Chapter 10: The Garden And The Future
Six months later, Lily stood in the garden of what had become their home.
Not the safe house. The main residence where Sal had lived alone for twenty-three years before she’d stumbled into his life. The garden had been her project. Something to occupy her hands and mind during the long hours when Sal was handling business she didn’t ask about.
She’d planted roses—white ones like her mother had loved—and lavender and jasmine that scented the evening air with memories of better times.
“You’ve been out here for hours.”
She turned to find Sal watching her from the terrace. A glass of wine in each hand. He’d shed his jacket and tie, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Looking more relaxed than she’d ever seen him.
The silver in his hair caught the setting sun, making him look gilded. Almost ethereal.
“I was thinking about Mama,” she admitted as he joined her, accepting the wine glass he offered. “She would have loved this garden.”
“She loved you more.”
He settled beside her on the stone bench, his arm draping around her shoulders.
“Everything else was just details.”
They sat in comfortable silence. Watching the sun paint the sky in shades of amber and rose. This had become their ritual. Evenings in the garden, away from security details and business calls and the constant hum of the empire Sal maintained with brutal efficiency.
Out here, they were just two people who’d found each other against impossible odds.
“I got a call today,” she said eventually. “From the community college.”
Sal went very still.
“They accepted me into their nursing program. Classes start in the fall.”
She watched him carefully, gauging his reaction. They’d talked about this—about her wanting to do something more than just exist in his world. Something that honored her mother’s memory by helping other people’s mothers.
But talking and reality were different things.
“That’s wonderful.”
His voice was even, controlled. But she’d learned to read the tension in his shoulders. The slight tightening around his eyes.
“You’ll be brilliant at it.”
“You’re worried.”
“I’m always worried.”
He set his wine glass aside and turned to face her fully.
“You’ll be out there. Exposed. Vulnerable. Away from the protection I can provide here. There are still people who’d use you to hurt me, Lily. Not as many as before. But they exist.”
“So I should just stay locked in this beautiful prison forever?”
She kept her voice gentle but firm.
“Sal, I love you. I love this life we’re building. But I can’t just be your possession. Hidden away and protected. I need to be my own person, too.”
The muscle in his jaw ticked.
“I know.”
“Do you? Because sometimes I see the way you look at me. And it’s like you’re trying to memorize me before I disappear. Like you’re waiting for me to realize what you are and run.”
He said nothing.
But his silence was confirmation enough.
“I’m not going anywhere, Sal.”
“You say that now.”
His voice was barely audible.
“But eventually—”
“Eventually nothing.”
She set her glass aside and moved to straddle his lap. Forcing him to look at her. To see the truth in her eyes.
“Listen to me very carefully, Salvatore Constantino. I see you. All of you. The violence and the danger and yes, the darkness. But I also see the man who held me while I cried for my mother. The man who reads poetry when he thinks I’m asleep. The man who pays for three scholarships at the community college under an anonymous donor name because he believes in second chances.”
His hands gripped her hips.
His eyes searching hers with desperate hope.
“You know about the scholarships?”
“I know everything, Sal. I pay attention.”
She cupped his face. Feeling the stubble scratch her palms.
“And yes, you’re older than me. Yes, our relationship is complicated and dangerous and probably dysfunctional by normal standards. But I don’t want normal. I want you. I want this. I want the man who was supposedly too old for love, but loves me so fiercely it terrifies us both.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple.”
She kissed him softly.
“I love you. You love me. Everything else is just noise.”
