“I should leave you.” The words come out between gasps for air. “I should pack my things and disappear and never look back.”
“You should,” he agrees quietly. “It’d be safer for you.”
“But I can’t.” The admission is broken, raw with pain I don’t know how to process. “I can’t leave because I have nowhere else to go. You’re all I have left now. I need you, and that makes me hate myself even more.”
Tigran’s hand moves to stroke my hair, his touch gentle despite the accusations I’ve just thrown at him. “Grief makes us say things we don’t mean and do things we regret later.”
“I mean every word.” I pull back to look at him, wanting him to see the truth in my eyes. “I do hate you right now, along with my father, your father, and even myself. I also…” I can’t finish the sentence to admit that despite everything, my feelings for him run deeper than hate.
“I know,” he says again, and this time, there’s something broken in his voice too. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I brought this violence into your life. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect your father, and I’m sorry this arrangement has cost you everything you used to care about.”
“Don’t apologize.” The words come out sharper than I intended. “Apologies won’t bring him back. They won’t undo the damage, and they won’t make any of this right.”
“Then what will?”
I study his face, noting the exhaustion written in the lines around his eyes, the way guilt has carved new shadows beneath his cheekbones. “Justice. Vengeance. Making the people who did this pay for what they took from me.”
His eyes harden as he nods. “Avgar Federoff is a dead man. He and everyone who worked with him to plan that attack. I swear to you on your father’s grave, they’ll all pay for what they’ve done. Claude’s blood will be avenged.”
The promise in his voice is iron-hard and absolute in a way that speaks to years of keeping similar vows. For the first time since Papa died, I feel something other than crushing despair. Not hope, exactly, but purpose. It’s a reason to keep breathing that goes beyond simple survival. “How long?” I ask.
“How long what?”
“How long until they’re dead, and you’ve eliminated every person responsible for my father’s murder?”
Tigran considers the question seriously. “Weeks or maybe a month if they’ve gone deep underground, but I’ll find them, Zita,and when I do, they’ll understand exactly what it costs to target my family.”
“Your family.” I test the words, finding them strange on my tongue. “Is that what I am to you?”
“You’re my wife and the only person left in this world whose opinion matters to me, and the only person I have left to protect.” He touches my face, brushing away tears I didn’t realize I was still shedding. “Yes, you’re my family. Whether you want to be or not.”
The admission should comfort me. Instead, it makes my chest ache with a different kind of pain because being Tigran’s family means accepting that violence and loss are permanent fixtures in my life. Everyone I care about becomes a target simply by caring about me in return.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper. “I don’t know how to be a widow and a wife at the same time. I don’t know how to grieve my father while planning revenge against his killers. I don’t know how to hate you and need you and maybe love you all at once.”
“You don’t have to figure it out today.” His voice is gentler than I’ve ever heard it. “You just have to get through today.”
This isn’t the cold, calculatingBratvaleader who married me for political advantage. This is a man who understands the weight of responsibility, who accepts blame even when it destroys him and who’s willing to carry my hatred if it helps me process my grief.
“I need to get ready for the funeral,” I say finally, pulling away from his embrace.
“Of course.” He steps back, giving me space to move toward the door. “Zita?”
I pause with my hand on the handle. “What?”
“Your father died protecting you. He died knowing you were safe and strong enough to survive whatever comes next. That’s not a small thing.”
The words carry truth I’m not ready to accept. Papa did die protecting me, choosing to fight rather than cower even when he knew the odds were against him. His last moments were spent trying to keep me safe and trying to ensure I’d survive the violence that claimed his life. “Don’t,” I whisper, my voice thick with fresh tears. “Please don’t make me think about that right now.”
“All right, but later, when you’re ready, remember he was proud of you. He saw the woman you’ve become and knew you were strong enough to handle whatever this world throws at you.”
I nod without turning around, not trusting myself to speak. Then I leave his study and climb the stairs to our bedroom, where a black dress I don’t want to wear waits so I can go to the funeral to say goodbye to Papa.
The funeral is exactlywhat Papa would’ve hated, being small and quiet for safety reasons, with more armed guards than mourners. We bury him in Graceland Cemetery, in the Lo Duca family plot where his parents and grandparents rest under marble headstones worn smooth by decades of Chicago weather. The priest speaks in Italian about eternal rest and divineforgiveness, words that feel hollow in the face of such a violent end.
I stand beside the grave with Tigran’s hand on my shoulder, watching them lower my father’s casket into ground that’s already hard with early winter frost. A handful of Papa’s oldest friends attend despite the obvious danger, their presence evidence of the man he was before this world consumed him.
When the last prayer’s been said and the final handful of dirt’s been thrown, I stand alone beside the fresh grave while Tigran coordinates security with his men. The silence is overwhelming.
