My husband forgot our fifth anniversary and spent it kissing another woman in his private office while the dinner I carried across Chicago fell from my hands

The operating room in the basement of Blackwood Manor was a mirror of Dante’s paranoia: fully stocked with whole blood, surgical monitors, and two trauma surgeons who lived on retainer at the estate’s gatehouse.

For six hours, the red light above the heavy steel doors burned.

I sat in the corridor, refusing to leave.

I had washed the blood from my hands, but the front of my shirt was still stained with Dante’s life. Martha—whom Dante had quietly relocated to the estate two weeks prior with a pension that set her family up for generations—held Leo and Clara in the nursery upstairs, keeping them fed and warm.

I sat alone on the cold tile floor, my knees pulled to my chest, staring at the brass door handle.

*“I’m sorry I was late, Lena.”*

His last words echoed in my skull like church bells.

He hadn't run to save his empire. He hadn't fought to protect his money.

He had thrown his body into the path of lead to take the bullets meant for the wife who hated him and the children who didn't know his name.

He had spent five years failing me, but in five seconds, he had given me everything a man could possibly surrender: his flesh, his blood, his life.

The door swung open.

The lead surgeon stepped out, pulling down his bloody mask. He looked exhausted, gray with fatigue.

"Doctor?" I asked, scrambling to my feet, my heart slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird.

"He took four rounds, Mrs. Moretti," the doctor said quietly. "Two through the shoulder blade, one through the left flank that nicked his spleen, and one that missed his descending aorta by less than a centimeter."

I couldn't breathe. "Is he..."

"We stopped the internal bleeding. We repaired the spleen. He has the constitution of an ox, Lena. By all medical logic, he should have died before we got him onto the table. But his vitals stabilized twenty minutes ago."

The doctor looked at me with deep, knowing eyes.

"He kept murmuring your name under the anesthesia. Over and over. He wouldn't let his blood pressure drop until we told him you and the twins were unharmed."

Tears spilled over my cheeks, hot and unrestrained.

"Can I see him?"

"He’s in recovery. He’s weak, but he’s conscious."

I pushed through the double doors.

The room was dim, quiet except for the rhythmic beep of the cardiac monitor.

Dante lay on the narrow bed, stripped of his power, his arrogance, his armor. Bandages wrapped tightly around his chest and torso. IV lines ran into his bruised arms. An oxygen cannula rested beneath his nose.

When the door clicked, his head turned slowly against the pillow.

His dark eyes found mine.

I walked over to the bed. I didn't stay three feet away. I didn't keep the glass between us.

I sat on the edge of the mattress, took his cold, calloused hand into both of mine, and brought it to my lips.

"You idiot," I whispered, resting my forehead against his knuckles, my tears washing the iodine from his skin. "You absolute, arrogant idiot."

A faint, cracked whisper came from beneath the oxygen cannula.

"Did I... did I do good, Lena?"

I looked up at him.

The fearsome Dante Moretti—the king of Chicago—was looking at me like a small boy asking for forgiveness.

"You took four bullets for us," I said, a watery laugh breaking through my sobs. "Yes, Dante. You did good."

"Are you... going to run again?" he asked, his voice trembling with a vulnerability that tore my heart open. "When I heal... will you pack your bag?"

I reached up with my free hand and gently smoothed the dark, sweat-damp hair from his forehead.

"No," I whispered.

His breath hitched. "No?"

"No more running," I said firmly, leaning down until my lips were inches from his. "The girl who waited five years for you is gone, Dante. She died the night she caught you in that office. But the woman sitting here... the mother of your children... she’s staying."

Dante closed his eyes, a single tear escaping down his temple into the white pillow.

"I don't deserve you," he choked out.

"No, you don't," I agreed softly, pressing my lips gently to his cheek, breathing in the scent of cedar, antiseptic, and him. "You’re going to spend the next fifty years earning this, Dante Moretti. You’re going to build every room in this house with me. You’re going to change diapers at 3:00 AM. You’re going to walk our daughter down the aisle and teach our son how to treat a woman so he never repeats his father’s sins."

Dante’s fingers tightened around mine with a strength that defied the holes in his chest.

"Fifty years isn't enough," he rasped, turning his face to press his lips against my palm. "Give me eternity, Lena. Give me eternity to worship the ground you walk on."