Sylvia started to cry. “They killed our parents. They killed our parents and we never knew.”
Alessio took her hand. “I know. I know. But they’re gone now. They can’t hurt anyone else. And we’re still here. We’re still alive. We’re still together.”
She looked at him. Her brother. The man she had thought she had lost. The man who had saved her. The man who had spent a decade avenging their parents. “I love you,” she said.
He smiled. It was a real smile, the first real smile she had seen from him in years. “I love you too.”
The final image: Sylvia and Alessio sitting on the porch of her house, the stars above them, the mountains in the distance, the dog sleeping at their feet. The roses were blooming. The air was warm. And for the first time since she was a child, Sylvia felt something she had forgotten how to feel. She felt safe.
She was not Trent’s victim. She was not Raymond’s pawn. She was not the girl who had lost her family. She was Sylvia Grimaldi. She was a survivor. She was a sister. She was free. And she was finally, truly, home.
The Grimaldi Blood
