"Exactly," Rina sniffles. "I can be intellectually supportive and emotionally devastated at the same time. It's called being a woman, Dante."
"Note to self," Dante mutters with a grin. "Women are complicated."
"We prefer 'complex,'" Elena's voice calls from the doorway, where she's appeared with a knowing smirk.
"I'm here now," I murmur, pulling Rina back into a hug. "I'm not going anywhere."
She pulls back to look at me, her hands framing my face like she's checking to make sure I'm real. "You look different."
"Different how?"
"Settled. Like you know something you didn't know before."
Before I can answer, my mother appears in the doorway, moving more slowly than Rina but with the same desperate relief in her eyes. She's aged in the week I've been gone, new lines around her eyes, but she's here and she's safe and that's all that matters.
"Mamma," I breathe, and then I'm in her arms too, inhaling the familiar scent of her perfume and the lavender soap she's used for as long as I can remember.
"My brave girl," she whispers in Italian, the words carrying years of worry and pride. "My beautiful, brave girl."
Elena looks suspiciously like she's been crying despite her attempts to play it cool. "About time you came home, troublemaker."
"Miss me?" I ask, wiping my own eyes.
"Terribly. Marco's been impossible to work with. All moody and distracted." She shoots a meaningful look toward the house, where I can see Marco's silhouette in the doorway.
"Elena," he calls, his voice carrying a warning.
"What? I'm just saying you've been?—"
"Elena." This time there's definitely a threat in his tone, but she just rolls her eyes.
"Men," she mutters to me. "No sense of humor when they're worried."
Vito emerges from the house, and the lightness of the reunion shifts slightly. Not toward darkness, exactly, but toward the weight of everything that's still unresolved. He nods at Dante, some silent communication passing between them, then looks at me.
"Sofia." His voice is gentler than I've ever heard it.
"Vito." I step away from my mother and sister, suddenly aware that this conversation will determine how the rest of my life unfolds. "Thank you. For the time, for the space. For trusting me to make my own choice."
"And what choice did you make?"
"I choose this family. This life. This man." I reach for Dante's hand, intertwining our fingers. "But I choose it as myself, not as someone who doesn't have other options."
Vito studies me for a long moment, then nods. "Good. Because we're going to need everyone we can get for what's coming."
The words send a chill through the warm reunion. "What do you mean?"
"The Costellos aren't finished with us," Marco says, joining the group on the front lawn. "Killing Kieran bought us time, but his brothers are regrouping. And they're not planning to negotiate."
"Declan and Finn?" I think of the two men I met, one kind and one clearly smitten with Gianna.
"Declan's been reaching out to old allies, calling in favors. Word is he's planning something big."
"What kind of something?" Dante asks, his voice taking on that edge it gets when he's thinking tactically.
"We're not sure yet. But Rafa intercepted some communications that suggest they're not just looking for revenge—they're looking to take over Rosso territory entirely."
The news settles over us like a dark cloud, but strangely, I don't feel the terror I might have a week ago. Instead, I feel... ready. Ready to face whatever comes next, together.
