[Valentina’s POV]
I need to ask Dante something that's been eating at me since last night's revelation about contingency plans and fake deaths. Which is: can I see my mother before we potentially stage an elaborate murder-suicide that involves actual corpses and definitely won't give me nightmares?
"I need to visit Mama," I say the next morning, finding him in his study doing whatever crime bosses do at eight AM. Probably calculating profit margins or contemplating the philosophical implications of cement shoes.
He looks up from paperwork. "Today?"
"Yeah. I need to see her face, hear her voice." I lean against the doorframe. "Something real and uncomplicated in this house of smoke and elaborate death-faking schemes."
His expression softens—the kind that suggests he understands the need for normalcy even when normal left years ago. "Marco will drive you. Hospital only, straight there and back."
"Thank you." Relief washes over me. "I promise not to deviate into spontaneous crime-stopping."
"Appreciated." His lips curve slightly. "Though your track record on 'not making things worse' is currently zero for two, so I'm managing expectations."
"That's fair. That's very fair, actually." I push off the doorframe. "I'll go get ready and try not to accidentally start a coup on my way to the car."
The car ride with Marco is quiet in that comfortable way that comes from shared trauma and mutual understanding that sometimes life just throws you into a mafia household and you roll with it or die trying.
The city slides past—normal people doing normal things like grocery shopping and complaining about traffic instead of planning elaborate fake deaths or working for crime families. Living the dream, really.
"Your mother's being discharged next week," Marco says. "Doctors say the treatment exceeded all expectations."
My chest tightens with something between relief and guilt and the persistent anxiety that follows me everywhere like a badly trained puppy. "That's incredible. I can't believe it actually worked."
"You saved her life." He glances at me in the mirror. "Whatever else happens, you did that."
The hospital smells like disinfectant and institutional hope—the industrial kind that suggests they're really committed to the sterile environment thing. I navigate familiar hallways to Room 302.
Mama's sitting up in bed looking stronger than I've seen her in months. Color in her cheeks, life in her eyes, the kind of transformation that makes you believe in medical science and also feel guilty about how you funded it.
"Valentina!" Her face lights up. "Come here, let me look at you."
I cross to her bedside and she takes both my hands, studying my face with maternal X-ray vision. Her grip is stronger now, steady in a way it hasn't been since the diagnosis.
"You look tired," she says finally. "But different. Like you've been carrying something heavy and finally set it down."
My throat tightens because she's not wrong, just missing the part where I picked up three other heavy things. "I'm okay, Mama. How are you? I heard you're getting discharged."
"Next week!" Her smile is brilliant. "Can you believe it? The doctors keep using words like 'remarkable' like I'm some medical miracle instead of just a stubborn old woman who refused to die."
"You're not old." I sit beside her, holding her hands. "And you're definitely a miracle."
"I'm fifty-two and I've earned every gray hair." She squeezes my hands. "But I'm alive, tesoro. I get to plant my garden again, have coffee with Mrs. Walker. All the boring, beautiful things I thought I'd lost."
Her eyes fill with tears—the happy kind. I'm crying too.
"I'm so happy you're okay," I manage.
"Because of you." She cups my face. "I don't know how you got the money for treatment. I don't know what you sacrificed. But I know my daughter, and I know you did something impossible to save me."
My heart stops. She knows. Or suspects enough.
"Mama—"
"I don't need details." Her voice is firm but gentle. "I just need to know one thing. Are you safe? Right now, wherever you are—are you safe?"
I think about Dante and Lorenzo and the coup brewing. I think about fake deaths and disappearing and whether this qualifies as "safe."
"I'm getting there," I say finally. "It's complicated, but I'm figuring it out."
Her grip tightens, studying my face with intensity that suggests she's reading everything I'm not saying. Then she nods slowly.
"Then that's enough." Her voice is quiet but steady. "You gave me my life back, tesoro. Now I want you to have yours. Whatever that means, wherever it takes you—promise me you'll choose yourself. Choose happiness."
The words hit hard because she doesn't know she's giving me permission to fake my death. She doesn't know she's blessing a plan that means never seeing her again.
"I promise," I whisper.
We talk for another hour about smaller things—her garden plans, Mrs. Walker's neighborhood drama, her physical therapy. Normal things that make you believe in futures.
When I finally leave, my chest feels lighter and heavier simultaneously.
The drive back starts quiet. I stare out the window, turning Dante's words over in my head. Leave. Disappear. Die convincingly.
"You alright?" Marco's voice breaks through my thoughts.
"Just thinking." I meet his eyes in the mirror. "A lot to process lately."
He nods. "The boss has been different these past few weeks. More tense. Reminds me of when he first took over from the old don—that same coiled energy, like a man calculating every possible outcome."
The words catch in my brain, snagging on something I've been deliberately not thinking about because ignorance occasionally feels safer than knowledge. "When he took over?"
"Yeah. That same tension, like he's preparing for war but hoping to avoid it."
War. Coup. Lorenzo collecting allies. All because I couldn't keep my mouth shut.
But Marco's words trigger something else—memories I've been filing under "questions I'm too scared to ask." Whispers I overheard weeks ago. Servants who went quiet when I entered rooms. Rumors about how Dante became don.
They say he killed his own father to take power.
I never asked. Maybe didn't want to know. Easier to believe he just inherited it somehow through legitimate succession.
But now we're planning to disappear together. Now I'm agreeing to fake my death and build a life with someone who might be a patricide. Which seems like information I should've confirmed earlier, honestly. Really dropped the ball on basic due diligence there.
That night, I find Dante in his study reviewing papers.
"We need to talk," I say, closing the door.
He looks up, expression shifting to guarded. "That's never a good opening."
"Yeah, well, get comfortable because this one's going to be uncomfortable." I cross to his desk, planting my hands on the surface. "Did you kill the old don?"
The silence that follows could suffocate small animals. His face goes carefully blank—the expression that means I've hit something he wasn't planning to discuss.
"That's not—"
"I need to know who I'm agreeing to disappear with," I interrupt. "Whether I'm running away with a man or a monster. Whether the person I'm trusting with my life killed his own father for power."
More silence. Heavy. Absolute. The kind that fills rooms and presses against your chest.
Finally, he speaks, voice quiet and controlled. "Yes."
My stomach drops. "Yes?"
"Yes." He stands, moving around the desk, stopping close—too close. "I killed him. But not for the reason you think."