I look up into his steel-colored eyes that I don’t find cold anymore. And I do something that surprises me maybe more than it surprises either of them. I pour myself into his arms and hug him hard while my body is wracked by a wave of relief and something else. Something I never thought I’d feel for these men. My captors. My dragons. My lovers.

In my periphery I see Bastian. He turns away as if unable to look at this display, but before he can walk away, I reach out to take his hand and draw him to me. And as we stand there, all three of us, Amadeo beaten, bruised, and splattered with what I know is Lucien’s blood, Bastian, disheveled from the events of the day, from looking after me so carefully that he neglected himself completely, and me, the daughter of their enemy. The sister. A Russo. And as we stand in our small circle, I know one thing more surely than I’ve ever known anything in my life. We were fated, the three of us, from a very young age and from before the events that took place in that small kitchen on that terrible day, to come to this place. This moment in time. We were always meant to end up right here. Together.

Amadeo told me once when you kill a man, their soul is bound to yours for eternity. I don’t believe that, though. I think you can only be bound to those you love. To those who your heart swells and drops for.

I reach up to first kiss Amadeo and then Bastian. I weave my fingers with theirs and lead them up the stairs to my bedroom. The three of us. And as they wipe the tears that fall while they make love to me and I too them, I know that we belong to each other. The three of us, we have always belonged to each other.

33

AMADEO

I watch Dandelion sleep. She is spent and it’s not just the lovemaking. It’s the hours before, the days, the months, the years. And now she’s here. In our house. In our beds. Ours.

Bastian steps out of the bathroom freshly showered. He, too, looks at her, with her wild blond hair fanned out over the pillow, her face so soft in sleep. Lips still swollen from our kisses.

“I’m going to get dressed,” Bastian says. “Meet out back?”

I nod and see the moment he takes before walking out of that room. We’re thinking the same thing, my brother and me. Because the reason for this, it’s over. Finished. Lucien Russo is dead. Geno Russo was already dead. Russo Properties & Holdings itself hardly seems to matter. The erasure of the Russo name from the face of the earth is a fading memory. Because what matters is the woman sleeping on the bed. Because she has changed everything.