Chapter 18
The Wife in the Dark
Silvio fell by noon.
Not in the dramatic way he had probably imagined, not in a body on a floor with a room full of shocked faces, but in the quieter and more permanent way: documents, testimonies, routes, money, and the kind of evidence that makes even powerful men run out of excuses.
The Romano family did what families like that always do when the truth becomes more expensive than the lie.
They picked a side.
Lucia picked the city and the company and the parts of the family that could survive with their names intact. Enzo picked Dante. Owen picked Mia. And Mia, for the first time in her life, picked herself before she picked fear.
By evening, the penthouse windows were open to the river air and the city looked almost peaceful from that height.
Dante stood at the kitchen island in shirtsleeves, less armored than she had ever seen him, and watched her like he was still afraid she might decide to leave if he looked away for a second.
"You can still change your mind," he said.
Mia lifted the ring from the box and held it between two fingers. "You said that already."
"I'm saying it again."
"You shouldn't waste your skills on things I already know."
That earned her the smallest smile.
She crossed to him, put the ring in his palm, and let him see that she understood exactly what it meant now.
"I am not staying because you won," she said.
"Good."
"I'm not staying because I owe you."
"Better."
She stepped closer until the space between them was only breath.
"I'm staying because I want this," she said.
Dante's hand closed over hers. Slow. Careful. Certain.
"Then say yes again," he murmured.
Mia smiled, softer this time, and let the dark city reflect back the truth of the choice she had made all the way through.
"Yes."
He slid the ring onto her finger and kissed her forehead first, then her mouth, with a kind of restraint that had finally learned what to do with desire.
Outside, the river moved.
Inside, the future did too.
You've finished Marked by the Underboss.
