Luciano didn't tell her where they were going.
He just gave her a passport with her new name — Amethyst Valeri — and told her to pack light.
They left before dawn, the city still half-asleep beneath the glow of red tail lights and fog. The jet waited at a private airstrip, guards posted on all sides. No one spoke.
And then… the sky opened.
They landed on an island Amethyst didn't recognize, somewhere off the Italian coast. The villa was carved into a cliffside, with nothing but sea and sky stretching into forever. Everything smelled like salt, sun, and something she hadn't felt in weeks:
Freedom.
She stood on the balcony in the golden dusk, barefoot in a silk robe, hair curling around her shoulders. Waves crashed below like thunder.
Luciano stepped behind her, silent.
"You brought me to paradise after dragging me through hell," she said without turning.
"I promised you both," he murmured.
His hands found her waist, slow and careful. "You've barely looked at me since the chapel."
"I've barely looked at myself," she whispered.
Luciano leaned closer, breath warm against her neck. "What do you see, when you do?"
"A stranger," she admitted. "Someone powerful. Someone terrifying. I don't know if I hate her… or want to be her forever."
He turned her gently, hands never leaving her waist.
"I see my wife," he said, eyes burning. "And the only person who's ever looked at me like I'm not a monster."
Amethyst didn't reply.
She didn't have to.
She just rose to her toes and kissed him — slow, soft, nothing like the fire from before. This was something different. Something deeper.
In the quiet, she let the silk robe fall from her shoulders.
And for the first time, there was no war between them.
Only skin.
And breath.
And hands learning what words hadn't yet dared to say.
That night, he didn't own her.
He didn't command.
He didn't take.
He gave.
And she let herself feel what she had fought so hard to bury:
That he had become her home, in the strangest, most dangerous way.
—
When the morning came, she woke tangled in sheets and sunlight, his arm wrapped around her waist. For a moment, there was peace.
No enemies.
No blood.
No ghosts.
But then his phone buzzed.
He read the message, jaw tightening. And in that instant, the world shifted again.
"What is it?" she asked, sitting up.
He looked at her.
And the fire was back in his eyes.
"Someone hit our London safehouse," he said. "Two men dead. They knew our codes."
Amethyst's breath caught.
Luciano stood, already dressing, already calculating. "There's a traitor."
"And you think it's someone in your circle?"
His eyes locked with hers.
"No," he said coldly. "I think it's someone in yours."