“What if they have him, Sarah? You’ll have to find happiness without him.”

“If they have him again, I’ll go back and get him—again. If they killed him—” I have to swallow back an insistent wave of sobs. “His life’s work will be mine. I will destroy them. Don’t doubt me, Mom.”

“I don’t.”

“If he’s dead…”

“Shh. Okay…”

“I’ll start with Massimo.” I look away, onto the beach and the forever-blue sky.

Two men walk on the sand toward the lobby windows. I know them both, and one holds the keys to my heart.

“Oh my God.” I’m up, running across the lobby to the window.

I look for a door, but I can’t take my eyes off him. He smiles at something Santino says, hair flicking in the ocean wind. They step onto the long patio and navigate easily around the bar. I pound on the glass.

“Dario!”

He looks in my direction, making as straight a line to me as he can around the white deck chairs.

“Over here!” I call.

He’s walking on two feet. Not limping. No blood. No injury. I don’t care how he came to be here in one piece. I don’t care who he had to get through.

At the glass, he cups his hands around his face to cut out the glare. I don’t have the same sun reflecting on my side, but I mirror him. We’re two sets of eyes on opposite sides of a tunnel. His lips move, but I can’t hear him.

“I can’t find a door!”

He may hear me, he may read my lips, or he may want the same thing I want.

He leans away, and with his fingertips sliding across the glass, he walks the length of the room. My fingertips follow his on the other side, connecting us through the barrier like two magnets through paper.

My fingers skip over a seam, then another. A panel of glass slides open. I’m hit with the warmth of the breeze, the sound of the waves, and the unfiltered sight of him alive, unchained, whole.

“Prima,” he says, reaching for me. He cups my face as if it’s the thing he values most in the world. “You came.”

“I’ll always come for you.”

I launch into his arms, out onto the patio where he spins me around under the sun and the infinite sky.

We are free.

Dario and I are free, and safe, and whole. The entire world is off our shoulders. The women. The Colonia. The cages and the culture. There’s only him and me—what we decide together under the clear blue sky.

We are free to love without limits.

I laugh because I can’t believe it, and then I kiss him because it’s true.

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

DARIO