Page 59 of Enzo (Legacy of Heathens #3)

Five Years Later

The bouquets of flowers crowded the grave, and alongside it stood a sculpture formed in memory of my wife’s cello, where it would play for all eternity.

The tombstone read:

Amara DiMauro.

Beloved Daughter, Sister, and Sister-in-Law.

A light too bright to stay.

Penelope and I walked back in silence, the blossoms falling behind us like soft rain, gathering in drifts at our feet. There was peace in the air, the kind that only came after a long, brutal storm.

I spotted the hospital in the far distance, its new wing catching the last of the evening light. You could just make out the bronze letters from here: The Amara DiMauro Pediatric Oncology Wing. Even now, five years later, her family missed her.

Cazzo , I missed her.

Pen was a resident doctor there and I was so proud of her. At first, she worried the memories and pain of her sister’s loss would be too much. But we all convinced her to give it a try, and Pen’s desire to be a successful doctor and help other children like Amara prevailed. The rest was history.

I stopped by the car, resting a hand on the roof, my other wrapped around my wife. My reflection stared back at me in the window—older, happier, and less pazzo . She waited beside me, patient like she always was when I started digging around in the past.

“You know,” I said, eyes still on the wing in the distance. “I thought if I did enough good, it’d cancel out the bad. That maybe I could tip the scales back in my favor.”

She didn’t say anything right away, just turned to me with that soft look of hers.

Our beginning was rocky, but our present was more than I deserved. Penelope ended up not only being my lover, but also my confidante, my partner, the essence of my soul and heart.

I looked down at my hands and could still remember the blood stains, but it was the blood of those who deserved it. Those who hurt innocents.

“It doesn’t work like that. We don’t undo things, but we do the best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt and aspire to be the best possible versions of ourselves. We make the world a better place for the innocent among us.”

I smiled faintly. Penelope was probably the only woman who could pierce my soul and inject light into it, and I suspected my sister-in-law had known it all along.

“Your sister knew that I’d need you to grow old with,” I said.

“I’m proud of you. Wouldn’t want you any other way.” Pen stepped closer, sliding her hand into mine. “And she would be too. My sister made us all better people.”

That was the truth of it.

Amara saw something good in all of us. In me. Every time I got close to slipping into dangerous, gray territory—because let’s face it, it was part of my everyday job—I’d hear her voice. Not angry. Just disappointed.

It stopped me more times than I’d like to admit.

“She always saw things differently,” Pen said with a small smile. “Like she was older and wiser.”

“She did,” I said. “She understood things most grown men never will.”

I’d forever be grateful to her. And I’d make sure she was remembered.

Five years after we lost her in the physical sense, this hospital and that wing gave people hope. Parents from all over the world brought their children to be treated at the hospital bearing Amara’s name.

The organization that killed people and sold their organs on the black market had been dismantled and in its place was a not-for-profit based on the software I developed that saved hundreds of thousands.

The centralized software tracked volunteer donors from all over the world and connected them to patients in need without a third party playing God.

Pen leaned her head against my shoulder.

“I love you, Enzo, and I’m so grateful you’re mine.”

I swallowed hard and nodded, because I knew she meant it.

“Our parents did something right, huh?” I said, unlocking the car. “Let’s go home.”

We got in and drove past the church and rows of tombstones amid the slow-falling leaves. In the mirror, the cherry blossoms danced behind us, caught in the wind. And ahead—in the distance, across the city skyline—that new wing glowed like a beacon.

Amara had asked me to make a better world.

So I did.