Page 95 of The Mad Don
“I’ll make it up to you,” I say. “For everything. All of it.”
“The properties,” she says. “The money. It’s too much, Giovanni, I can’t —”
I kiss her to stop the protest, and she gives in; she tastes like cinnamon. I pull back.
“It’s okay,” I say. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”
She nods and leans into my chest, careful of the bandages, and settles there.
I press my mouth to the top of her head.
“I love you,Lupa.”
“I love you too,” she says.
Epilogue
Yana
One year later
“One, two — go.”
Lucia swings, and a fist comes and hits Christov’s open palm hard enough to push him back a step. He stumbles, catches himself, and stares at her with his mouth open. Lucia squeals and spins toward me with her glove up.
I high-five it.
“Did you see that?” she demands. “Did you see his face?”
“I saw it.” I’m grinning. “Again. Feet first this time.”
Her legs are better. Not fully strong, maybe they never will be, but better than anyone ever promised her. She walks by herself without thinking about it now and doesn’t reach for the wall. A year of physio and a year of this, and the girl who couldn’t lifta glass of water is knocking my brother off balance in her own training room.
“She’s getting dangerous,” Christov says, shaking his hand out. “I want it noted that I’m being injured for free.”
“You’re being toughened up,” I tell him. “Kirill says you’re soft.”
“Kirill punches like a truck; of course I look soft —”
The door opens, and Giovanni comes in with his new capo behind him, both of them still in their meeting suits. He shakes Christov’s hand, kisses Lucia’s cheek, and then his eyes find me across the room, and they change. I know that look. Christov knows it too because he laughs and claps both hands over Lucia’s eyes.
“Hey —” Lucia swats at him as he pulls her away.
The capo clears his throat. “I’ll see myself out, Don.” He goes, smiling at the floor.
Giovanni walks across the room to me. I put my arms over his shoulders, and he kisses me, and then his hands find my waist, and he lifts me, and he carries me to the desk at the side of the training room and sets me on it.
“I couldn’t focus on the meeting,” he says against my mouth. “My head was full of you.”
“What a smooth talker,” I chuckle
“It’s a serious problem. Millions were discussed. I heard none of it. All I thought was, I miss my sweet girl.”
I laugh, and he kisses me again.
The year has been quiet. He recovered fully after six months and stepped back into the seat as he’d never left it. Kirill quietly held everything together until he could. Lucia came back to us after two months with Annika, walking better, glowing, and never once stopping her physio. The house got rebuilt slowly, and everyone settled back down. Nobody has tested him since Fabiano, and nobody seems eager to be the first.
His hands move down my sides through the fabric of my clothes.
