POV: Sofia
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He came back the next day.
I told myself I wasn't waiting for him. I wasn't glancing at the door every time the bell chimed. I wasn't rehearsing clever things to say in case he showed up.
I was lying.
At 5:47 PM, the bell rang, and there he was—Antonio Matteo, looking slightly less like a hit man and slightly more like a man bringing takeout from the Italian place down the street.
"Dinner," he said, holding up the bag. "Figured I owed you for the coffee."
"You don't owe me anything."
"Humor me."
I looked at the bag. Smelled garlic and tomatoes and something that made my stomach growl traitorously.
"Fine. But if this is some kind of mafia poison situation, I'm going to be really annoyed."
He almost smiled. "Noted."
We sat at the same table by the window. He unpacked containers—pasta, meatballs, bread, enough for four people—and pushed a plate toward me.
"Eat."
"You're very bossy."
"Occupational hazard."
I took a bite of pasta and had to suppress a moan. "Okay, this is actually incredible."
"Giuseppe's. Best in the neighborhood."
"I know Giuseppe's. I've been there a hundred times." I pointed my fork at him. "They've never given me this much food."
He shrugged. "They know me."
Of course they did. Of course the local Italian restaurant knew the local mafia heir. Why wouldn't they?
We ate in surprisingly comfortable silence for a few minutes. Outside, the city rushed past—people heading home, taxis honking, life going on. Inside, I was having dinner with the enemy, and it felt disturbingly normal.
"Carlo came to see me," I said finally.
Antonio's fork paused mid-air. "When?"
"Yesterday. Before you showed up." I set down my fork, my appetite suddenly gone. "He's worse than I thought. Jumpy. Desperate. He asked me for money."
"Did you give him any?"
"I don't have that kind of money. You know that."
He studied me for a long moment. "What did you tell him?"
"That I'd figure something out. That I'd talk to..." I trailed off.
"To me?"
"To whoever would listen." I met his eyes. "He's my brother. I know he's reckless and stupid and he's made terrible choices. But he's my brother."
"I understand."
"Do you? Really? Because from where I'm sitting, your family is the one holding a debt over his head that's going to get him killed."
"My family didn't force him to gamble."
"No. You just profit from it."
He didn't flinch. "Yes. We do. That's the business."
"The business." I laughed bitterly. "You make it sound so legitimate."
"It's not legitimate. It's never been legitimate. But it's honest about what it is." He leaned forward. "I'm not going to apologize for what my family does, Sofia. I can't. It's who I am. It's who I've always been."
"Then maybe that's the problem."
"Maybe." He held my gaze. "But I'm also the man who's sitting here, eating bad takeout, trying to convince a woman I barely know that this marriage doesn't have to be a prison. That has to count for something."
"Does it?"
"I don't know. You tell me."
I looked at him—really looked. At the lines around his eyes that spoke of sleepless nights. At the way his hands moved when he talked, like they wanted to reach for something. At the careful control he maintained over every expression, every word.
He was trying. I could see that.
But trying wasn't enough.
---
ANTONIO
She was shutting down again. I could feel it—the walls going up, the warmth fading. I'd said something wrong, pushed too hard, reminded her of what I was.
I wanted to fix it. I didn't know how.
"I should go," I said, starting to stand.
"No."
I stopped.
She sighed, ran a hand through her hair. "Stay. Finish your dinner. I'm sorry—I didn't mean to... I just..." She trailed off, frustrated.
"You just remembered you're talking to a monster."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." I sat back down. "It's okay. I know what I am."
"Then what are you?" Her eyes were sharp, searching. "Because every time I think I have you figured out, you say something that doesn't fit."
"Maybe I don't fit."
"No. Maybe you don't." She was quiet for a moment. "Tell me something real. Something that has nothing to do with families or debts or weddings."
"Like what?"
"Like... I don't know. What do you do when you're not being a mafia heir?"
The question caught me off guard. "I read."
"You read?"
"Why does that surprise you?"
She shrugged. "You don't seem like the reading type."
"What's the reading type look like?"
"I don't know. Glasses? Cardigans? A general lack of... you?"
I laughed—actually laughed—and watched her eyes widen in surprise. "Fair point. What do you want me to read? Romance novels? Self-help?"
"Poetry."
The word hit me like a punch.
"I..." I hesitated. This was too much. Too personal. But she'd asked for something real, and I was tired of hiding. "Neruda. In Spanish. I don't speak it well, but I like the way it sounds."
She stared at me. "You read Neruda."
"Badly."
"Antonio Matteo reads Neruda." A smile was tugging at her lips. "That's... actually kind of beautiful."
"It's embarrassing."
"It's human." She leaned forward, and something in her expression had shifted—softer now, curious. "Read me something."
"Now?"
"Unless you need to go murder someone?"
"I'm free for the next hour."
"Then read."
I pulled out my phone, scrolled to the poem I'd saved months ago and never shown anyone. My voice was rough as I began:
"I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul."
I looked up. Sofia's eyes were bright, unreadable.
"Keep going," she whispered.
"I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself, and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose from the earth lives dimly in my body."
I stopped. The silence between us was heavy, charged.
"Where did you find that?" she asked.
"Online. Years ago. I don't remember how." I put my phone away. "I told you I was bad at it."
"You're not bad. You're..." She shook her head. "You're not what I expected."
"Neither are you."
We sat there, surrounded by her books and the fading light, and for the first time, the space between us didn't feel like a battlefield.
It felt like possibility.
---
SOFIA
He left at 8 PM, and I spent the rest of the night thinking about Neruda.
About a man who read poetry in broken Spanish and protected his mother's garden. About hands that had killed people being gentle with takeout containers. About eyes that went soft when he talked about things that mattered.
I was in trouble.
The next day, he came back with pastries.
The day after, with flowers—not roses, but sunflowers, because "they seemed like your style."
"What's my style?" I asked.
"Bright. Stubborn. Turns toward the light."
I didn't know what to say to that.
A week passed. Then two. He showed up every evening at closing time, and every evening I pretended I hadn't been waiting. We talked about books, about his mother's garden, about my plans to expand the store. We argued about movies, about politics, about whether pineapple belonged on pizza (he said no; I told him he was objectively wrong).
We didn't talk about the wedding.
We didn't talk about Carlo's debt.
We just... were.
And slowly, terrifyingly, I started to like it.
---
ANTONIO
Three weeks until the wedding. Three weeks to convince her this wasn't a mistake.
Every night, I went home and replayed our conversations, looking for clues, for cracks in her armor. She was opening up—slowly, carefully—but I could still feel her holding back. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I didn't blame her.
I was the other shoe.
"You're different," Marco said one night, after I'd spent an entire meeting distracted, thinking about whether Sofia would like the book I'd found for her. "Softer."
"I'm not softer."
"You smiled. Twice. In one hour."
"It was a good hour."
He raised an eyebrow but didn't push. That was Marco—loyal, observant, smart enough to know when to shut up.
"She's changing you," he said anyway. "The Bianchi girl."
"Her name is Sofia."
"I know." He grinned. "That's my point."
I didn't answer. Because he was right, and that terrified me more than any enemy ever had.
---
SOFIA
Three days before the wedding, Antonio took me to see his mother's garden.
It was hidden behind the massive Staten Island estate, tucked away from the main house by a wall of hedges. Winter had stripped most of the plants bare, but I could imagine what it looked like in spring—roses, herbs, vegetables, all tangled together in beautiful chaos.
"It's peaceful," I said.
"It's mine." He stood beside me, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him. "No one comes here but me."
"Why are you showing me?"
"Because I want you to know me. All of me. Not just the parts that fit in your bookstore."
I looked at him—at this impossible, complicated, terrifying man—and felt something crack open in my chest.
"Antonio..."
"I know." He turned to face me. "I know this isn't what you wanted. I know I'm not what you wanted. But I'm asking you, Sofia—give me a chance. Give us a chance. Not because of the debt, not because of our families. Because of this."
He gestured between us.
"Because of whatever this is."
I wanted to say no. I wanted to be smart, to protect myself, to remember that he was the enemy.
Instead, I kissed him.
It was soft at first—tentative, questioning. Then his hands came up to cup my face, and the kiss deepened, and I forgot everything except the way he made me feel.
When we finally broke apart, he pressed his forehead to mine.
"Was that a yes?"
"It was a 'stop talking and kiss me again.'"
He did.