Page 38 of Until You Break

By dawn the fire was out. What remained was a blackened shell of the casino, windows gaping, walls scorched. Palermo smelled faintly of ash, the sea carrying it through open streets. From here it was impossible to see if the casino had collapsed or if its walls still stood, waiting to fall.

The room stayed hushed. Curtains drawn. The bedroom heavy with last night’s heat, the smell of smoke still clinging to our clothes tossed across the floor.

Damiano sat against the headboard, shirt open, hair disordered, gaze fixed and alive.

I lay stretched across him, my cheek on his chest, listening to the steady pound of his heart against the ache in mine.

He hadn’t let me go. Not once. His arm locked around me through sleep, through smoke dreams. Even now his hand spread across my chest, weight and claim in one touch. The fire outside could rage and die, but in here I was held. His body was a wall. His breath warmed my ear.

“The fire’s nearly gone,” Damiano murmured, watching the sky bleed pale through the haze beyond the curtains. “Only smoke now. Close your eyes. Get some sleep.”

I tried. Shadows moved across the ceiling.

The smell of burnt fabric lingered, sharp in my lungs.

Somewhere outside a siren wailed, then faded.

Sleep wouldn’t come. My father’s casino had collapsed.

A memorial he had built in my mother’s name.

Rumors said it stood on the very ground where she disappeared by the port, concrete poured over her to build their empire.

I’d never believed it. Never wanted to believe it.

And now it had all burned.

“Do you think it could be her?” I whispered. “Mama? If the rumors are true, if her bones are there... could she be trying to reach us? Or am I just losing it? I’m so tired, but it feels too strange to ignore.”

His hand tightened over my chest. “Piccolino,” he said, voice low. “Stop worrying for now. Whoever did this, we'll deal with it. Together.”

I exhaled, turning my face against him. My gaze drifted to the window, smoke curling past the glass toward the port. For a moment I almost imagined her there, silent, watching. If she was, she’d see me alive. She’d see me held. And that was enough.

I thought of Enzo’s hand clamped on my shoulder the night before, of Salvatore’s tired smile when he said Riccardo hadn’t been inside. The three of us had stood in smoke and ruin, nothing left to do but breathe. Damiano’s voice cut through that memory now, steady against my ear.

“You’re safe,” he murmured. “You’re mine. Sleep.”

But I couldn’t. My mind chased every shadow: the faces of men who had watched us from the street, the way the city seemed to pause like it waited for orders. Damiano stroked his thumb once over my ribs, slow and sure, and it steadied me more than silence ever could.

“You’re thinking too loud,” he muttered. “Rest. Palermo isn’t going anywhere.”

“Neither are we,” I answered, and felt the corner of his mouth press into my hair like the ghost of a smile.

Dawn split the smoke. Gold spilled over scars. From the window I saw balconies littered with ash, shopfronts blackened, a stray dog nosing through rubble. Somewhere a church bell tolled thin through the haze, not triumphant, only stubborn. Life scratching forward.

In his arms, it wasn’t softness that held me. It was power. Possession. Home.

Our scars brushed as we shifted, carved skin catching against carved skin, rough edges meeting like a secret vow. Palermo’s dawn poured through smoke, lighting ruin and promise both. Whatever waited beyond the port, mother or ghost or enemy, we would face it marked together.

I let my eyes close at last, his breath steady at my temple, the city scarred but awake around us. Tomorrow would come with questions, enemies, crowns of power no one wanted to admit existed. But for now, there was this bed, this body, this vow beneath my skin. That was enough.

Just before sleep took me, his mouth brushed my ear, voice low and certain. “Mine, until the city bends.”