Page 199 of Vicious Intentions
And as I search her impossible blue eyes, I know she means every word. I know she would spend the rest of her life beside me as aCosa Nostraqueen, even if it contradicted everything she once believed in. Even if it went against her principles, her morals, the very core of who she is, she would still choose me. Without hesitation. Without regret. Completely.
“I love you so much,” I whisper, pressing kisses against her cheeks, her nose, her chin, desperate to pour every feeling inside me into something she can touch. “My life was empty before you. Gray. Ugly. Then you came into it and filled every broken part ofme with light. No matter how many lives we live, I’ll love you in every single one of them. Even if I don’t deserve to.”
“Look at me, husband,” she murmurs, her tone gentle despite the quiet firmness behind it. “You deserve happiness just as much as I do. You deserve love, Matteo. And I will love you in this life and every one that comes after it. Always.” Her thumb brushes beneath my eye, tender enough to undo me completely. “You are my happily ever after, husband. You are my everything.”
I breathe her in before crushing my lips to hers, needing the goodness inside her to quiet the chaos tearing through my mind.
And when we return home, I make love to my wife with a kind of reverence that borders on desperation, needing her to understand what words could never fully convey. That I will never take her love for granted, that I know exactly how lucky I am she stepped into my world, and that there is nothing I wouldn’t do to make her happy.
But I do not sleep that night.
Or the next.
Or even the one after that.
How could I?
Every time I close my eyes, all I see is the life that has been stolen from us. The life Anna and I might have had if we had been born into different families, with different last names and more promising fates.
I have never been an envious man, but I envy the renowned chef who gets to come home each night to his brilliantly talented pianist wife, their beautiful children filling their home with laughter and joyous noise.
No, envy has never been one of my sins. Yet it is this imagined version of ourselves, and the alternative life we could have lived, that keeps me awake until dawn.
Because that man is living the life I want…and the life my wife truly deserves.
Chapter 45
Annamaria
Winter has swallowed the city whole, snow piling across the balcony outside while I stare out the window, longing for summer again. Longing for the days when my biggest concern was fighting my feelings for my husband while he did his best to tear down every guarded wall around my heart.
It’s been nearly five months since the war started. Six months since I left Chicago. And Lord knows how much longer it will be before this city sees peace again.
I no longer watch the news, too terrified the anchor will read the name of someone I love from the sheet in his hands.
Matteo has kept his promise, though. My parents and siblings are still alive and safe. But according to him, the Outfit severely underestimated how badly theCosa Nostrawanted freedom from their rule.
The streets run red as both sides slaughter each other, yet the Outfit continues to suffer the heavier losses. New York rejects them like a foreign infection, hunting them down at every turn.
Death after death.
Body after body.
Men I had probably smiled at once inside the halls of the old Salvatore mansion. I might not have pulled the trigger myself, but that hardly makes me innocent. Their blood stains my hands all the same. Yet every guilt-ridden thought disappears the second my husband walks through the front door safe and sound.
It’s always like this. I spend the day drowning in guilt over the bloodshed my love has caused, only to forget every one of my sorrows once night falls and I’m back in his arms.
Thanksgiving is only a few days away, and his love is the only thing I have to be grateful for.
And God help me, it’s enough. More than enough. It’s everything.
What does that say about the woman I’ve become? That I would sooner watch this city burn to the ground than lose the love of my life?
What has happened to me?
“Anna? Are you okay?” a familiar voice calls my name. Unfortunately, it isn’t the one I long for.
“I’m very well, Raffaele. Thank you.”
