Part 1

The night flight from California to New York was supposed to be quiet. Just a handful of first-class passengers, the soft hum of the engines, and the usual rhythm of my job. I’m Audrey, and I preferred these red-eye shifts. Less talking, less chaos. Just me and the sky.

I was securing the last overhead bin when the gate agent hurried toward me, breathless. “VIP boarding, last minute,” she whispered.

Before I could ask for details, a man stepped into the jet bridge. He didn’t walk so much as push forward with whatever strength he had left, clutching a newborn baby in each arm. A dark, expensive suit hung on him like he had dressed in a panic.

But it was the stains that made me freeze.

The collar of his white shirt carried a faint, uneven streak—something between dried dirt and the kind of rusty stain you get only after a fght you didn’t plan on surviving. The smell of burnt chemicals and gnpowder clung to the fabric, subtle but unmistakable to anyone paying attention.

What stopped me cold, though, wasn’t the mess. It was his eyes. Sharp, terrified, watchful. The kind of eyes that scanned the hallway for threats before stepping inside.

“I need to be on this flight.” His voice was steady, but something beneath it trembled. He handed over a diplomatic clearance card.

“Welcome aboard, sir,” I said, forcing my voice to remain neutral. “Let me guide you to 1A.”

He nodded once and moved down the aisle, cradling the twins with a protectiveness that looked painful. He settled into the seat with the precision of a man who didn’t trust the world. One baby stirred, and I noticed the tremors in his hands. This wasn’t travel stress. This was a man who had run directly from a war zone into my airplane cabin.

The doors closed. The wheels left the ground. And then, twenty minutes into the climb, the turbulence hit.

The plane shuddered violently. The seatbelt signs blinked. The twins woke up screaming—two high, panicked cries cutting through the dark cabin. Their father tightened his arms instinctively, holding them close. Too close.

One baby’s cry sharpened into a strained, painful sound.

I didn’t think. I just moved.

“Sir,” I said softly, placing a gentle hand on his rigid forearm. “You’re holding them too tightly. Let me help.”

For a moment, he didn’t react. His jaw was clenched so hard I thought it might snap. Then, slowly, he loosened his grip. I lifted one of the babies—warm, trembling, but unharmed—and began soothing him with practiced ease.

When I looked up, the man was staring at me. Not with suspicion anymore, but with something closer to relief. Fragile, broken relief.

“They cry every night since their mother d*ed,” he whispered.

The words cracked the silence wide open.

“Children feel what we carry inside,” I said gently. “They always do.”

He closed his eyes, fighting back tears. “You notice the stains,” he said quietly. “The smell.”

I didn’t deny it.

“I’m not proud of the world I come from,” he confessed, looking at his sleeping son. “Tonight, everything fell apart faster than I could stop it. My guards were overwhelmed. I heard the first g*nshot before I saw the flames. I grabbed the twins and ran.”

My breath caught in my throat. He had walked out of a battlefield and into my cabin.

“And you?” I asked. “Are you safe?”

He looked at me with a gaze that haunts me to this day. “My safety is a luxury I no longer expect.”

Minutes turned into hours. The cabin settled into a hush, but the air around Seat 1A felt heavy, charged with invisible danger. I brought him water, and for the first time, he introduced himself.

“My name is Enzo.”

“I’m Audrey.”

“Tonight,” he said, his voice rough with emotion, “you were the first person who approached me without fear.”

I walked back to the galley, my heart pounding. I watched him through the curtain. He didn’t sleep. He sat there, guarding those babies like closing his eyes would let the darkness win.

I didn’t know it yet, but by the time we landed in New York, I wouldn’t just be his flight attendant anymore. I was about to step into a war I wasn’t built for.

Part 2

The Gilded Cage

The landing at Teterboro wasn’t the end; it was just the beginning of a different kind of turbulence. When we stepped off the plane, a fleet of black SUVs was waiting. Men in dark suits surrounded Enzo, moving with a synchronized precision that screamed military training. They weren’t just employees; they were soldiers. And Enzo? He shifted instantly from the exhausted father back to “Don Valente.”

He took me to his estate, a sprawling fortress hidden behind iron gates and dense trees in upstate New York. It was beautiful, breathless even, but the cameras on every corner and the armed guards patrolling the perimeter made it clear: this wasn’t a home. It was a bunker wrapped in velvet.

“You can leave anytime,” Enzo told me that first night, standing in the doorway of the nursery. “But if Stephano knows you helped me, you might be safer here.”

I stayed. Not because I was scared for myself, but because of the twins. They wouldn’t settle for the nannies. They only stopped crying when I held them. It was as if they knew I was the one who had carried them through the storm at 30,000 feet.

Days turned into a blur of tension. I learned that Stephano, Enzo’s rival, wasn’t just using violence. He was using bureaucracy. He froze Enzo’s assets, locked his accounts, and launched a smear campaign. Enzo spent his days in the “War Room,” a basement center full of screens, trying to save his empire without firing a single bllet. He was trying to be different from his father. He was trying to be good.

But being good has a cost.

One morning, I got a call from the hospital where my mother was being treated for cancer. “Miss Rivera,” the billing agent said, her voice cold. “Your mother’s coverage has been revoked. The anonymous donor canceled the payments.”

The phone nearly slipped from my hand. Enzo had set up that payment plan. Stephano had found it. He wasn’t just attacking Enzo anymore; he was attacking me to get to him. He was suffocating my mother to force me out of the safety of the estate.

I marched into the kitchen where Enzo was staring at a tablet. “He touched my mother’s care,” I said, my voice shaking.

Enzo didn’t deny it. The look on his face broke my heart—pure, unadulterated guilt. “He’s testing your threshold,” Enzo said quietly. “He wants to see how much you can take before you run.”

“Is that what you think I’ll do?” I asked.

“I think staying near me is a death sentence,” he whispered.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I told him. And in that moment, the dynamic shifted. We weren’t just protecting the twins anymore. We were protecting each other.

To prove we weren’t broken, Enzo decided to attend a high-profile charity gala in the city. He needed to show the world—and Stephano—that the Valente empire was still standing. He asked me to come. Not as staff, but by his side.

The gala was glittering and loud, a mask of polite society hiding the sharks beneath. I stuck close to Enzo, playing the part. But my flight attendant training kicked in. You learn to spot things that don’t fit—nervous hands, sweating brows, eyes that don’t smile.

I saw a waiter near the bar. He wasn’t looking at the guests; he was watching Enzo’s back. His hand drifted toward his sleeve, rigid and unnatural.

Adrenaline spiked in my veins. I didn’t scream. I grabbed a tray of champagne from a passing server and “accidentally” slammed into the suspicious man just as he drew a knfe.

Glass shattered. The man stumbled. Enzo’s security was on him in seconds.

Later, in the armored car ride home, Enzo looked at me with wide, terrified eyes. “You stepped in front of a w*apon for me.”

“I reacted,” I breathed, still shaking.

“You could have d*ed.” He grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight. “Why are you doing this, Audrey?”

“Because you’re not the monster they say you are,” I whispered.

We sat in the silence of the car, hands clasped, knowing that the war had just escalated. Stephano wouldn’t stop. And next time, a tray of champagne wouldn’t be enough to save us.

Part 3

The Sanctuary Trap

Stephano wanted the children. He wanted to wipe out Enzo’s bloodline and take the “heirs” for himself to raise. It was a sick power play. Enzo knew we couldn’t hide forever. We had to draw him out.

“We give him what he wants,” Enzo said in the War Room, his face pale. “We stage a baptism. St. Michael’s Church. It’s isolated. He won’t be able to resist.”

“You’re using the twins as bait?” I asked, horrified.

“No,” Enzo said, meeting my gaze. “We’re using dolls. The real children stay in the bunker. But you… you have to be the one holding them. You have to be the mother.”

The risk was astronomical. If Stephano realized the babies were fake, I would be the first one in his line of fire.

The day of the trap, the air at St. Michael’s was cold and stale. The church was empty, shadows stretching long across the stone floor. I stood near the altar, clutching a weighted doll wrapped in a white blanket. Enzo stood beside me, unarmed, looking every bit the vulnerable father.

We waited.

The doors creaked open. Footsteps echoed—slow, deliberate. Stephano walked in, flanked by three armed men. He looked like a predator entering a playpen.

“Enzo,” Stephano smirked, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “How poetic. A holy sacrament for a doomed family.”

He walked right up to us. He didn’t look at Enzo; he looked at me. “And the nanny,” he sneered. “Playing house?”

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I held the doll tighter, praying he wouldn’t see the stiffness of its limbs.

“Hand them over,” Stephano commanded. “And I might let you leave alive.”

Enzo stepped forward. “This is between us, Stephano.”

“Everything is mine,” Stephano spat. He reached out and grabbed the blanket from my arms before I could pull away.

Time froze.

Stephano held the bundle. He frowned. He pressed a finger into the soft fabric and felt the hard, porcelain shell of the doll underneath.

His face twisted into a mask of pure rage. “You think this is a game?” he hissed, throwing the doll onto the stone floor. It cracked with a hollow, haunting sound.

“Kill them,” Stephano ordered his men. “Kill them all.”

But before his men could raise their w*apons, the heavy church doors slammed shut and locked automatically.

From the choir loft, from the confessionals, from the shadows—dozens of red laser dots appeared on Stephano’s chest.

“Federal Agents!” a voice boomed from above. “Drop your w*apons!”

Enzo hadn’t brought his mafia soldiers. He had brought the FBI. He had turned over years of evidence against Stephano in exchange for this trap. He chose the law over revenge.

Stephano’s men dropped their g*ns. It was over. The agents swarmed the floor, cuffing Stephano, dragging him away screaming.

Enzo turned to me, relief washing over his face. He opened his arms. “Audrey, it’s done. You’re safe.”

I smiled, taking a step toward him.

Then I saw it.

High in the rafters, a glint of metal. A failsafe. A sniper Stephano had hidden, just in case.

The barrel was aimed directly at Enzo’s heart.

I didn’t think. I didn’t calculate. I just launched myself forward.

“Enzo, get down!” I screamed, shoving him with every ounce of strength I had.

The crack of the r*fle was deafening.

I felt a searing heat tear through my shoulder, a punch so hard it knocked the wind out of my universe. I hit the cold stone floor.

I heard Enzo scream my name—a sound of raw, animalistic agony.

Then, darkness took me.

Part 4

The beeping of the heart monitor was the first thing I heard. Steady. Rhythmic. Annoying.

My eyes fluttered open. The hospital room was dim, but I recognized the figure sitting in the uncomfortable chair beside my bed. Enzo. He was still wearing the same shirt from the church, now stained with my bl*od. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.

“You’re awake,” he breathed, standing up instantly. His hand hovered over mine, afraid to touch, afraid I might break.

“The twins?” I croaked, my throat dry.

“Safe,” he whispered. “They’re with Nona. Stephano is in federal custody. It’s over, Audrey. Really over.”

I tried to sit up, but pain flared in my shoulder. “You’re alive,” I said.

Tears welled in his eyes—this powerful, terrifying man was crying. “You took a b*llet for me. Why?”

“Because,” I said softly, reaching out to take his hand. “I wasn’t going to let those babies grow up without a father.”

He pressed his forehead against my hand, shaking. “I’m done, Audrey. The business, the life, the legacy… I signed it all away while you were in surgery. I’m just Enzo now.”

Six Months Later.

The Mediterranean sun is different from New York. It’s softer. warmer.

I walked out onto the terrace of the villa, holding two cups of coffee. The ocean stretched out before us, endless and blue. On the grass, Enzo was chasing the twins, who were now toddling around on sturdy little legs.

He looked up and saw me. The shadows that used to live under his eyes were gone. The tension in his shoulders had melted away. He looked happy.

He jogged over, taking the coffee and kissing my forehead. “They’re fast today,” he laughed.

“They take after their dad,” I smiled.

We sat on the bench, watching the children play. We weren’t a mafia boss and a flight attendant anymore. We were just a family, built from the wreckage of a storm we survived together.

I rested my head on his shoulder, right over the heart I had saved.

“Worth it?” he asked, looking at the peace around us.

I traced the faint scar on my shoulder. “Every second.”

Enzo wrapped his arm around me, pulling me close. We had left the darkness behind. Finally, we were in the light.

Part 2

The Fortress and the Fire

The landing at Teterboro wasn’t an arrival; it was a border crossing into a country I didn’t know existed. The moment the wheels touched the tarmac, the illusion of the airplane cabin—that small, suspended world where I was just a flight attendant helping a stressed father—shattered.

We were met by a convoy. Black SUVs, tinted windows, men who moved with the sharp, synchronized lethality of a wolf pack. They didn’t speak; they executed. Enzo shifted instantly. The exhausted, trembling man who had begged for water at 30,000 feet vanished. In his place stood “Don Valente.” He moved with a cold authority, issuing silent commands with a tilt of his head.

He brought me to his estate, a sprawling mansion buried deep in the New York woodlands. It was breathtakingly beautiful—high stone walls, manicured gardens, architecture that whispered of old money and centuries of power. But as we drove through the gates, I heard the heavy, metallic clank of locks engaging behind us. It wasn’t a home. It was a fortress.

“You are safe here,” Enzo told me that first night, standing in the doorway of the nursery. The twins were finally asleep in cribs that cost more than my car. “But you are free to leave. I won’t keep you.”

I should have left. My car was waiting. My life—my real life of economy class shifts and stale coffee—was waiting. But then the girl twin stirred, letting out a soft, fearful whimper. Enzo froze, his hands hovering uselessly over the crib, terrified he would break her.

“I’ll stay for the night,” I found myself saying. “Just until they settle.”

One night turned into three. Then a week.

I learned quickly that Enzo wasn’t fighting a street war; he was fighting a corporate takeover commanded by a ghost named Stephano. I spent hours in the “War Room,” a basement command center filled with servers, satellite maps, and analysts. Enzo wasn’t a thug. He was brilliant. He was fighting a multi-front war using forensic accounting and legal loopholes to protect his children’s inheritance.

“He wants to bankrupt me,” Enzo explained one evening, staring at a screen turning red with frozen assets. “If I can’t pay the soldiers, the loyalty fades. If the loyalty fades, the wolves come in.”

I watched him, seeing the cracks in the armor. He barely slept. He drank whiskey like water but never seemed drunk, just sharper, colder. But with me, and with the twins, the ice melted. He would sit on the floor, watching me feed them, looking at me with an expression of profound, confused gratitude.

Then, the war touched me.

It started with a phone call. I was in the estate’s kitchen, making coffee, trying to pretend this surreal life was normal. My phone buzzed. It was the billing department from St. Luke’s Hospital, where my mother was battling Stage 4 cancer.

“Miss Rivera,” the woman’s voice was clipped, bureaucratic. “We’ve received a notification canceling the private funding for your mother’s chemotherapy. The outstanding balance is forty thousand dollars. We need payment today, or we pause treatment.”

The mug slipped from my hand, shattering on the marble floor.

Enzo had arranged that funding. He had covered it the day after we landed, a silent thank-you for my help.

I ran to the War Room, bursting in without knocking. Enzo looked up, alarmed. “Audrey?”

“He knows,” I whispered, my hands shaking. “Stephano knows about my mother. He cut the funding.”

Enzo’s face went deadly pale. He stood up slowly, the terrifying “Don” persona cracking to reveal the horrified man beneath. “He’s testing the perimeter,” Enzo said, his voice low and dangerous. “He can’t get to me inside this house, so he’s reaching outside. He wants to hurt you to punish me.”

“He’s killing my mother to send a message?” I screamed, tears hot on my face.

“He’s trying to force you to run,” Enzo said, stepping closer. “He thinks if he squeezes hard enough, you’ll leave. And if you leave, you’re vulnerable.”

“Is that what you want?” I asked, trembling. “For me to leave?”

Enzo looked at me then, and the air left the room. “I think losing you would destroy the only good thing left in this house.”

He didn’t just pay the bill again; he bought the debt through three shell companies so it couldn’t be touched. But the message was clear: I wasn’t a bystander anymore. I was a target.

To counter the narrative that he was weak and hiding, Enzo had to make a public appearance. A charity gala in the city. It was a suicide mission in a tuxedo, but he had to show his investors and his enemies that the Valente empire was standing tall.

“Come with me,” he asked.

“I’m a flight attendant, Enzo. I don’t do galas.”

“I don’t need a socialite,” he said, his eyes intense. “I need someone who notices things. You saw the danger on the plane before I did. I trust your eyes.”

So, I went.

The ballroom was a sea of diamonds and fake smiles. I wore a black dress Enzo had commissioned, feeling like an imposter in a room full of sharks. The air smelled of expensive perfume and fear. I stuck to Enzo’s side, my hand lightly on his arm, feeling the tension radiating off him like heat.

He played the part perfectly—charming, confident, untouchable. But I was working. My eyes scanned the room, ignoring the jewelry and looking at the hands. The eyes. The exits.

Halfway through the night, I saw him.

A waiter. He was moving through the crowd near the bar, holding a tray of champagne flutes. But his rhythm was wrong. He wasn’t looking at the guests’ empty glasses; he was fixated on the back of Enzo’s neck. His gait was stiff, heavy.

Then I saw the twitch. His right hand left the tray and slid toward his sleeve. A glint of steel.

My body moved before my brain gave permission.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t point. I grabbed a heavy crystal decanter from a passing server’s tray and turned my shoulder into a battering ram. I slammed into the fake waiter just as he lunged.

The impact sent us both sprawling. The tray crashed. Champagne and glass exploded everywhere. The knife skittered across the floor, inches from Enzo’s shoe.

The music stopped. Screams erupted.

Enzo turned, his eyes widening in horror as he saw me on the floor amidst the broken glass, the assassin groaning beside me. His security team descended like a dark tide, securing the threat in seconds.

Enzo didn’t look at the assassin. He dropped to his knees, ignoring the gasps of the elite crowd, and grabbed my face in his hands.

“Audrey,” he breathed, searching me for blood. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” I gasped, adrenaline shaking my bones. “He had a knife.”

He pulled me up, wrapping his jacket around me, shielding me from the cameras, from the crowd, from the world.

The ride back to the estate was silent, heavy with unsaid things. When we finally walked into the foyer, the adrenaline crashed. I started to shake. Enzo pulled me into the small library, away from the guards.

“You stepped in front of a weapon,” he said, his voice cracking. “You aren’t trained for this. You aren’t one of my soldiers. Why did you do that?”

“Because,” I whispered, looking at the man who had been a stranger days ago. “You have two children upstairs who need their father.”

He looked at me with such raw, unguarded intensity that I forgot how to breathe. “You saved me,” he murmured. “Not just tonight. You’ve been saving me since the moment we met.”

He didn’t kiss me. He did something more intimate. He rested his forehead against mine, closing his eyes, letting down the walls he had built over a lifetime of war. In that quiet darkness, we weren’t a billionaire and a flight attendant. We were just two people keeping each other alive.

But we both knew the truth. The waiter was just a probe. Stephano was done playing games. The next strike wouldn’t be a knife in a ballroom. It would be total war.

Part 3

The Sanctuary Trap

The gala changed everything. Stephano realized that simple assassination wouldn’t work, and worse, he realized Enzo wasn’t alone. He realized I was the variable he hadn’t accounted for.

The intelligence came in two days later. Stephano wasn’t targeting Enzo’s money anymore. He was targeting the legacy. He wanted the twins. He planned to wipe Enzo out and take the children, raising them as his own to erase the Valente name from history. It was a cruelty so specific, so biblical, it made my blood run cold.

“We can’t hide,” Enzo said, staring at the map in the War Room. “If we stay in the fortress, he’ll siege us. He’ll burn everything down to get them. We have to draw him out.”

“How?” I asked, terrified.

“We give him exactly what he wants.” Enzo’s eyes were hard, flinty. “A baptism.”

“What?”

“We stage a baptism at St. Michael’s. It’s an old family church, isolated, stone walls, one way in. It’s symbolic. Stephano is obsessed with symbolism. He won’t be able to resist the chance to end my family in the same place it began.”

“You’re using the twins as bait?” I felt sick.

“No,” Enzo said, turning to me. “We’re using dolls. Weighted, realistic props. The real children will be in the safe room, three floors underground. But… to sell the lie, someone has to hold the dolls. Someone has to look like a mother protecting her children.”

He didn’t have to finish the sentence.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“Audrey, no. If he realizes they’re fake…”

“He won’t,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “Because I won’t let him get close enough until the trap is sprung.”

The preparation was a nightmare. We rehearsed in the estate’s parlor. I practiced walking with the weighted dolls, learning to curve my spine, to shift my weight, to mimic the exhaustion and fierce protectiveness of a mother. Luca, Enzo’s head of security, drilled me on eye contact, on fear responses.

“You have to look scared,” Luca said. “But not of the gun. Scared for the baby. There’s a difference.”

On the morning of the trap, the sky was a bruised purple. St. Michael’s loomed on the hill, a gothic relic of stone and stained glass. We cleared the perimeter. The FBI—Enzo’s secret weapon—were already inside, hidden in the confessionals, the choir loft, disguised as clergy. Enzo had made a deal: full immunity for his men, full cooperation, and his resignation from the syndicate, in exchange for Stephano’s arrest.

We walked in. The church smelled of incense and damp stone. The silence was heavy, oppressive. I stood near the altar, the heavy doll wrapped in an antique lace blanket pressed against my chest. Enzo stood beside me, uncharacteristically exposed, wearing a simple suit, no visible weapon.

We waited.

Then, the doors groaned open.

Stephano didn’t rush. He walked in like he owned God himself. He was handsome in a reptilian way, flanked by three men who held their assault rifles low.

“Enzo,” Stephano’s voice echoed off the vaulted ceiling. “How pious. Seeking redemption before the end?”

He walked down the center aisle, his shoes clicking rhythmically on the stone. He stopped ten feet away. He didn’t look at Enzo. He looked at me.

“And the nanny,” he sneered, his eyes sliding over me. “Playing house to the very end. It’s tragic, really.”

My heart hammered against the doll so hard I thought he’d see the blanket vibrate. I channeled every ounce of fear I felt—not for myself, but for the real babies back at the estate. I pulled the blanket tighter, turning my body to shield the “child.”

“Leave her out of this,” Enzo said, his voice tight.

“I don’t think I will,” Stephano smiled. “I think I’ll take them from her arms. I think I’ll make her watch.”

He stepped closer. The plan was for the FBI to strike the moment he drew a weapon. But Stephano didn’t draw. He reached out.

“Give him to me,” Stephano commanded, extending his hands.

I froze. This wasn’t the script. If he touched the doll, the game was over.

“I said, give him to me!” Stephano roared, his patience snapping. He lunged forward, grabbing the bundle from my arms before Enzo could intervene.

Time seemed to suspend.

Stephano held the bundle. He looked down at the lace blanket. He frowned. The weight was right, but the movement… there was no warmth. No squirming.

He ripped the blanket back.

The porcelain face of the doll stared up at him, glassy and lifeless.

The silence that followed was louder than a gunshot.

Stephano’s face twisted—confusion, realization, then pure, unadulterated rage. He looked up at Enzo, his eyes wide. “You…”

“Now!” Enzo screamed.

The church erupted. The heavy oak doors slammed shut, magnetic locks engaging with a thunderous thud.

“Federal Agents! Drop it! Down! Now!”

Voices boomed from the heavens—the choir loft. Red laser sights dotted Stephano’s chest and the heads of his men like measles. The ambush was perfect. Stephano’s men dropped their rifles, hands flying up. They knew when they were beaten.

Enzo let out a breath, his shoulders sagging. He turned to me, relief washing over his face. “It’s over. Audrey, you did it.”

I smiled, my knees shaking. We had won. Stephano was being cuffed, his face pressed against the cold stone floor.

But then I saw it.

High above the altar, nestled in the shadows of the organ pipes, a glint of light. A reflection.

It wasn’t an FBI agent. The angle was wrong.

It was a barrel.

Stephano had a failsafe. A sniper he hadn’t told his men about. A ghost in the rafters, waiting for the moment of victory to turn it into ashes.

The barrel shifted. It wasn’t aiming at Stephano. It wasn’t aiming at the agents.

It was aiming at Enzo’s chest.

I didn’t think. I didn’t verify. The instinct that had made me slam a waiter with a champagne tray, the instinct that made me hold crying babies through turbulence, took over.

“Enzo!” I screamed.

I threw myself across the space between us. I didn’t push him; I shielded him. I wrapped my arms around his chest and twisted my body.

The sound of the rifle was deafening, like the church itself cracking in half.

I felt a punch. A massive, hot, sledgehammer blow to my shoulder that spun me around. The air left my lungs.

I hit the floor. The stone was cold against my cheek.

The world went mute. I saw Enzo’s face hovering over me, his mouth open in a scream I couldn’t hear. I saw the horror in his eyes—the absolute, devastating terror of a man watching the only thing he loved bleed out on a church floor.

“Audrey!”

His voice finally broke through the ringing. He was pressing his hands onto my shoulder, trying to hold the blood inside me.

“Stay with me,” he begged, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the blood on his hands. “You promised. You promised you wouldn’t leave.”

“The twins…” I gasped, the darkness creeping in at the edges of my vision. “Safe?”

“They’re safe,” he sobbed. “You saved them. You saved me. Just stay. Please, God, stay.”

The last thing I saw was the stained glass window above us, the colors blurring into a kaleidoscope of light, before everything went black.

Part 4

Pain has a color. It’s white. Blinding, antiseptic white.

That was the first thing I knew when I drifted back to consciousness. The beep of machines. The smell of iodine. The crushing weight on my left side.

I blinked, forcing my eyes to focus. I was in a hospital room. It was night. The city lights of New York twinkled distantly through the window, indifferent to my existence.

Then I saw him.

Enzo was sitting in a plastic chair pulled right up to the bedside. He was a wreck. He was still wearing the suit from the church, the white shirt stained rusty brown with my blood. He hadn’t shaved. He looked like he hadn’t moved in days.

His hand was resting on the bedsheet, inches from mine, trembling slightly.

“Enzo,” I tried to say, but my voice was a broken rasp.

His head snapped up. The relief that washed over his face was so intense it looked painful. “Audrey.”

He stood up, leaning over me, his eyes scanning my face as if to confirm I was real. “You’re awake. The doctor… she said the bullet missed the artery. It shattered the clavicle, but… you’re going to be okay.”

“Stephano?” I whispered.

“Gone,” Enzo said, his voice hard as granite. “In federal custody. No bail. The sniper talked. It’s over. The entire network is dismantled.”

I let out a breath I felt like I’d been holding since California. “And the twins?”

Enzo stepped back and pointed to the corner of the room. Two clear plastic bassinets were there. Nona, his housekeeper, was asleep in a chair beside them.

“They wouldn’t stop crying,” Enzo said softly. “The doctors tried to make me send them home, but they wouldn’t settle. They needed to be near you. I told the hospital administration that if they tried to remove my children, I’d buy the building and fire them all.”

I managed a weak, painful laugh. “Typical.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, his expression turning serious. He picked up my hand, holding it with a reverence that made my heart ache.

“You took a bullet for me,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “You aren’t a soldier. You aren’t family by blood. Why did you do that?”

“Because,” I said, squeezing his fingers weakly. “You aren’t alone anymore, Enzo. You don’t get to be the only one making sacrifices.”

He pressed his forehead against our joined hands. “I made a deal,” he whispered into my skin. “While you were in surgery. I signed the papers. The Valente syndicate is done. I liquidated the assets, turned over the ledgers to the feds. I kept the legal investments, the trusts for the kids. But the life? The power? It’s gone.”

He looked up, tears in his eyes. “I’m just Enzo now. Unemployed. A single father with a lot of baggage.”

“Sounds perfect,” I smiled, fighting the pain in my shoulder. “I think I know someone who can help with the kids.”

One Year Later.

The light here is different. In New York, the sun is sharp, frantic. Here, on the coast of Amalfi, the light is like honey—slow, golden, and warm.

I stood on the terrace of the villa, balancing a tray of espresso and cut fruit. The sea breeze tugged at my linen dress, carrying the scent of salt and lemons. My shoulder ached sometimes when it rained, a permanent reminder of the church, but today, it felt fine.

Down on the grass, Enzo was on his hands and knees. The twins, now toddlers with wobbly legs and loud laughs, were climbing over him like he was a jungle gym. He was laughing—a deep, resonant sound that had taken months to coax out of him.

He looked up and saw me watching. He stood up, dusting off his knees, and jogged up the stone steps, scooping up the boy twin on his way.

“They’re fast,” he said, breathless and grinning. “We need a zone defense strategy.”

“I’m retired,” I teased, setting the tray down. “I’m just a consultant now.”

He put the baby down, who immediately waddled off to inspect a potted plant. Enzo stepped into my space, wrapping his arms around my waist. He smelled of sea salt and peace.

“Happy anniversary,” he murmured.

“It’s not our anniversary,” I said. “We got married in October.”

“It’s the anniversary of the day you woke up,” he said softly, his eyes serious. “The day my life actually started.”

He kissed me, slow and deep, with the backdrop of the endless blue ocean behind us. We weren’t hiding anymore. The cameras were gone. The guards were gone. The fear was a distant memory, a story we would tell the children when they were old enough to understand why their mother had a scar on her shoulder and why their father looked at her like she was the only person in the world.

We had walked through the fire and come out the other side.

“Come on,” Enzo said, pulling back and grabbing my hand. “The boat is ready. Let’s take them out on the water.”

I looked at him, at the twins, at the horizon.

“Lead the way,” I said.

And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t worried about the turbulence ahead. We knew how to fly.