My Mafia Ex-Boyfriend Went Crazy After Learning of My Death Chapter 11

My Mafia Ex-Boyfriend Went Crazy After Learning of My Death Chapter 11: Epilogue

The fisherman pulled Dante ashore.

CPR. Rescue breaths. He coughed up a ton of seawater.

He lived.

I sat on the sand, watching him cough, gasp, open his eyes.

His first words were, “Nora?”

He looked around. Then he saw me.

I stood on a rock three meters away. My translucent body shimmered faintly in the moonlight.

He smiled. “You’re still here.”

“You’re insane,” I said.

“Yeah.” He struggled to his feet and walked toward me. He reached out to touch my face — his fingertips passed through, but his smile didn’t change. “It’s okay. I know you’re here.”

The fisherman stared in confusion at a soaking wet man talking to thin air.

Dante ignored him. He spoke to me. “I’m not a Don anymore. No money, no power. I only want you. Ghost or human, I don’t care. I’ll stay with you.”

“I’m dead, Dante.”

“I don’t care.”

I looked into his eyes. I didn’t see madness or despair. Just a calm, unshakable certainty.

I cried. “You idiot.”

“Yeah. I’m your idiot.”

That night, Dante didn’t go back to New York.

He took me to a cheap motel in Atlantic City — the kind we used to stay in when we were young.

He lay on the bed. I floated near the ceiling.

“Tell me about the three years after you died,” he said.

So I started talking.

I told him about dealing cards at the casino, getting groped by customers, using every dollar I earned for chemo.

I told him about the nights I missed him so badly I cried into my pillow and bit it until it tore.

I told him about writing my last diary entry, closing my eyes, and calling his name with my final breath.

He listened. Tears slid down his face, but he didn’t wipe them.

“I regret it,” he said. “I regret not coming back sooner.”

“No,” I floated down close to his face. “You came back just in time.”

He reached out and placed his hand over where my cheek would be, just hovering.

“I can feel you. Cool, like the wind.”

“That’s me.”

“From now on,” he said, “you’re my wind.”

Outside the window, dawn was about to break.

I laughed softly. A petal from a bellflower drifted in through the window and spun in the air.

Maybe this is what forever feels like.

One year later.

A small flower shop opened in Brooklyn’s Little Italy.

The name on the sign was “Nora’s Breeze.”

The shop only sold one kind of flower: white bellflowers.

The owner was a tall man who always wore a white shirt, a bellflower pinned to his chest, and an ash pendant around his neck.

He was cold to customers. But he often talked to thin air, and sometimes he’d suddenly smile.

The neighbors thought he had a screw loose.

But no one dared say it — because once in a while, a few big men in black suits would come in to buy flowers and address him respectfully as “Don.”

No one knew if he was a flower shop owner or a mafia boss.

The only sure thing was that every evening he closed the shop and went to sit by the sea.

He sat at the edge of the abandoned pier, feet hanging over the water.

Next to him was a bunch of bellflowers.

Then he talked to the air.

“Sold five bouquets today.”

“Lena and Luca came by. Luca’s heart is doing great.”

“Marco runs the family well.”

“I read your diary again today. Eighty-third time.”

“I still miss you so much.”

The ocean breeze blew.

Bellflower petals lifted into the air and spun around him.

He smiled.

“I know you’re here.”

Right then, a young girl walked into the flower shop. She wore a white dress. She was very pretty, with two dimples when she smiled.

“Hi. Do you have any white roses?”

Dante froze.

Because the girl looked seven-tenths like Nora. Not the staged resemblance of Sophia — a natural, youthful likeness.

“No,” he said. “Only bellflowers.”

The girl looked disappointed. “Okay… then give me a bunch of bellflowers.”

Dante wrapped a bouquet and handed it to her.

As she paid, she noticed the pendant around his neck.

“Your necklace… it looks like it holds something.”

“Ashes,” Dante said.

The girl flinched. Then she saw the look in Dante’s eyes — that impossibly gentle look that didn’t belong to the living.

She understood.

“The person you loved… they’re gone?”

Dante nodded.

The girl was quiet for a moment, then said softly, “She must be so happy. To be remembered like that.”

“No,” Dante said. “I’m the happy one. To have been loved by her.”

The girl left with the bellflowers.

At the door, she glanced back.

The shop owner was smiling at the air. Sunlight fell on his white shirt. The bellflowers swayed gently in his smile.

The girl walked out and said to her friend, “That flower shop owner seems like he’s dating a ghost.”

Her friend laughed. “Don’t scare me.”

The girl didn’t laugh.

Because when she’d walked in, she’d clearly felt a cool breeze pass by her.

In that breeze was the scent of bellflowers.

And the soft laugh of a girl.

Nora Rossi, 1998-2022. She died for love.

Dante Visconti, 1997-forever. He lives for love.