Chapter 21: Kira - Marrying the Mafia Daddy

“I’m forgetting something,” I mumble as I button my caramel-colored coat. “I know I am.”

I mentally go through my list of things already in the car. The four casseroles, six dozen cookies, three loaves of bread, two pasta dishes, and a tray of…

“Did you see if Donna or Vinny grabbed the pastry things?”

“What pastry things?” Domenico asks, his tone innocent, but the smirk he can’t hide gives him away.

“That’s not funny,” I gripe.

“They’re in the car already.” Domenico leans against the island in a navy blue suit that makes his eyes look even more intense than usual. “Donna put them in the car twenty minutes ago.”

“They could have been stolen.”

“By who? Vinny? Donna?” His mouth twitches. “The chef you’ve had working triple shifts all week?”

I glare at him. “You don’t understand the stakes. Mrs. Kowalski brings three different kinds of pierogi to these things. Three. And everyone talks about her pierogi for months. I need at least one thing people remember.”

Domenico tries very hard not to laugh at me as he pushes off the island, and I’ll admit I appreciate the effort. Because this is serious to me.

“I’m sure you’ve out-cooked everyone else.” He takes my hand. “And if not, Vinny or I can remove the competition. Anything for my wife.”

Gasping, I glare at him. “That’s definitely not funny.”

Donna appears in the doorway with her coat already on, her dark hair pulled back in its usual neat bun. “The car’s loaded, Mrs. DeLuca. Vinny’s waiting downstairs.”

“Thank you, Donna.” I grab my bag and my phone. “And for the last time, it’s Kira. Please.”

Donna’s smile is warm and patient and tells me she’ll call me Mrs. DeLuca until one of us dies. Some battles aren’t worth fighting.

The drive to Saint Benedict’s takes longer than usual since I’ve told Vinny to be careful so nothing spills. Donna sits in the front, and Domenico sits beside me in the back with his thigh pressed against mine and his hand resting on my knee.

The contact is casual, unconscious, the kind of touch that happens when you stop thinking about whether you’re allowed to touch someone. It still makes my stomach flip.

We pull up to Saint Benedict’s and it looks exactly the way it should in late October. Pumpkins line the stone steps. Cornstalks are tied to the iron railings.

There are kids everywhere, running between the folding tables set up in the parish hall, shrieking with the particular brand of joy that only comes from being allowed to eat candy before noon. The air smells like cinnamon and apple cider and the faint, musty warmth of a building that’s been holding prayers since before my grandparents were born.

Vinny and Donna start unloading the car before I can even open my door. Domenico watches them with the expression of a man who has never carried his own groceries and isn’t about to start today.

“We have people for this,” he says when I reach for a container.

“I am also a person.” I grab the pasta dish—his favorite—and hug it against my chest. “And these are my people. Let me help my people, Domenico.”

He rolls his eyes but picks up two containers himself, and the sight of Domenico DeLuca in a tailored suit carrying a casserole dish into a church potluck is so absurd I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

The first person to spot me is Mrs. Kowalski herself, emerging from the kitchen with a plate of pierogi that makes my entire culinary effort look like a sad joke. Her face lights up.

“Kira Adams! Where have you been?” She catches herself, eyes darting to the ring on my left hand, then to the large, tattooed man standing behind me with a casserole in each hand.

“It’s Kira DeLuca now,” I say, and the name still feels strange on my tongue, like a sweater I’m still breaking in. “And this is my husband, Domenico.”

Mrs. Kowalski gives him the kind of look usually reserved for stray dogs and politicians. Domenico gives it right back, and something passes between them—some silent, mutual assessment—before she nods once and thrusts the pierogi at me.

“Try one. Tell me if the dough’s too thick.”

The next hour is a blur of familiar faces and the same questions, delivered in slightly different accents: “How’s your mom?” And, with varying degrees of subtlety, “Is that really Domenico DeLuca, and did he really marry you after his son left you at the altar?”

I answer the first two honestly and deflect the third.

Domenico stays close, keeping his hand on the small of my back when the crowd gets too thick. His body creates a space around me that feels less like possession and more like protection, and the difference matters because I like the latter.

Father Joseph finds us by the dessert table. He’s in his clerical shirt with the collar undone, and he looks more like a man running a fall festival than a priest, which is exactly what I’ve always loved about him.

“Kira.” He pulls me into a hug that smells like incense. “I’m so glad you could make it.”

I frown at his tone because he makes it sound like I don’t come here every day. Well, apart from the last week which I’ve mostly spent cooking and organizing.

When he releases me, his eyes find Domenico. The look that passes between them is longer, heavier, loaded with something I can’t quite name.

Domenico extends his hand. “Father.”

“Mr. DeLuca.” Father Joseph takes it. Their handshake lasts exactly one second longer than it needs to. “I see married life agrees with you both.”

“That’s an understatement.” Domenico’s mouth does that thing—the almost-smile that’s become my favorite tell. “I’m a very lucky man.”

I leave them talking by the punch bowl and circulate through the hall, setting out food, accepting compliments I don’t entirely deserve, and letting the noise and the warmth wash over me in a way I haven’t allowed myself in months. Years, maybe.

Somewhere between refilling the cider urn and helping Mrs. Kowalski find another stack of paper plates, I stop feeling like I’m visiting. Nobody asks whether I remember where things are. Nobody explains what needs doing. Someone shoves a box into my hands and tells me where it goes, and I go because I already know.

God, I’ve missed this.

When I glance back, Domenico is still with Father Joseph. They’re leaning against the wall, two men of similar height but utterly different bearing, and Domenico is—improbably, impossibly—laughing at something Father Joseph just said.

For some reason, the sight makes my heart skip a beat and I can’t stop smiling.

An hour later, I find my husband helping a group of altar boys rearrange a table that collapsed under the weight of too many pumpkin pies. His suit jacket is off, his tie is loose, and he’s got flour on his left cuff from God knows where. He looks up when he sees me watching, and the almost-smile returns, along with something in his eyes that makes my throat tight.

“Having fun?” I ask.

“I’m working.” He straightens, brushes flour from his hands. “Someone has to keep this operation from collapsing.”

“Uh-huh.” I step closer, close enough that I can smell the cinnamon on his breath from the cider he’s been drinking. “You’re having fun. Admit it.”

“Never.”

But his arm slides around my waist, pulling me against his side with the easy confidence of a man who knows exactly where his wife belongs, and I let myself lean into him. His body is warm through the thin cotton of my sweater, solid and present.

Domenico’s thumb brushes the curve of my waist, and I tilt my head to look at him. The lines around his eyes have softened. The hardness that lives in his jaw has eased, just enough to notice if you’re looking for it, and I am always looking for it.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing.” I press closer. “Just… thank you for coming with me.”

His arm tightens. “Always,” he vows. “Where you go, I go. Even when it’s to church.”

Three hours later, the folding tables look like they’ve been attacked by very polite locusts. Empty casserole dishes are stacked in precarious towers. Cookie trays with nothing but crumbs.

Mrs. Kowalski’s pierogi are long gone. My pasta, though. My pasta disappeared in the first forty minutes, and Domenico has not let me forget it.

“Told you,” he says, leaning against the wall beside me with a paper cup of cider in one hand and my hip under the other. His thumb traces idle circles through the fabric of my sweater, and the touch is so casual, so comfortable, that I almost don’t notice how much I’ve come to rely on it. “My favorite went first.”

A laugh bursts from me, and the sound surprises me—bright and unfiltered, the kind of laugh that comes from somewhere deep and unguarded. I haven’t laughed like that in… forever.

The guilt arrives on schedule, right on time, the way it always does when happiness overstays its welcome. Mom is still at Langford. Dr. Morgan’s last update sits in my throat like a pill I can’t swallow—more seizures, less responsiveness, words I’ve been refusing to examine too closely because examining them means admitting what they might mean.

And here I am, laughing, acting like the world is something that can be fixed with pasta and pumpkin pie.

I should feel worse than I do. The guilt is there, but it’s distant, muffled by the warmth of Domenico’s body against mine. For once, I let the guilt sit where it is without picking it up. Without wearing it. I allow myself the happiness, strange and forbidden as it feels, and the allowing is its own kind of victory.

Just as I open my mouth to say something to Mr. Kripp as he passes us by, my phone rings. I pull it out without thinking, expecting it to be Carly who’s somewhat miffed Gio didn’t want to come with us, so she felt like she had to stay home, too.

But that’s not the name that lights up my screen. No, that would be Dr. Morgan.

The blood leaves my face so fast I feel lightheaded. My fingers go cold and the phone trembles in my hand. Domenico notices before I can hide it—of course he notices, he notices everything—his body tensing beside mine, his hand tightening on my hip.

“Kira.” His voice has changed. The warmth is gone, replaced by something alert and razor-sharp. “What is it?”

The call ends, but barely a second passes before Dr. Morgan calls again.

I can’t answer Domenico’s question. My throat has closed. Dr. Morgan doesn’t call. Dr. Morgan sends emails. Brief, clinical emails with subject lines that sound like orders.

“Kira.” Domenico’s voice is harder now. His hand leaves my hip and finds my wrist, his fingers circling the bone. “Talk to me.”

“I need to…” The words come out thin, scraped. “I need to take this. Outside.”

Once again, the call ends but a third one follows within barely any time at all.

He follows me outside, steering me through the crowd with the efficiency of a man used to creating paths through chaos. The noise follows us—children shrieking, someone’s grandma laughing at a joke I didn’t hear, the tinny sound of fall music playing from someone’s phone speakers.

We push through the side door into the churchyard. The October air hits my face, cold and sharp, and for a second, I think it might wake me up from whatever this is. Whatever’s coming.

My thumb finds the green button. I lift the phone to my ear.

“Dr. Morgan.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears.

“Kira.” Dr. Morgan’s voice is exactly what it always is: quiet, measured, professional. “I’m calling about your mom.”

I already know what she’s going to say.

My body knew before my brain caught up, the same way animals know about earthquakes before the ground starts shaking. Something in the cadence of her voice—slower than usual, each word placed with the care of someone handling something fragile.

“Paige suffered another seizure this morning.” Dr. Morgan pauses. I can hear her breathing, the soft inhale of someone choosing her next words with surgical precision. “It was more severe than the previous ones. Her vitals became unstable. We tried everything, Kira. But her heart stopped, and we couldn’t bring her back.”

The words land. I hear them. I understand each individual syllable.

Seizure. Unstable. Heart stopped. Couldn’t bring her back.

But understanding the words is different from understanding what they mean, and what they mean hasn’t reached me yet. It’s traveling toward me slowly, the way news of a disaster travels across water, visible from a distance before the wave hits.

“I’m very sorry,” Dr. Morgan says. Her voice is gentler now, the clinical edge sanded down to something that almost sounds human. “I know this isn’t… I wish I had better news.”

Behind me, through the half-open door, the festival continues. Music. Laughter. The happy shouts of a child who’s just won a game.

The ordinary, relentless noise of people who don’t know that Mom is dead. That her heart stopped in a room at Langford Neurological Institute while her daughter was pretending the world was something that could be fixed.

“Kira, is there anyone…”

Dr. Morgan’s words disappear as the phone slips from my fingers.

It hits the stone path with a crack that seems impossibly loud, and then there’s nothing.

No sound. No feeling.

Just a vast, white numbness spreading through my chest and my limbs and my face, the kind of numbness that isn’t the absence of pain but the absence of everything, including the ability to stand up.

My knees buckle.

Domenico catches me as I go down, following me to the ground. His arms lock around my waist, and then I’m against his chest, my face pressed into his suit jacket, and his voice is in my ear saying words I can’t process.

My name, probably. Other things.

His hand cradles the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair, and I can feel the rapid beat of his heart against my cheek.

Voices blur together. Someone—Vinny, I think—asking what happened. Donna’s softer voice, worried. Father Joseph’s measured tone cutting through the noise, taking charge the way he always does when something breaks.

But none of it matters because Mom is dead.

The words arrive finally, all at once, and they land like a building collapsing.

Mom is dead.

Her heart stopped. They couldn’t bring her back.

She’s gone.

While I was laughing. While I was letting myself be happy because for one afternoon, I forgot that happiness is something you earn through suffering, not something you’re allowed to have for free.

Darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision. Not the dramatic, movie kind of darkness. No, this is slow, and… grayish. I think.

Domenico’s voice gets farther away. The cold stone beneath my knees… wait, when did I end up on my knees?

Mom’s dead.

The thought circles, precise and merciless.

Mom’s dead.

Mom’s dead.

Mom’s…