” Saul says. “It’s no small thing testifying against a man like Sal. The family.”
“The family will survive without my uncle.” Dario pours another drink. Hands it to me. “There’s something else,” he says.
We both look at him.
“Before any of this happens, the testimony, the relocation, the logistics, I need time with her,” Dario says, and there’s a brutality in how honest it is. “Not scraps. Not a stolen hour between disasters. I need her when she’s laughing and bored and annoyed and real. I need to see her choose me without fear in the room.”
“Time,” Saul says.
Dario’s jaw tightens. “I had one conversation with her. One real conversation in all those months. And then one…” He stops. Doesn’t finish.
But I know. One time. Fast and desperate and nothing like what he wanted.
“I need to court her,” he continues. “Properly. Show her who I am beyond the man she had to run from. I need her to choose me knowing everything.”
“How long?” I ask.
“A few days. Just, time. Uninterrupted.”
Jealousy flares hot in my chest.
Days of him having her completely. Waking up with her. Cooking for her. Learning her in ways that were mine.
This is what sharing looks like. It looks like swallowing broken glass and smiling anyway.
“Okay,” Saul says. “You get time with her. To court her. To build something real.”
“And then?” I ask.
“And then we figure out the rest. Visits. Schedules. How this actually works day to day,” Saul says.
“No cages,” Dario says. “No rules that turn her into a schedule. But we need boundaries we can live inside without lying.”
“No one lies to her. Not for protection. Not for convenience. Not for ego,” Saul says.
“No one touches her pain like it’s leverage. If she hurts, we stop. All of us,” Dario says.
“No one uses the badge to threaten what she chooses,” I say.
“It’s a lot of trust,” Dario says.
“It is,” Saul agrees. “But if we can’t trust each other with her, this doesn’t work.”
We stand there. Three men who should be enemies.
United by nothing except the woman we all love.
None of us say the quiet part out loud: every rule is a blade turned inward.
“I should go,” Saul says. “She’s waiting to hear what happened.”
