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I miss being the daughter who could run to her father and have him make everything right with a stern word and a protective arm. I miss the simplicity of believing that love alone could keep the monsters at bay.

Now, I know better. Love doesn’t protect you from monsters. Sometimes, it turns you into one just to survive.

I trace the line of the ring on my finger, feeling its delicate strength. Alessio gave this to me not as a placeholder, but as a promise. A beginning. A future carved out of everything we had to burn down first.

I love him.

I love him more fiercely than I thought possible.

But there's a small, stubborn part of me that still aches for the life I lost. For the father who, in his own broken way, tried to keep me safe—even if it meant making promises to men who saw me as a pawn.

I hear the door open, soft footsteps crossing the hardwood floor.

"Angel?" Alessio's voice, rough and low, cuts through the quiet.

I turn my head to look at him. He's still in his shirt from the day, sleeves rolled up, jacket slung over one arm. His tie is loose around his throat, and exhaustion lines his face—but when his eyes meet mine, they sharpen instantly.

He sets his jacket and phone down on the dresser and crosses to me without hesitation, crouching slightly so we're eye level.

"Everything alright?" he asks, searching my face.

I smile, small but real. "Yes."

He doesn't look convinced.

I reach for his hand, threading my fingers through his. "Just thinking about how far we've come."

He watches me for a long moment, the lines around his mouth softening.

"We've come a long way," he says quietly.

I nod, resting my head against his chest when he sits beside me. His arm slips around my waist, pulling me closer, anchoring me to the reality I chose—and would choose again, no matter what ghosts still whisper in the dark corners of my mind.

I don't tell him about the ache I feel in my heart for my father. I don't tell him how sometimes, late at night, I close my eyes and see my father's proud smile from when I was five years old and danced around his study in a princess gown. How he would always tell me that one day he will walk his princess down the isle.

I don't tell him because it isn't his fault. Because loving Stefano isn't what took that life from me.

The world did.

The choices of men who thought they could trade daughters like coins.

And Stefano? He gave me back something they could never provide: freedom, choice, and a future chosen by me for me.

He presses a kiss to the top of my head, his lips lingering.

"We’re just getting started, angel," he murmurs. "You and me."

I close my eyes, breathing him in. Leather, cedarwood, and the faint scent of gunpowder that somehow clings to him no matter how many times he changes his clothes.

It's home now.

He’s home.

"I know," I whisper.

The minutes stretch around us, slow and golden. Outside, the city hums with life we no longer have to fear. Inside, the quiet wraps around us like a second skin.

I think of the girl I used to be—the girl who believed love was soft, safe, easy.