Chapter 22: Kira - Marrying the Mafia Daddy

I come back to myself in pieces.

The first thing I notice is Domenico’s chest against my face, his heartbeat racing under my cheek. His arms are locked around me, one hand spread across my lower back, the other cradling the base of my skull. His fingers are tangled in my hair, holding my head against him as if he’s afraid I might break if he lets go.

Right now, that feels like a very valid concern.

“Kira.” Domenico’s voice is rough against the top of my head. “I need you to breathe.”

I’m breathing. I think I’m breathing. But my lungs feel thin and useless, and each inhale catches halfway up my throat.

“She’s dead.” The words come out scraped. Raw. “She’s dead, Domenico.”

“I know.” His hand tightens in my hair. “I know, baby.”

Over his shoulder, I can see fragments of the world continuing. Vinny’s silhouette in the doorway, one hand raised to hold back anyone trying to come through. Donna’s worried face. Father Joseph stands a few feet away, his hands clasped, watching with the resigned stillness of a man who’s seen this happen too many times.

The festival music still plays through the open door.

Mom is dead, and the world keeps turning.

“I need to see her.” My hands fist in Domenico’s suit jacket, twisting the expensive fabric. “I need to go to Langford right now. Please.”

Domenico doesn’t argue. Doesn’t tell me to wait, to breathe, to think about it. He just nods and starts moving.

“Vinny.” His voice carries over my head, controlled and sharp. “Get the car. Now.”

“On it, Boss.”

“Domenico, I can handle…” I start, trying to push myself upright. But instead of helping me, my legs kind of just flop. Like I’m a newborn who hasn’t yet gained the muscles and coordination needed.

His arm tightens, and the need to protest dissipates as I let him hold me until my legs are solid enough to stand, and then he stands with me, one arm locked around my waist.

Donna appears at my side with my bag and coat. Her eyes are red-rimmed. “I’ll take care of everything here,” she says, her voice soft but steady. “You go. Call me if you need anything at all.”

I don’t have the words to thank her.

The ride to Langford feels as though it takes an eternity. I honestly don’t know if it’s taking Vinny hours or minutes to get us there. Or if the frowning face in the clouds is real. God, everything feels as though it’s happening to someone else.

Domenico sits beside me in the back, his thigh pressed against mine, his hand on my knee. He doesn’t fill the silence with useless platitudes. He doesn’t tell me it’s going to be okay. He just sits there, solid and warm, and lets the silence be what it is.

I stare out the window at a Boston I barely recognize. October light is sharp and cold, cutting across buildings in long, pale gold slices. People walk down sidewalks with coffee cups and scarves, living their ordinary lives while my mom’s heart has stopped.

The numbness cracks.

Just a little. Just enough for the first sob to push through, a single, broken sound that I swallow before it can become anything bigger.

Domenico’s hand slides from my knee to my wrist. His thumb finds my pulse and holds it, and I focus on the pressure of his skin against mine because it’s the only real thing in the car.

Langford looks exactly the same. Same automatic doors. Same antiseptic smell. Same everything.

We barely slow down as we cross the lobby and head for the elevators. Domenico keeps one hand at the small of my back, steering me, and by the time the doors open on the seventh floor, my legs feel like they belong to someone else again.

The hallway is quieter than I remember. The air smells different here—less antiseptic. Dr. Morgan is waiting outside room seven-twenty-one.

She’s still in her white coat, her face composed in the careful blank of someone who’s done this before. Her eyes find mine, and something flickers there—not pity, which I’m grateful for, but something closer to regret.

“Kira.” She steps toward me. “I’m so sorry.”

Domenico’s hand slides from my back to my waist.

“She suffered another seizure,” Dr. Morgan says. Her voice is exactly the way it was on the phone: measured, precise, each word placed with the care of someone handling something fragile. “The EEG showed generalized tonic-clonic activity. Her blood pressure dropped rapidly, so we administered…”

Even though I know it’s rude, I tune Dr. Morgan out. I don’t care about the medicine, the timeline, the procedures, or the clinical language that turns my mom into a series of failed interventions.

“I want to see her.” My voice sounds thin. Strangled.

Dr. Morgan stops immediately. “Of course.” She glances toward the closed door beside her. “The nurses have prepared her. Take as long as you need.”

Domenico’s hand finds mine and squeezes. Hard. Not comforting—grounding. The kind of pressure that says I’m here, I’m real, and you’re not going anywhere I can’t follow.

Dr. Morgan steps away from the door. “I’ll be at the nurses’ station if you need me.”

I don’t have questions. I have nothing.

To my surprise, Domenico lets go of my hand. “I’ll be right here,” he says. His voice is low. Rough. And I know this is him giving me space, being considerate. “Take your time.”

I push the door open.

The room is dim, and the bed looks smaller. Mom looks smaller, too.

She’s on her back with her eyes closed. Her hands are folded on top of the sheet as if she’s praying. Such a natural position for her.

I cross the room on legs that don’t feel like mine. Instead of taking the chair, I kneel next to Mom’s bed and take her hands. Her fingers are limp in mine, and I curl my hand around them and hold on like I’m trying to warm her up.

“Mom.” The word catches. I clear my throat and try again. “Mom, it’s Kira.”

The silence in the room is different from the silence I’m used to—deeper, emptier, the kind of silence that doesn’t have a person breathing at the center of it.

I open my mouth to talk to her, as I’ve done so many times. But… no sound comes out, no word forms on my tongue.

Looking around the room, I can’t help but wonder what the point of talking would even be. She isn’t there, in her body, I mean. She’s… gone. She won’t hear whatever I say.

I look back at Mom. At her closed eyes, her peaceful face, the faint lines around her mouth that used to deepen when she smiled. She doesn’t look as if she’s in pain. She looks like she’s sleeping, and part of me wants to shake her awake.

The other part knows better.

“I love you,” I whisper. My voice cracks. “I’ll see you soon, okay? Not too soon. But… someday.”

Even though I have nothing more to say, I stay on the floor, kneeling until my knees scream in protest. But even then, I stay for longer. I stay until the sky turns black behind the windows.

When I finally can’t take it anymore, I say Mom’s favorite prayer.

“Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord,

And let perpetual light shine upon her.

May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Amen.”

My legs are stiff as I finally stand up. I take one last look at Mom and squeeze her hand one last time. Then I let go. The separation is physical—my fingers peeling away from hers, the cool air filling the space between our skin—and it hurts more than I expected.

“I love you,” I whisper again. “You’re free now, Mom.”

* * *

The days after Langford blur into something that isn’t time.

I wake up. I don’t know what day it is. Domenico is beside me, or he isn’t, but if he isn’t, he comes back within minutes. The light through the windows is wrong—too bright, too dim; I can’t tell morning from afternoon.

Food appears. Domenico sits on the edge of the bed with a plate balanced on his knee and says, “Eat something.” Not a request. Not quite an order. Something in between, delivered in a voice that’s gentler than anything I’ve heard from him.

I eat because it’s easier than arguing. The food has no taste.

He cancels things. I hear him on the phone in the hallway, his voice low and steady, rearranging meetings, postponing shipments, telling people no without explanation. Once, I hear him say, “My wife needs me,” and the rawness in those four words makes something twist behind my ribs.

He asks before making calls about Mom. About the funeral, about Langford’s paperwork, about whatever comes next.

“Do you want me to handle it?” he asks, standing in the doorway. At least I think that’s where his voice’s coming from.

I’m curled on my side, facing the wall. I haven’t moved in hours, and I’m not going to do so now.

“Yes,” I say. “Please.”

I know I should care. I should get up. Shower. Brush my hair. Answer the texts that have been piling up on my phone—Carly, Father Joseph, people from Saint Benedict’s who heard what happened. I should be doing something productive with this grief instead of letting it pool around me like dirty water.

But Mom’s dead.

The words live in my chest now. They’ve moved in and made a home. Every time I think I might be able to stand up, to function, they rise up and remind me: Mom’s dead, and nothing you do will change that.

The grief comes in waves. Not the pretty, poetic kind you see in movies. No, this grief is made up of ugly and vicious waves that I can’t control or weather.

Sometimes I sob until my throat is raw and my ribs ache. Domenico finds me like this once, curled on the bathroom floor with my forehead pressed against the cold tile, and he doesn’t say a word. He just sits down beside me, his back against the tub, and puts his hand on the back of my neck. His palm is warm. He sits there until my breathing evens out, and then he helps me up and runs a bath without asking if I want one.

Sometimes I sleep for twelve, fourteen hours straight. Domenico checks on me. I know because I wake up sometimes to the weight of his hand on my forehead, brushing hair away from my face, and the door clicking shut behind him.

Sometimes I seem almost normal. I get out of bed. I put on clothes. I make coffee and drink it standing at the island while Domenico works at the table, and for ten minutes, I can pretend the world hasn’t ended.

And then something tiny destroys me. It’s always something small and insignificant.

Like when Donna suggests a certain dish for dinner. She looks distraught when the suggestion, which happens to be one of Mom’s favorite foods, sends me to the kitchen floor with my knees pulled to my chest.

I’m crying so hard I can’t breathe. Domenico’s by my side in seconds, picking me up and carrying me to the couch. He sits with me in his lap, my face against his chest, and his hand strokes my hair while I cry.

Carly stops by on the third day, or maybe the fourth. Time is slippery. The first thing she does is hug me so hard my ribs creak.

“I brought wine,” she murmurs against my hair. “The good kind. And brownies that Gio definitely did not help make.”

I laugh, and even though it sounds broken, it’s real. The surprise of it makes Carly’s eyes go bright.

Rather than pointlessly asking how I’m doing, she sits on the couch with her legs tucked under her and tells me about the disaster of a dinner party she tried to host.

She talks. I listen. Sometimes I cry. She hands me tissues and keeps talking, and by the time she leaves, my cheeks hurt from the effort of smiling.

Father Joseph comes the next day. Unlike Carly, he doesn’t bring any attempts to cheer me up. He sits with me for hours where neither of us speaks. When he’s ready to leave, he stands up and places his hand on top of my head.

“She knew you loved her, Kira,” he says. “Every time you sat in that room and talked to her, she knew.”

Father Joseph squeezes my shoulder and lets himself out.

The days keep passing. Domenico sleeps beside me every night. His body is a furnace against my back, his arm heavy across my waist, and sometimes I wake up to find I’ve turned in my sleep and buried my face in his chest.

One night, I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Domenico is beside me, one arm behind his head, the other resting on his stomach. The city lights cut thin blue lines through the gap in the curtains.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

He turns his head. Our eyes meet in the dark, and something passes between us. Then his hand finds mine under the covers, and he laces our fingers together, and we lie there holding hands while the city breathes around us.

I stand in the closet on Thursday, or maybe it’s Saturday morning, staring at the black dress hanging on the rod. This isn’t one of the fancy ones I’ve bought with Domenico’s money. It’s one I brought from home. Mom bought it for me three years ago and asked me to keep it a secret from Dad.

She always said she loved seeing me wear it at Saint Benedict’s, so it seems right I wear it for the funeral in a few days.

Mom’s funeral.

Mom’s dead.

The words haven’t changed. They haven’t softened or evolved, or become easier to carry.

I sink down onto the closet floor and press my forehead against my knees.

The closet door opens, and Domenico enters. He takes one look at me before joining me on the floor. I immediately lean against him, sighing with contentment when he wraps his arm around me and pulls me close to his side.

We sit there, surrounded by clothes and shoes and the faint smell of cedar, and I don’t cry. The tears are there—I can feel them pooling behind my eyes, heavy and hot—but they don’t fall.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe at the funeral, when the reality becomes unavoidable. Or maybe they’ll stay right where they are, trapped behind my ribs, and I’ll carry them for the rest of my life.

Domenico’s thumb traces a slow circle at the base of my skull. “Dr. Morgan called and asked if we could stop by tomorrow,” he says.