You Wanted an Ornament, You Got a Mafia Queen Chapter 08

You Wanted an Ornament, You Got a Mafia Queen Chapter 08

He went quiet.

Something moved behind his eyes. Shock, and something that didn’t have a name.

“Elysia, I, that’s not what I meant. I just needed space. We’ve been together so long, I didn’t want everything to be about rules and obligations. I just—”

I laughed. It wasn’t a warm sound.

“Excuses. All of it. You didn’t need another person to get space. But you took her everywhere, restaurants, movies, trips, your grandfather’s birthday. That wasn’t about freedom. That was a test. You wanted to see what I’d do. If I kept taking it, you’d have pushed further after the wedding. I already know exactly how that goes. We’re done talking.”

I turned to leave.

He stepped forward.

Adrian’s arm moved between them.

“Elysia’s made herself clear. Don Santoro, harassing someone isn’t something a decent man does.”

Marco’s eyes turned on Adrian like something feral. A cold, contained danger radiated off him.

“This is between her and me. You don’t have a seat at this table.”

Adrian smiled. Easy. Unhurried.

“The way it looks right now, you’re the one who doesn’t.”

Marco looked at me. His expression unreadable and raw.

“Elysia. What is he to you?”

I put my hand through Adrian’s arm and raised my chin.

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“He’s about to be my boyfriend.”

Marco’s breath caught. Something fragmented in his eyes.

“That’s impossible. We grew up together. We only ever wanted each other. How could you—

Adrian didn’t move, but the arm under my hand had a slight tremor.

I didn’t look at Marco again. I got in the car.

When we pulled out, I checked the mirror once.

He was still standing there. Alone. Eyes fixed on the taillights like if he stared long enough something would come back.

In the parking lot of the restaurant, Adrian turned to me.

“Elysia, what you said back there. Was that to get rid of him?”

I shook my head.

“I told you I wouldn’t use you. I meant it. I was going to tell you tonight anyway. I’ve worked through it. There’s room now.”

Adrian laughed, a full, genuine, helpless sound. He couldn’t close his mouth for a moment.

“You really mean that? Elysia, you’re actually-”

I leaned over and put my arms around his neck.

Pressed a kiss to the line of his jaw.

“I’m starving. Let’s eat first.”

Marco didn’t go home. He stayed, showing up everywhere I was.

For Grandfather’s sake, I was patient enough to say it plainly one last time:

“Go back. The company needs you. Don’t put Giovanni through this.”

His eyes were red at the edges. He looked wrecked.

“I can’t. You just wrote me off. You gave up on us. I can’t accept that.”

“You don’t have to accept it. We’re still done.”

He didn’t listen.

Eventually the cracks in the Santoro family operation started showing, too long without their leader. Don Giovanni had to step back in and manage the fallout. It wore on the old man.

Marco had no choice but to fly home.

He came to find me before he left.

He looked hollowed out. The stubble on his jaw. The gray around his

eyes.

“Elysia. I’ve thought about this a lot. I know I was wrong, in ways that actually mattered. You’re someone who knows her own mind. You don’t let things slide that should be dealt with. My stupidity is what made us impure. That’s why you let me go. I know that. But I swear to you, I never wanted to betray you.”

I didn’t believe it. But I said, simply:

“Okay. I hear you. Take care of yourself.”

Just enough to get him on the plane.

He kept reaching out after he got back. Messages. Memories. The twenty-something years we’d

collected together.

Maybe he thought the weight of all that history would eventually tip the scale.

He was wrong.

Sunk costs have no seat at the table when it matters.

Whatever place he’d had in me, it was empty now.

Six months later, I flew back with Adrian, and both our families.

We sent the Santoros a wedding invitation.

The day of, Marco walked Grandfather Giovanni through the doors.

I stood on the stage and looked up, and from across the room our eyes met for a moment.

He’d dressed carefully. But he moved like someone wearing his own skin as a costume. No life in it.

I gave him a quiet nod.

Then I turned back to Adrian.

He slid the ring onto my finger.

“I do.”

Fireworks went off outside, exploding against the night sky.

I’d always known, growing up, that I’d be Marco’s bride someday.

Life doesn’t ask permission to change its mind.

The person standing beside me now was the one who’d always been standing just behind me,

watching, patient, never asking for anything.

All that love, unspoken and enormous, enduring in the most private kind of loneliness, had finally

found its way to something whole.

Marco stood at the back of the room and watched Elysia in her white dress.

She was more beautiful than anything he had words for.

He had dreamed this image a hundred times. Maybe more.

It had been so close.

And he had been the one, with his own hands, by his own choices, who had let her go.

He understood now. Completely.

This was something he would never get past.