Chapter 10 - Say It Again
One year after the night Dante Romano walked into her hotel, Emma stood beneath the same chandeliers.
Only this time, she was not behind the concierge desk.
The Bellamy Grand ballroom had been transformed for the annual Isabella Carter Foundation gala.
Journalists, judges, business leaders, former investigators, hospitality executives, and families helped by the foundation filled the room.
Romano Maritime had been reborn under a new board.
Dante owned no controlling stake.
He had resigned from every position connected to the old organization.
For the first time in generations, Romano was becoming a surname instead of a warning.
Emma stood near the stage wearing a dark green gown.
Marco approached.
“You nervous?”
“About giving a speech?”
“No.”
Emma narrowed her eyes.
“Why would I be nervous about something else?”
Marco immediately regretted speaking.
“Nothing.”
“Marco.”
“I have excellent survival instincts, and they are telling me to leave.”
He disappeared.
Emma stared after him.
Strange.
Dante appeared beside her.
He wore a black tuxedo.
“You look suspicious.”
“I am suspicious.”
“Of?”
“Everyone.”
“Healthy.”
Emma smiled.
The foundation director called her name.
Emma walked onto the stage.
Applause filled the ballroom.
She looked across hundreds of faces.
A year earlier she had believed power belonged to people who entered rooms and made others afraid.
She understood differently now.
Real power was telling the truth when silence was easier.
Leaving when control disguised itself as love.
Staying when someone genuinely deserved another chance.
And choosing what happened next.
“My mother once taught me that family is not simply the people whose blood we carry,” Emma began.
Dante watched from the front table.
“It is the people whose choices allow us to become ourselves.”
She spoke about Isabella.
Daniel.
Salvatore.
Even Vittorio.
Not as heroes or villains.
As complicated people whose decisions had consequences long after their lives ended.
Then Emma looked toward Dante.
“And sometimes…”
She smiled.
“…family begins with a complete stranger walking into your workplace and ruining a perfectly terrible Tuesday.”
Laughter filled the room.
Dante shook his head.
After the speech, Emma stepped onto the hotel terrace.
Snow had begun falling.
Almost exactly like the year before.
Dante joined her.
“Good speech.”
“Thank you.”
“You exaggerated my arrogance.”
“I edited it down for time.”
He smiled.
Emma leaned against the railing.
“Do you ever think about that night?”
“Frequently.”
“You were horrible.”
“I was under pressure.”
“You threatened to remove a diplomat.”
“I made no actual attempt.”
“You told your men to pack his luggage.”
“Delegation.”
Emma laughed.
Dante watched her.
The humor slowly disappeared from his face.
“Emma.”
She recognized the tone.
“What?”
“I’ve been trying to find the right way to ask you something.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“It is.”
Dante reached into his jacket.
Emma went still.
“No.”
He paused.
“No?”
“You are not proposing here.”
His expression was priceless.
Emma covered her mouth.
“You were!”
“I had developed a reasonable plan.”
“At the hotel where you basically kidnapped me?”
“I did not kidnap you.”
“You threatened to have Leo carry me.”
“Leo wasn’t even there.”
“That makes it worse.”
Dante closed his eyes.
“This is going exceptionally well.”
Emma laughed so hard she almost cried.
Dante looked at the ring box in his hand.
“Should I stop?”
Emma’s laughter softened.
“No.”
He looked up.
The snow settled into his dark hair.
For all the stories attached to his name, Dante suddenly looked like nothing more frightening than a man hoping the woman he loved would say yes.
He opened the box.
Inside was an elegant diamond ring set around a tiny green stone.
Emma recognized the color.
“Emerald?”
“My mother’s.”
Emma stared.
“You never talk about her.”
“She died when I was young.”
His voice lowered.
“It was the only thing of hers I kept for myself.”
Emotion caught in Emma’s throat.
Dante took her left hand.
“I don’t want to own your choices.”
He looked directly at her.
“I don’t want obedience. I don’t want gratitude. And I definitely don’t want you agreeing because I once got shot.”
“That would be a very expensive guilt trip.”
“Yes.”
His thumb brushed across her fingers.
“I want arguments.”
Emma smiled.
“You’ll get them.”
“I want your terrible Italian insults.”
“My Italian is excellent.”
“Debatable.”
“Continue before I leave.”
Dante smiled.
“I want ordinary mornings.”
The amusement left his voice.
“I want years where nobody is running, hiding, or protecting you from truths you deserve to know.”
Emma’s eyes filled.
“I want whatever we build to belong equally to both of us.”
He lowered himself onto one knee.
Inside the ballroom, somebody gasped.
Emma glanced through the glass doors.
Half the guests were watching.
She looked back at Dante.
“You planned an audience?”
“No.”
Marco stood behind the doors recording with his phone.
Dante glared at him.
Marco lowered it.
Emma laughed.
Dante looked up at her.
“Emma Carter.”
“Yes?”
“Will you marry me?”
She let him wait.
Three seconds.
Four.
Dante’s confident expression finally cracked.
“Emma.”
She tilted her head.
Then, in the same Sicilian dialect she had used one year earlier, she whispered:
“The arrogant rooster finally learned patience.”
Dante stared at her.
Then slowly smiled.
He rose.
Stepped close.
And whispered the words that had started everything.
“Say it again.”
Emma wrapped her arms around his neck.
“The arrogant rooster finally learned patience.”
“That isn’t the answer I asked for.”
She smiled.
“Yes.”
Dante stopped.
Emma touched his face.
“Yes, Dante. I’ll marry you.”
He kissed her while the ballroom erupted behind them.
Months later, they married in Sicily.
Not in a cathedral surrounded by politicians.
Not in a Manhattan ballroom filled with cameras.
They chose the small church of Santa Lucia.
The church with the stone lion.
The place where Isabella had once hidden the first secret that eventually led her daughter there.
Emma walked down the aisle carrying no extravagant bouquet, only white roses and the Saint Michael medallion wrapped around the stems.
Dante waited near the altar.
Marco stood beside him.
A handful of friends filled the pews.
Judge Rachel Kim attended.
So did Charles Whitaker from the Bellamy.
Even Sofia DeLuca came, having rebuilt her life in Milan after testifying against Matteo.
There were ghosts missing from the chairs.
Isabella.
Salvatore.
Daniel.
Vittorio.
Emma felt them anyway.
After the ceremony, she and Dante climbed the hill overlooking the sea.
Palermo stretched below them beneath late-afternoon sunlight.
Emma rested her head against his shoulder.
“What are you thinking?” Dante asked.
“That my mother would find all of this hilarious.”
“The wedding?”
“You.”
He looked offended.
“Why?”
“She spent years trying to keep me away from dangerous Italian families.”
“And?”
Emma looked at him.
“I married one.”
Dante kissed her forehead.
“You married the least dangerous member.”
“That is objectively false.”
“Marco is much worse.”
Emma laughed.
A church bell rang behind them.
Once.
Twice.
Dante reached for her hand.
Their fingers intertwined.
For most of her life, Emma had believed survival meant avoiding powerful people, dangerous truths, and complicated love.
She had been wrong.
Survival had only been the first chapter.
Living required something harder.
Choosing.
Choosing truth after betrayal.
Mercy without becoming naïve.
Love without surrender.
And a future that did not repeat the past.
Emma looked toward the Sicilian horizon.
Dante squeezed her hand.
“Ready?”
“For what?”
“The rest of our life.”
Emma smiled.
Then she answered in Italian.
“Only if you can keep up.”
Dante laughed.
May you like
And together, they walked toward home.
THE END
