Chapter 12 - THE HOUSE THAT LEARNED HOW TO WAIT
I stayed.
Not permanently.
Not immediately.
I kept my apartment.
Kept my restaurant job for another month.
Kept reminding Dante that a black SUV appearing outside every shift was not subtle.
He reduced it to one car.
For him, that was personal growth.
Eli started therapy.
Not because Dante forced him.
Because Eli chose a therapist after meeting three.
He had nightmares.
Asked hard questions.
Sometimes called Ruth “Mom” by mistake and then cried because he thought Dante would be angry.
Dante never was.
“Ruth raised you,” he told him. “Loving her doesn’t take anything from me.”
Sofia would have been proud.
Orion healed slowly.
The day the bandage came off, he immediately stole a steak from the kitchen and regained his reputation.
I started helping with his rehabilitation exercises.
That turned into conversations with Dante.
Late ones.
Quiet ones.
He told me about Sofia without making her a ghost between us.
I told him about Dad.
About Sarah.
About how discovering Elena didn’t make the parents who raised me less real.
One night on the terrace, Dante said:
“I don’t know what normal looks like.”
“Normal is overrated.”
“I mean with you.”
My heart stumbled.
I looked at him.
He didn’t move closer.
Didn’t assume.
“What do you want?”
That question.
Not what did I owe.
Not what was convenient.
What did I want?
“I want you to ask me to dinner.”
He almost smiled.
“Dinner.”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow?”
“I work.”
“Friday?”
“Seven thirty.”
“You’re making the Mafia boss wait three days?”
“You’re trying to stop being one, remember?”
He laughed.
Our first date was terrible.
Dante rented out an entire restaurant.
I made him reopen it to the public.
He ordered for me.
I sent the waiter back and ordered for myself.
He apologized.
By dessert, we were laughing.
It felt almost impossible that the same man had once made an entire dining room go silent just by standing.
When he walked me home, he stopped at my door.
“May I kiss you?”
I smiled.
“See? Progress.”
Then I kissed him first.
The next morning, Orion woke us both by barking downstairs.
Not an alarm bark.
Excited.
He stood beside the old leather collar Dad had used during training.
He was scratching at the metal nameplate.
I removed it.
A tiny memory card fell into my palm.
Dad had hidden one final piece of evidence inside Orion’s collar.
May you like
And written across the card in permanent ink were four words:
FOR OLIVIA — THE TRUTH.
