POV: Antonio
---
The nightmares started three weeks into our marriage.
I'd had them before,always had, since I was fourteen years old and my father handed me a gun and told me to prove I was a man. But I'd learned to control them. To wake before the worst part. To bury them so deep even I couldn't find them.
Sofia changed that.
She woke me gently, her hand on my chest, her voice soft in the darkness. "Antonio. Antonio, you're dreaming. Come back."
I came back gasping, drenched in sweat, the echo of gunshots still ringing in my ears.
"Just a dream," she whispered. "Just a dream. I'm here."
I pulled her close, buried my face in her hair, and shook.
When I finally stopped, she didn't ask. Didn't push. Just held me.
But I saw the questions in her eyes.
---
The next night, they came again.
This time, I couldn't go back to sleep. Lay staring at the ceiling while Sofia dozed beside me, her hand still resting on my chest, her presence the only thing keeping me from falling apart.
At dawn, I slipped out of bed and went to the window.
The city was waking up. Lights flickering on. People starting their day. Normal lives, happening all around me, completely unaware of the monsters that lurked in the darkness.
"You're thinking too loud again."
I turned. Sofia stood in the doorway, wrapped in my robe, her hair a mess, her eyes soft with sleep and concern.
"Go back to bed."
"No." She crossed to me, took my hand. "Talk to me."
"About what?"
"About whatever made those sounds come out of you tonight." She held my gaze. "I'm your wife, Antonio. You don't have to protect me from your demons. Just let me sit with you while you face them."
I stared at her for a long moment.
Then I started talking.
---
SOFIA
He told me everything.
The first man he killed at fourteen, a rival soldier who'd made the mistake of threatening his father in front of him. The way his hands had shaken afterward. The way his father had nodded, once, and said "Good. Now you're a man."
The men after that. Dozens of them. Some in self-defense. Some in retaliation. Some because they were ordered, because that's what soldiers did, because there was no room for questions in this life.
The nightmares. Always the nightmares. The faces of the dead, staring at him in the darkness, asking why.
"I've never told anyone this," he said quietly. "Not Marco. Not my father. No one."
"Why me?"
"Because you look at me like I'm human." His voice cracked. "Like I'm worth something. Like the things I've done don't define me."
I took his face in my hands. "They don't."
"Tell that to the faces in my dreams."
"I will." I pulled him close, held him tight. "Every night. For the rest of our lives. I'll be here, and I'll tell them you're mine, and they can't have you."
He laughed,a broken sound, but real.
"I don't deserve you."
"Stop saying that."
"It's true."
"It's not." I pulled back, looked him in the eyes. "You're a good man, Antonio. You've done terrible things, but you're not terrible. You're my husband. The man who reads Neruda and protects his mother's garden and looks at me like I'm precious. That's who you are. That's who I see."
He kissed me then,desperate and tender and full of everything he couldn't say.
I kissed him back.
And when we finally made love, it was different. Slower. Deeper. A healing instead of a claiming.
Afterward, he slept.
Really slept. Peacefully. No nightmares.
I stayed awake, watching over him, keeping the faces away.
---
ANTONIO
I woke to sunlight and the smell of coffee.
Sofia was in the kitchen, humming softly, making breakfast like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Like she hadn't just held me together with her bare hands.
"Morning," she said when I appeared in the doorway. "Sleep okay?"
"You know I did."
"Good." She set a plate in front of me. "Eat. You have a war to win."
I stared at her. "How are you so...?"
"So what?"
"So steady. So strong. So unfazed by all of this."
She sat across from me, took my hand.
"I spent years with a man who made me feel small. Who made me believe I was nothing without him." Her voice was quiet, steady. "Derek didn't hit me every day. He didn't have to. He just... eroded me. Slowly. Until I didn't recognize myself anymore."
I tightened my grip on her hand.
"Leaving him was the hardest thing I've ever done. Harder than this. Harder than anything." She met my eyes. "So when I look at you, at your nightmares, at your guilt,I recognize it. Not the same, but... adjacent. And I know that the only way through is together. Not fixing each other. Just... being there. Holding on."
"I don't know how to do that."
"Neither do I. But we're learning." She squeezed my hand. "Together. Remember?"
"Together," I echoed.
We ate breakfast in comfortable silence, and for the first time in weeks, I felt like maybe,just maybe,I could survive this.
---
SOFIA
That afternoon, Carlo called.
He'd been working for Antonio for weeks now, feeding the Russians false information, playing his role. It was dangerous work. If Viktor discovered the betrayal, Carlo would die.
"Hey," he said when I answered. His voice was tired, but steady. "Can we talk?"
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I just... I need to say some things. In person, if you'll let me."
I hesitated. Looked at Antonio, who'd appeared in the doorway, questioning.
"Carlo wants to meet."
Antonio nodded. "I'll drive you."
---
We met at a diner in Brooklyn neutral ground, public enough to be safe. Carlo was already there when we arrived, nursing a cup of coffee, looking thinner than I remembered but healthier somehow. Clearer.
"Thanks for coming." He looked at Antonio, then back at me. "Both of you."
"Sit," Antonio said. "Talk."
Carlo took a breath.
"I know I've said I'm sorry. A lot. And I know words don't mean much from me." He looked at me, and there were tears in his eyes. "But I need you to know I'm going to spend the rest of my life making this right. Not because I have to. Because I want to. Because I finally see what I did. To you. To Antonio. To everyone."
I didn't speak. Couldn't.
"I was selfish. Weak. I took and took and never gave anything back." He wiped his eyes. "You spent your whole life protecting me, Sofia. Carrying me. And I never once thanked you. Never once tried to be someone worth protecting."
"Carlo"
"Let me finish." He held up a hand. "I know I can't undo what I did. I know those men are still dead. But I can make sure their deaths mean something. I can help Antonio end this. And then... then I'm going to get help. Real help. For the gambling, for the selfishness, for everything. I'm going to become someone you can be proud of."
I was crying now. Antonio's hand found mine under the table.
"That's all I ever wanted," I whispered. "Not perfection. Just... effort. Just you trying."
"I know." He reached across the table, took my free hand. "I'm trying now. I promise."
"I believe you."
We sat there for a while, holding hands across the table, two people who'd been through hell and were finally finding their way back.
When we left, Carlo hugged me ,really hugged me, like he meant it and shook Antonio's hand.
"Thank you," he said. "For giving me a chance."
"Don't waste it."
"I won't."
---
ANTONIO
Driving home, Sofia was quiet.
But it was a good quiet. Peaceful. Like something that had been wound tight inside her had finally loosened.
"Thank you," she said eventually.
"For what?"
"For not killing him. For giving him a chance. For being willing to see him as more than his mistakes."
"He's your brother. That matters."
"It matters to me." She looked at me, and her eyes were soft. "You matter to me. More than anything."
I pulled the car over, turned to face her.
"I love you, Sofia Matteo."
"I love you too, Antonio Matteo."
We kissed in the parked car like teenagers, and for a moment, the war didn't exist.