Page 74 of Ruined Vows (Borrelli Mafia #5)

BIANCA

PROMISES MADE PROMISES KEPT

O utside, the garden is flowering. It’s June, the weather is warm and humid. Vukan holds our daughter in his arms. She wears combat boots with her tutu. She’s one and already a force to be reckoned with.

He’s teaching her Serbian words for strength, loyalty, and love. He tells her stories with monsters—but makes sure she knows they’re not all men.

Some are legacies.

And some—we get to rewrite.

He looks up when I step onto the porch.

Smiles like he still can’t believe I stayed.

I cross to him and take our daughter’s hand.

This is ours. It’s not stolen, not bargained, and not broken.

Built.

Ten dates. One war.

And now? A future that no one else was strong enough to survive. But we did. And this time?—

We write the rules.

Afterward

Bianca

The Borrelli estate hasn’t changed much.

Marble still glows under soft lights. The long table still stretches down the dining hall like it was built for kings. But now, it’s filled with an epic peace.

Matteo’s soft-spoken, steel-backed wife wrangles their newborn as the boys throw paper napkins like war banners. Matteo pretends to scold them, but the pride in his eyes betrays him.

Niccoló is sitting with the twins. His wife is nursing a baby nearby.

Pietro arrives late, brushing rain from his shoulders. A baby is strapped to his chest, Amara is on his arm, and a toddler is on her hip, straddling her large belly.

Renalto is holding the hands of his twin toddlers, and Abigail has their new arrival in her arms. It seems the family is going exponentially, and it makes me giddy.

I watch them all. This is my family. Our family. The ones who lived. The ones who stayed. The ones who remade themselves from grief, rage, and blood.

Our daughter runs through the room with Matteo’s boys, shrieking with delight. Someone spills wine. No one shouts.

Vukan sits with our son, who is sleeping in his arms. He leans beside me, murmuring against my temple, “You were wrong.”

I raise a brow. “About what?”

He kisses the corner of my mouth. “That I wasn’t the one for you.”

I laugh softly as I wrap my fingers around his. “Maybe it just took a war to get here.”

He nods. “Then we won.”

For the first time in my life, I believe it.

We did win.

And this ?

This is what peace looks like when the broken refuse to stay that way.

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Zoe

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