Five years ago, Christian died in a gunfight protecting me from a rival gang. Now I saw him in the hospital when I having survived the suicide attempt. He had one arm around Lucia and the other holding a little girl who looked just like him. He looked up. Our eyes met. The smile on his face went frozen. His mother, the woman who had called me a murderer at his funeral, was now stumbling over herself to block Lucia from my view. "Elena, what are you doing here—" "Christian had no choice back then, you have to understand—" I looked down at my hospital gown. At the fresh bandages on my wrists. "So." I said. "While you all watched me lose my mind — while I was swearing a widow's oath over his body — you thought I was the punchline. Is that it?" Nobody answered. Christian moved Lucia behind him. He looked at me warily. Five years. He'd been alive for five years. And I was the only one who didn't know. The little girl wrapped her arms tighter around his neck. "Daddy," she said.
My chest went cold. Lucia hid behind Christian as if I were some kind of monster, yet a blatant provocation flashed in her eyes. Seeing my stunned expression, she reached out and gripped Christian's arm tightly. The diamond ring on her hand dazzlingly bright. "Christian." Her voice was soft. Just loud enough for me to hear. "Today is our anniversary. We're going to miss the show." I looked past them at the screen on the wall. January 22nd. Their wedding anniversary. The same date Christian had promised to propose to me. The same date, five years ago, that I buried him. At that funeral, his family circled me like I was already guilty. I knelt. I said sorry until my voice gave out, until my knees bled through my dress. You killed him. You should have died instead. Why are you still breathing? I'd spent five years trying to answer that last question. If I hadn't gone into that warehouse after him, none of it would have happened. I walked straight into a rival ambush. Christian came back for me. He took the bullet that was meant for him and lost his only way out. The explosion brought the whole building down. But he hadn't died. He'd been alive this whole time — with a wife, with a daughter. My eyes were dry. I had nothing left to cry with. I stared at him for a long time. Lucia kept tugging at his sleeve, and his mother came forward again. "Christian had no choice, Elena, you don't understand how complicated—" "How complicated," I said. "Right." I took one step toward him. He took one step back. "I married you," I said. "You know that? After your funeral. Your mother gave me permission to take your name. "I stood at the altar in a white dress and held a photograph of your face and swore the widow's oath with my own blood." Christian went white. Lucia pressed her daughter's face into her shoulder. "I thought I owed you my life," I said. "I spent five years trying to pay it back." Christian reached for me. I stepped back. "Don't touch me." I looked at the little girl half-asleep on Lucia's shoulder. "What's her name," I said. Christian's hand moved to his cuff. "Nova," he said. Nova. New life. The name he'd promised me four years into what I thought was ours, lying in bed one night talking about the future. If we ever have a daughter, I want to call her Nova. That was his wish. He'd given it to someone else. I reached up and unclasped the cross necklace from my throat. The one I'd worn every day since his funeral. I dropped it into the trash can by the nurses' station.
The first time I met Christian, I didn't trust him. He wasn't family. Not by blood, not by history. He'd come up through a crew in South Boston, earned his place soldier by soldier. My father had promoted him to Capo. My mother died the night I was born. A hemorrhage during labor — she didn't make it to morning. Nobody said it was my fault directly. But I grew up knowing it was the thing people thought about when they looked at me. Christian was the first to understand my sensitivity and vulnerability. He was patient. He showed up every time he said he would. He remembered small things — how I took my coffee, which side of the booth I preferred, the anniversary of my mother's death. So I let him in. All the way in. We were careful at first, the way you have to be when the Don is your father. But my father saw it coming before either of us said a word. My father told him straight: You hurt her, I'll handle it personally. We fell in love for four years. That's how long I thought we had something real. Then Lucia arrived. She was the adopted daughter of a low-level enforcer who ran collections in the North End. Small, quiet, the kind of woman who made herself easy to overlook. Christian brought her to a dinner one evening and introduced her around. I didn't think much of it. The first time I made a concession for her, it was the gallery. I'd spent two years building that operation — a high-end art front on Commonwealth Avenue, clean enough to pass any audit, profitable enough to move serious money. It was mine. I'd sourced the artists, handled the books, kept the whole thing running without a single problem. Then Christian sat me down. "Her father's in debt to the family," he said. "If he loses the gallery position, he gets cut loose. And if he gets cut loose, Lucia has nothing. No protection, no income, nowhere to go." He looked at me. "You're the Don's daughter. You can rebuild something like this in six months. She can't." I looked at him for a long moment. "You're asking me to give up two years of work," I said. "I'm asking you to give her father a way to stay in," he said. "That's all." I didn't argue. I told myself it was the right thing. I signed the gallery over. Lucia sent me a thank-you note. After that she was everywhere — family dinners, the club, always nearby, always just within Christian's orbit. The night it broke open, Lucia got herself into trouble at one of the family's clubs. Wrong crowd, wrong room. Christian went in after her. By the time it was over he'd broken the terms of a standing truce with a rival crew to get her out. She was wearing his jacket when they brought her out. I told him that night that I was done. That I was leaving. He showed up at my door two hours later. I'd never seen him cry before. He stood in the hallway with red eyes and shaking hands and said my name like it was the only word he had left. "You're the only one," he said. "I swear to God, Elena. She's just someone I feel responsible for. That's all it is. Please." I stayed. I tore up the ticket and I stayed, because I loved him, and because he asked me to, and because I'm afraid of losing one of the few people in this world who love me.
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