“Here,” she said. “Don’t press too hard. It breaks.”

“I’ll be careful,” Dominic said.

I stood by the window, watching the two of them.

The gray afternoon light fell across the table, illuminating the striking similarity in their eyes.

The Valenti legacy of power and blood was gone, reduced to a quiet afternoon in a dusty bookstore.

I walked back to the counter and picked up my book, the pages turning with a soft rustle.

For the first time in five years, the air in the room felt light.

I watched Dominic’s large hand carefully coloring within the lines of a simple drawing of a house.

His movements were deliberate, his focus entirely on the little girl sitting opposite him.

Lucia leaned in closer, pointing at the roof.

“The roof should be red,” she instructed.

“Red it is,” Dominic murmured, searching the box for the right color.

He didn’t look like a kingpin or a man of immense wealth.

He looked like a father trying his best to learn.

I felt a quiet warmth in my chest, a feeling I hadn’t allowed myself to have for half a decade.

The rain began to tap gently against the glass of the storefront.

But inside, the stove was warm, the tea was brewing, and the three of us were finally in the same room.

We were no longer running from the shadow of the Valenti name.

We were just starting over.