Chapter 21
The waves crashed against the jagged rocks below the cottage,
sending a fine mist of salt spray into the cooling evening air.
Alessandro stood on the wooden deck,
his fingers gripping the railing until his knuckles turned white.
He was looking at a dark sedan parked at the edge of the coastal road,
a vehicle that had been sitting there for three hours.
In his old life,
a car like that meant a hit squad or a federal surveillance team.
In this life,
he tried to tell himself it was just a tourist admiring the view.
But the instincts of a Rizzano did not die just because the address had changed,
and the skin on the back of his neck prickled with an old,
familiar dread.
He turned back toward the warm light of the kitchen,
where Rosalie was helping Livia with a puzzle.
The scene was a masterpiece of domestic tranquility,
the kind of thing he had once believed was impossible for a man like him.
Livia was laughing,
her eyes bright with a mischief that had been absent for so long.
Rosalie looked up,
her smile faltering when she saw the expression on his face.
She knew him better than anyone now,
and she could read the shifting weather of his soul.
"Alessandro?"
she asked,
her voice barely a whisper over the sound of the sea.
"Is something wrong?"
"It's nothing,"
he lied,
the word tasting like copper in his mouth.
He forced himself to step inside and close the glass door,
locking it with a click that sounded far too loud in the quiet house.
The cottage was filled with the smell of roasting chicken and rosemary,
a scent that should have anchored him to the present.
Instead,
he felt like a ghost haunting his own happiness.
He sat down at the table,
Livia immediately pushing a puzzle piece toward him.
"This one is for the sky, Daddy,"
she said,
her voice full of absolute certainty.
He took the small cardboard square,
noticing how steady his hand was despite the racing of his heart.
He had spent years calculating risks and neutralizing threats,
and the silence of this new life was sometimes louder than any explosion.
The sedan eventually pulled away,
its taillights disappearing into the encroaching fog.
But Alessandro didn't relax,
because he knew that the world he had left behind didn't let go so easily.
The Rizzano name was etched into the bone of the city,
and even with the empire dismantled,
the fragments remained dangerous.
Later that night,
after Livia had fallen asleep with her stuffed rabbit tucked under her arm,
Alessandro sat in the living room with a glass of whiskey.
Rosalie joined him,
her hair loose and her eyes weary.
"You're thinking about the car,"
she said,
sitting on the ottoman across from him.
"I'm thinking about everything, Rosalie,"
he admitted,
staring into the amber liquid.
"I gave up the power,
I gave up the money,
but I can't give up the memory of what I was."
"You're a good man, Alessandro,"
she said,
reaching out to touch his knee.
"A good man who is still waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"Because it always does,"
he replied.
The wind howled against the side of the house,
shaking the window frames like a persistent creditor.
He realized then that peace was not a destination,
but a battle he would have to fight every single day.
The ghosts of his father,
of Dominic,
and even of Bianca were still there,
lurking in the spaces between the stars.
He looked at Rosalie,
at the strength in her quiet gaze,
and wondered if he was selfish for dragging her into his uncertainty.
"We’re here,"
she reminded him,
as if reading his thoughts.
"And we aren't going anywhere."
But as the moon rose over the dark water,
Alessandro couldn't shake the feeling that the past was just catching its breath.
