Lucia told me this morning that she’d worn the dress I wore now to her father’s funeral so many years ago. That she’d only worn it that one time. We dubbed it the funeral dress. I decided I would burn it once I finished with it today.

While we waited for the men to return, she asked me about Dominic. Asked if we were a couple. I hadn’t known how to answer that, so I shifted the conversation to her and her family. The way she spoke about Salvatore, I knew she loved him. And the way he looked at her, hell, he worshipped the ground she walked on.

I admit, I grew envious. I’d never had anything like that before. Not even close, not even with James.

Now as the men sat silent in the front seat of the SUV as we drove toward the church, I watched them, studying the physical differences, the light to the dark in physical appearance. But the thing that impressed me more was the similarity of the darkness inside each of the brothers. I knew the life they came from. Shrouded in shadow, they had seen and done terrible things. Things neither would forget. Things perhaps neither should be forgiven.

I was a part of this world too. Their world. The day I’d seen Mateo tortured and killed had plunged me into its murky depths. We sat there now, all of us. The difference between Dominic and I, and Salvatore and Lucia, was that Salvatore and Lucia lived in the light. They could walk away. They had once and would again. In a matter of hours, they would shrug off the darkness and leave it behind, scrub it from their bodies before touching their children. But Dominic and I—I knew in every cell of my body there would be no walking away. He and I were embedded in dark. We would die in it.

“I don’t want to stay for the reading of the will,” Lucia said. “I don’t want you in there either, Salvatore.”

Her face had lost its shine and gone pale. Neither man had spoken since we’d gotten into the car, but she must have picked up on the thing vibrating off them just as I had.

Salvatore climbed out of the SUV and opened Lucia’s door. They stood there then, just outside the vehicle, heads bowed together, talking in whispers, having such a private moment I felt like an intruder to watch but found myself unable to drag my gaze away.

Salvatore wiped her tears with his hands. They stood so close. It was as though they were one person. He then kissed her forehead and lay a hand on her belly. Lucia nodded, and Salvatore met Dominic’s eyes, a signal passing between them.

“Let’s go in,” Dominic said.