5 Year Later:
Location: Italy.
Place: Scanno

Cafe Rifugio smelled like fresh bread before it smelled like anything else, and at seven in the morning it was mostly empty except for the regulars who came in for coffee before opening their own shops down the street.

A four-year-old girl came barreling through the front door, breaking free of the old woman's hand she'd been holding, and ran straight for the kitchen counter where a woman was shaping dough for the morning's first batch of buns.

"Mmmaaammmaaa."

The woman wiped her hands on her apron fast and crouched just in time to catch her, laughing as the girl collided into her.
"Hey, hey, there's my girl." She lifted her up onto her hip, and the giggling stopped almost as fast as it started, the girl's face going into a pout instead.

"You left Aria on the bed again, Mama."

"I know, baby, I'm sorry." Nova pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "But you know Mama has to work here in the mornings. If I waited for you to wake up every day, who would help Grandpa with everything?"

Aria thought about this seriously, the way only a four-year-old can think about something, with her whole face. "No," she decided. "Aria doesn't want Grandpa to do all the work alone. Aria wants to help too."

"Of course you can help Grandpa all you want, sweetheart." The old woman who'd followed her in-slower, out of breath from trying to keep up--finally caught up to the counter. "But first you need to finish your milk. You ran out of the house again without drinking it."

"Do you know, Nova," the old woman said, turning to her, "your daughter is getting smarter every single day. This morning she woke up, didn't find you there, and she didn't cry like last time. She did exactly what you told her-went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, changed out of her nightdress, and then came to find you. Just like you said."

Nova smiled, something warm and a little tired in it. "But I think we need to add one more thing to that list." The old woman raised an eyebrow at Aria. "Breakfast. So next time she runs to you after eating, not before."

Aria frowned at being talked about like she wasn't standing right there. "She only listens to you, you know," the old woman added. "Not me."

"That's a lie, Granny." Aria crossed her arms. "Aria listens to Grandpa too."

"Yes, yes. You listen to everyone except me."

"That's because you always try to send Aria to school." The pout came back, harder this time. "Aria doesn't like school."

Nova and the old woman both laughed at that, the sound easy between them, the kind that came from years of having this exact argument in slightly different forms.

"But baby, you're turning five soon." Nova shifted her onto the other hip. "Kids your age start kindergarten. You'll have to go too."

"No. Aria doesn't want to go there." She shook her head firmly. "Aria wants to work with Mama."

Nova sighed, and the old woman sighed right along with her. "This girl," the old woman muttered, shaking her head, "never listens when it comes to school."

As they are busy talking the bell above the café door chimed, and Nova and the old woman both moved toward the counter to greet the woman walking in--somewhere in her fifties, a scarf wrapped twice around her neck even though it wasn't cold enough for it.

Aria stayed on her mother's hip, watching the woman with the particular suspicion only a four-year-old can manage, because this was the woman who always said things that made her mama go quiet afterward.

"Nova, sweetheart." The woman smiled, settling her bag on the counter. "Is my bun ready today?"

"Yes, aunty, just give me five minutes." Nova was already moving. "Then I'll bring your order out."

"Take your time, dear. I'll sit."

Nova nodded and turned back to the kitchen, tying her apron tighter as she went. Aria helped in her own way, handing over the paper bag when it was needed, and once even managing to drop a bun into it herself without being asked, which earned her a kiss on the cheek. aria kissed her mother too, quick, on her way past, before the two of them carried the order out to where the woman was sitting with her coffee.

The woman took the bag, smiling, then reached over and pinched Aria's cheek lightly. "Oh, look at you. So sweet. And those eyes--so green." She tilted her head, studying the girl's face like she was working out a puzzle. "I think your father must have green eyes too. Because your mama's are brown, aren't they?"

Aria's whole face lit up. "Really? Aria has green eyes because aria dad has green eyes?"

"Of course, baby. Children usually take after their parents. I'd guess you take after your father."

That was all it took. Aria wriggled down out of Nova's arms, practically vibrating. "I look like dad! Mama, did you hear that? I look like dada! I'm going to tell my Grandpa!" She took off toward the far end of the counter where the old man was working the coffee machine.

Nova watched her go, something complicated moving across her face that she didn't quite manage to smooth over in time.
The woman noticed. Of course she did. "Nova." Her voice dropped a little, gentler but not gentle enough. "Have you found anything about your husband? It's been five years, sweetheart.

You really should start looking. What are you going to tell your daughter when she asks where her father is?"

Nova's smile stayed fixed for a second too long before it fell. She nodded, said something noncommittal, and the woman moved on to chat with the old woman for another minute before gathering her things and leaving. Nova sat down in the chair the woman had just left, staring at nothing in particular.

The old woman came and sat beside her. "Don't think too much, don't pressure your mind to remember Nova. You'll remember when it's time. When God decides it's time." She waved a hand slightly. "Ignore what she says, she just talks like that, she doesn't mean anything by it."

"But she's right, aunty." Nova kept her eyes on the table. "What am I supposed to tell Aria when she asks? I don't even know why she hasn't asked yet." She let out a breath that wasn't quite a laugh. "You know what she thinks right now? She thinks it's like her friend at the market, whose father went abroad to earn money.

She thinks her father did the same thing--went somewhere to earn money, and he'll come back once he has enough. I asked her who told her that, and she said nobody told her. Her friend just said everyone's father goes abroad for work, so she assumed hers did too."

She shook her head slowly. "She believes that for now. But one day she's going to understand that's not actually true. One day she's going to really ask me where her father is, and what am I supposed to say? That I don't even know myself who he is?" Her voice thinned out. "Forget her father. I don't even know who I am, aunty.

What my real name is. If your husband hadn't found me that day and brought me home with you, I would have just died out there in that forest."

"Don't talk like that." The old woman reached over and took her hand. "You're safe here, with us. And I believe you'll get your memory back eventually. Then you'll be able to go find your family."

Nova exhaled, staring at the table. "You know, aunty, sometimes I think--maybe my husband is the one who left me there. Left me to die in that forest." She looked up. "Otherwise what was I even doing out there, alone, in the middle of nowhere?"

The old woman sighed, and it took her a moment to answer. "I don't know if that's true, dear. My husband found you right at the edge of the forest. You were unconscious. So he brought you home, we thought once you woke up we'd find out who your family was and take you to them.

We didn't take you to a hospital because your injuries weren't that serious--just the head wound, and some cuts. I was a nurse once, before I retired, so I knew enough to treat it myself. I meant to take you in eventually. But that same day, we had to leave that house in the forest ourselves, so there wasn't time to think it through properly.

We just brought you with us. And by the time you woke up, you'd forgotten everything." She squeezed Nova's hand once. "I don't know if what you're thinking is true. Whether your husband really left you there, or whether it was just an accident. We left that same day, so we never found out what actually happened there before we arrived."

We found out about your pregnancy when you woke up, the same day you'd lost your memory. The doctor here examined you and said you were about one month along. I asked him why you'd lost your memory your injury wasn't severe enough on its own to explain something like that. So he ran some tests and found an old injury in your frontal lobe, something from before.

That part of your brain was already weak, and then you were hit there again. That's what caused it. But he said it isn't permanent. With the right medicine, the right care, once your frontal lobe starts healing properly, the memories would come back slowly, on their own. I don't know why it's taking this long.

Nova let out a slow breath. "My life is really complicated, isn't it."

"I've told you so many times." The old woman shook her head. "Let's go to the city. Let's find your family. And every single time, you say no."

"Aunty." Nova rubbed her forehead. "You and Uncle live here alone. Why would the two of you give up everything and move to the city just for me? You already sold your house in the forest for my treatmentt. I don't want that. I'm already living off you both as it is, I don't want to put more on you than I already have." She stopped, looked down at her hands.

"And if my family actually cared, wouldn't they have come looking for me by now? It's been five years. Nobody has come. I think they've already accepted that I'm dead. They've probably moved on with their lives." She exhaled. "So what would I even do, going back now? What if I go back and find out my husband remarried? Then what was the point."

"Uff, Nova." The old woman sighed, rubbing at her temple. "You think about things too much." "You silly woman, do you even understand how far we are from city? Scanno is a small, remote place, Nova. How would your family even think to look here?

Until Nobody told them where you were. If your uncle had known anything about your family back then, he'd have gone straight to the city. But by the time we realized you didn't remember anything at all, how were we supposed to go looking? Who would we have asked? Who would we even have known to search for?

And on top of that, our own situation wasn't in any state to do something like that for you. My son had just moved to Japan for work that same year I am sorry sweetie we didn't do enough for you."

Nova reached over and hugged her before she could go on "No, aunty. Please don't say that. You've already done more than enough for me. Please don't think for even a second that you didn't." She held on a moment longer before pulling back, her eyes a little wet.

"I'm so grateful to you and Uncle. You gave me a home. A life. You loved me like your own daughter, and you've given Aria that same love, and I don't think I could ever repay any of that. I'm genuinely happy here, aunty. Truly."

She wiped at her eye before it could properly spill over. "And as for my family--well, you said it yourself. My memory will come back whenever God decides it's time. I think it's the same with someone finding me. It'll happen when it's meant to happen. So let's just leave it all to that, and live our lives in the meantime."

The old woman looked at her for a long moment, something soft and slightly puzzled in her expression. "You really are a sweet, positive girl, Nova." She reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind Nova's ear. "I wonder sometimes what you were like, before. Five years ago. Were you always like this?

Or did something change you into this?" She paused, studying her face like she was trying to read something underneath it. "If you did change--I hope, whenever your memory comes back, you stay exactly like this. Positive. Someone who loves herself first, before anyone else. Because if you don't have love for yourself, how could you possibly have enough to give anyone else."

Nova smiled. "I'll remember that for the rest of my life. Thank you, aunty."

The old woman just smiled back, patting her hand once before the bell above the door chimed again, sharper this time, and with it came the sound of the morning properly starting--footsteps, a chair scraping, someone calling out a greeting to the old man behind the coffee machine. That was their cue. Both women got up without another word, falling into the rhythm they clearly knew well.

The old woman went to sit at the small counter that handled the register, and Nova disappeared into the kitchen to start the next batch of buns.

Out at the coffee station, the old man worked alongside a teenage girl who helped most mornings, the two of them moving around each other without needing to talk much. In front of them, perched on a stool at the counter, Aria was talking. She hadn't really stopped since the woman with the scarf had left.

"You know, Grandpa, in this whole village I'm the only one with green eyes." She swung her legs against the stool. "When my dad comes back from earning all his money, I'm going to take him around the whole village. Everyone's going to be so jealous, because I already know my dad is going to be the most handsome man anyone has ever seen in this village."

"God." The teenage girl glanced over, half-laughing. "How do you even talk in sentences that long, Aria? You're only four."

Aria shot her a look. "I'm four, but I'm smart. Like my mama. That's how I know all these big words." She lifted her chin slightly. "My friend just started school and she still can't talk like me. Hehe. I'm the smartest girl in the whole village, because of my mama. She's supermama, right, Grandpa?"

"That's right, baby." The old man didn't look up from the cup he was filling. "Your mama's supermama."

"Yeah!" Aria said it loud enough that a few of the regulars glanced over, smiling--most of them had been coming in long enough to know exactly who this small, loud creature was and to find it more charming than annoying at this point.

Then Aria leaned in toward her grandpa and dropped her voice to what she clearly thought was a whisper. "Grandpa. How much money does a man need to earn in the city before he can come back home?"

The old man paused with the cup halfway to the counter. "Why are you asking that, baby?"

"Because I want dad to come back now." She looked up at him earnestly. "Do you think he's earned enough money yet? Enough that he can leave the city and come home?"

The old man went still for a second. He looked down at her small, hopeful face, and something in his chest pulled tight. This child believed her father was somewhere out there working, saving money, and that one day he'd simply walk back into her life once he'd earned enough.

How was he supposed to explain to a four-year-old that none of them actually knew where her father was, or who he even was, that there was no city, no job, nothing at all waiting to bring him home. He kept his face steady and forced a smile instead.

"He will, baby. When he's earned enough, he'll come and take you and your mama to the city."

Aria's whole face lit up. "The city? Mama and I will really go to the city?"

"Yes, baby. You will." The old man wasn't sure of it himself, not even a little, but for her sake he said it like he was, hoping that saying it enough times might somehow make it true.
_____

Another side of Italy. In Morro mansion.

A two-year-old boy tore across the mansion's dining room, shrieking with laughter, completely naked except for a diaper, his father a few steps behind him holding a small shirt and pants like a man who'd already lost this particular battle several times before.

"Elian, baby, please." Enzo was out of breath. "Your dad does not have the stamina to keep doing this. Just stop for two seconds and let me put this on you."

The boy only laughed harder and kept running, shouting over his shoulder. "Dada, catchy Catchy!"

"Where does this energy even come from." Enzo said it mostly to himself, picking up his pace again. Elian slipped away from his father's outstretched hand and dove straight under the dining table, disappearing between the chair legs.

"Dada, catch!" he yelled again, delighted with himself. Enzo just sat down on the floor outside the table, defeated, staring at his son's small feet still visible underneath it, and seriously questioned every decision that had led him to this exact moment.

"Remind me what time it was," he said, mostly to the ceiling, reaching a hand under the table to try and grab an ankle, "when I decided having a child was a good idea."

"It was your birthday." Elana's voice came from the doorway.

He turned, smiling despite himself. "Huh?"

"It was your birthday," she said again, walking in and taking in the scene-- her husband on the floor, half of Elian's outfit still in his hand, the boy giggling somewhere under the table. "That's when you decided you wanted to bring this little creature into the world."

Enzo gave her a sheepish grin. "Baby, since you're home from the office now, why don't you handle this little bomb and his clothes. He's been running around the entire mansion in just a diaper."

"Oh my god, Enzo." Elana crossed her arms. "I gave you one job. One. And you can't even get one outfit on our son." She took the clothes out of his hand without waiting for a response and sat down on the floor in front of the table, where Elian was still crouched, grinning at both of them like this was the best game he'd ever played.

"What am I supposed to do," Enzo said, mostly to himself now. "He has your energy."

Elana shot him a look, and he pressed a finger to his own lips, pretending to zip them shut.

She turned back to their son, softening her voice completely. "Baby, come out from there. Don't you want to go see Grandma?"

Elian's face lit up immediately, and he scrambled out from under the table without any further protest. "Grandma!"

"Yes, baby, Grandma." She scooped him onto her lap and started working the shirt over his head while he squirmed, still saying grandma a few more times just because he liked the sound of it. "We're going to Grandma's house."

Enzo stood there watching, genuinely bewildered by how easily she'd managed in under a minute what he'd been failing at for the last ten.

"Do i need to change your dress too, Mr. Morro," Elana said without looking up, "or can you manage that on your own?"

"I wouldn't mind if you change my dress baby." He smirked, already taking a step toward her.

"Don't you dare." She didn't even look up this time. "Go change your own clothes. We have dinner at the Romano mansion tonight, my mother's already there waiting."

Enzo sighed dramatically and muttered something about her being cruel under his breath, making a show of walking off-- but before he actually left, he doubled back while she was distracted buttoning Elian's shirt, leaned down, and kissed her quickly on the lips, right in front of their son.

Then he kissed Elian on the cheek and bolted for the stairs. "Love you, my babies!" he shouted over his shoulder. Elana just shook her head, smiling despite herself. Elian, clearly taking notes, leaned up and planted a wet kiss on his mother's lips too, copying his father exactly.

Elana's eyes went wide for a second before she burst out laughing, pulling him into a tickle attack. "You are a complete copy of your father," she said, laughing, as he shrieked and squirmed in her arms.

Five years had passed since Elana Romano became Elana Morro, and somewhere in the middle of it, everyone had quietly stopped calling her that name at all-- she was just Elana, or the CEO, or, when Enzo wanted to annoy her in a board meeting, Little baby.

They'd married the month after her birthday, exactly as promised, though the wedding itself had been smaller than anyone expected given who the Morro and Romano families were-- Elana had put her foot down about that, said she'd already had enough drama for one lifetime and wanted something that didn't need three hundred security guards standing around the perimeter.

She'd still been finishing her second year of university when they got married, and she'd finished it anyway, on schedule, refusing to let the wedding push it back even by a semester. Enzo had teased her about it constantly--married and still doing homework-- but he'd also been the one making sure she had coffee at two in the morning during exam weeks, so the teasing never landed the way he wanted it to.

After she graduated, she joined Morro Industries as his assistant, which had been her idea, not his. She said she wanted to actually understand the company from the inside before anyone handed her a title, and Enzo, for once, hadn't argued with her about it.

Elian came two years after their marriage, once things had settled into something that resembled normal. Not long after, the roles in the company quietly shifted -- Elana moved into the CEO position, and Enzo stepped back from the day-to-day of it almost entirely.

It wasn't a demotion so much as an admission of where his actual attention was needed. Donato had stepped down from running things on the underworld side around the same time, though calling it retirement was generous.

He hadn't been pushed out. He'd simply reached a point where he didn't have anything left in him to keep holding that world together, not after everything, and he'd told the family as much without much ceremony.

The two of them--Donato and Enzo-- had spent most of those years trying to close the door on that life rather than keep it open. It wasn't a clean exit. There were still people who .

And most of what Enzo actually did now had nothing to do with running anything and everything to do with quietly making sure nobody else got any ideas about coming after what was left of the family. He handled that part alone, mostly, and didn't talk about it, its basically he was cleaning the image behind the mafia and shifting fully on the businessman. That's what both of them decided.

Everyone else had simply moved forward into ordinary lives, the kind neither of them had grown up expecting to have. Board meetings. School pickups. Sunday dinners at the Romano mansion that were actually about dinner now, and not about strategy disguised as conversation.
____

The Romano dining room had been decorated in the smallest way anyone could manage and still call it a birthday--a handful of flowers on the table, a cake Nonna had insisted on making herself despite everyone telling her Sofia would rather just have the plain vanilla one from the bakery down the road. Sofia had asked for exactly this, nothing bigger, and the family had mostly learned by now not to push her on it.

She was turning twenty-one today. She hadn't done anything for her birthday in five years, not really--a dinner like this one, maybe, if her mother insisted hard enough, but nothing with candles she blew out on purpose, nothing where she made a wish out loud for anyone to hear.

Nobody in the family said Krish's name at the table anymore unless Sofia said it first. It had taken them a while to learn that rule too. She still called him. Not from her main number--she'd started using a second phone for it years ago, an old one of Donato's that he'd handed off to her without asking a single question, which she'd always been quietly grateful for becsue she know krish would never pickup her call so she use that number.

The first time she'd called, he hadn't said a word. Just silence for a few seconds, and then the line had gone dead. She'd waited a month before trying again. That time she hadn't managed to get a full sentence out before she was crying, and she just said it plainly, no dressing it up--please don't block me, I'm not asking you to be with me, I know you can't, just don't shut me out completely, let me hear your voice once a month, that's all I'm asking, please, Krish.

Something in him had broken open that day too. He hadn't hidden it, not the way he usually tried to. He told her he loved her. He also told her, through what sounded like him trying very hard not to fall apart on the phone, that he couldn't get past the fact that his sister was gone because of her family. That he still hadn't found a way to forgive them for it, and he didn't know if he ever would.

Sofia hadn't argued with him. She understood the pain of what he was carrying, mostly because she was carrying a version of it herself--she just happened to still love the Romano name enough to stay inside it.

After that day, something between them settled into an arrangement neither of them ever said out loud. She called once a month. He answered, and he was gentle with her when he did, careful in a way that told her exactly how much effort it cost him.

She asked how he was. He told her, briefly. She didn't push past that, didn't ask for more than he was willing to give, and then she let him go.

That was the whole of it. Once a month, a few minutes, and then the both of them went back to pretending the rest of the month that it hadn't happened.

Sitting at a table with a birthday cake she hadn't asked for, and candles she'd blow out mostly to make her mother happy, Sofia already knew she'd be making that call again before the day ended. But somewhere under that certainty quieter was a different hope that maybe this year it would be him. That he'd call her first without her having to reach out at all.

After dinner, everyone gave her their gifts small things mostly and she took each one with a soft smile that didn't take much effort anymore five years of practice having smoothed it into something automatic. When the room got busy--her mother clearing plates someone laughing too loud about something in the kitchen--she slipped out without anyone noticing and went up to her room.

She didn't need any of what was happening downstairs. What she actually wanted was so much smaller than a party, and so much harder to get. A message. One message, today of all days and it would have been the best birthday she'd had in five years.

By nine o'clock she was still checking her phone every few minutes. Everyone had wished her already--cousins, friends, half the family group chat. Not him. Not the one person she actually wanted to hear from.

She lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling, and let herself cry a little, quiet enough that nobody downstairs would hear it.

"Sometimes I feel happy," she said to the empty room, her voice thick, "just thinking that maybe, somewhere, you remember something about me. Something I said. Some stupid habit of mine." She wiped at her face with the back of her hand. "Maybe your heart breaks a little too, sometimes. Is that true, Krish?" She laughed, but it came out wet and unconvincing. "Maybe I cross your mind sometimes too. I just wish you missed me the way I miss you."

She picked up her phone and opened his contact, just to look at it. It's my birthday, she typed, then deleted it. Did you forget? Forget me? She didn't send it. She just set the phone down on the pillow beside her and waited, the way she'd waited every year for five years, for a message that didn't come. Her eyes got heavy somewhere past ten. She didn't remember actually falling asleep.

A phone buzzing woke her. She fumbled for the one on her nightstand--the one she used for calling him the one she'd been staring at all night but there was nothing on it. No message. No missed call. She frowned, confused, and checked the time. Midnight, exactly 12.

Then it rang again, and this time she realized it was coming from the table across the room. Her actual phone. She sighed assuming it was one of her friends calling late to wish her and picked it up without checking the screen still half asleep.

"Hello." Her voice came out rough with sleep.

Silence on the other end, for just long enough that she almost pulled the phone away to check the call had connected. Then a voice. Deep. Not any of her friends. A man's voice, and something in her chest recognized it before her brain caught up, because it couldn't possibly be him, he'd blocked her on this number years ago-

"Happy birthday, sleepyhead."

"Hello? Where'd you go?"

That second sentence snapped her fully awake. She pulled the phone back and looked at the screen, and there it was. His name. Krish. Her eyes filled instantly. He'd called her. On her real number. At exactly midnight.

"I'm still on the line, you know," he said, gentler now. "You could talk to me instead of just breathing at me."

A sob broke loose from her throat before she could stop it, and then she was crying, the phone still pressed hard against her ear.

"Sofi. Why-why are you crying?" His voice had shifted, worry threading through it fast. "Please, talk to me."

She couldn't. The crying just got worse.

"Sofi, baby, you're scaring me. What happened, please, just say something."

Still nothing from her, just the sound of her trying and failing to get air in evenly.

"Are you okay? Are you sick? Please, for God's sake, tell me something, I'm getting worried." His own voice was starting to crack a little now, matching hers. "Please don't cry like this, it's breaking my heart, please."

She took a shaking breath. "K-Krish." It came out barely audible.

"Yes, love, I'm here. Tell me what's wrong."

"I love you." It was all she had. "I love you so much, Krish."

He went quiet for a second. When he spoke again his voice had gone unsteady. "I love you too, baby. I love you so much. Please stop crying, tell me what happened, did something happen tonight?"

"I-i just miss you." She pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes, useless against the tears still coming. "I thought you'd forgotten my birthday again, that you weren't going to wish me this year either, like every other year. I don't know why, I just-I got so emotional tonight I couldn't help it." She swallowed hard. "Krish, I can't keep doing this. I don't want you once a month, for five minutes, I want all of you, all the time. Please. Can't we just-- can we go back to before? Can we just be together again, the way we were?"

"I know what happened with Kiara sister wasn't right." Her voice cracked around the name, still. "All of us did wrong. I'm asking you to forgive us for that, please. I can't keep pretending I'm okay when I'm not. I know we did wrong, I did wrong, and you've punished me for it for years, and I took it quietly all this time. But not anymore Krish. Please don't do this to me. I'm scared. I'm scared I'm going to lose you forever."

"No. No, you're never going to lose me." His voice was steadier now, like he needed to be the calm one for once. "Remember that I love you too. I've just been angry. I know the things I said back then Sofi, believe me i didnt meant any of that, I was hurt, I didn't know what to do with any of it, so I said whatever came to my head first. I've been in my own hell too all this time not talking to you making you cry like this." He exhaled. "I know I was wrong too. I'm still hurt. But I already lost Dii. I can't lose you as well. I'm sorry for being stupid enough to ignore you this long."

"You're not going to leave me?" she asked again, like she needed to hear it a second time to believe it.

"Never, baby."

"Promise."

"I promise, love. Where would I even go?" A small laugh crept into his voice. "Who else is going to put up with a crackhead like you?"

"Shut up." But she was laughing now too, wet and uneven. " you're the crackhead. You made me cry for years. I'm going to get my revenge, Krish Singh Rajput, you just wait."

"I'm waiting, baby." A pause. "So when are you coming?"

Her face fell before she could stop it. "Is there anything left to come to, Krish? Rajputs and Romanos aren't exactly on good terms. Kavya sister hasn't come to Italy in five years. Only mom and Albert brother go to India to see her. Do you really think I'll ever get to come there, or you'll get to come here?"

"Don't worry. It'll work out." He said it easily, certain in a way she wished she could borrow. "There's something out there that's going to bring both families back together I'm sure of it." A beat. "And if nothing does I'll just kidnap you and marry you myself."

"After that" he added, laughing. "both families are going to have to talk to each other whether they like it or not."

She froze for a second. Marriage. He was actually thinking about marriage. "You're joking, right?"

"Joking about what?"

"The marriage thing."

"Why would I joke about that?" His voice had gone serious now, all the teasing dropped out of it. "I'm completely serious. Sooner or later, we're getting married. That's happening."

"Y-you'd actually marry me?"

"Who else would I marry? I love you don't I? So obviously I'd marry you."

She smiled into the dark of her room. "But what if your family doesn't agree? The Rajputs don't want anything to do with the Romanos."

"That's not true, actually." He sounded almost amused now. "If the Rajputs really wanted nothing to do with the Romanos, Kavya aunty and Albert uncle would already be divorced. But look--they're still married, have a three-year-old baby, still in love, even living in two different countries. Distance never made either of them love each other less."

"You're right," she admitted quietly.

"So tell me what you want for your birthday. I'll send it with Albert uncle he's still here he's probably heading back to Italy by the end of the week."

"Nothing." She was smiling now, really smiling, for the first time all night. "I don't want anything. I already got my gift. You called. Everything's okay between us again. That's the best gift I could ask for."

"Ohh." She could practically hear his grin through the phone. "Is my tiger getting cheesy on me?"

"Shut up, or I'll start ignoring you from now on."

"Try it. I'll show up there and drag you out in front of the entire Romano family."

"There he is." She rolled her eyes, biting back a laugh. "Pervert Krish is finally back."

"Pervert?" He sounded delighted by the accusation. "Baby, I haven't even started. Wait till I actually get my hands on you--then you'll know what pervert means."

"Krish!"

"What? You started it, tiger. Calling me names this late at night, in that voice--you're lucky I'm not there right now."

"You are unbelievable."

"Unbelievably in love with you, yes." A pause softer this time though the grin hadn't fully left his voice. "Happy birthday Sofi. I mean it. Twenty-one looks good on you, even over the phone."

"you are right i just realize oh god i am 21 already. she said.

"Twenty-one" Krish said again like he was turning the number over in his head. "You know what that means, right?"

"That I'm officially get one more year old"

"That you're a full adult now Sofi. No more excuses." She could hear the grin creeping back into his voice. "Last time you could still hide behind saying 'I'm barely 18. Not anymore."

"Hide from what, exactly?"

"From me." He said it easy, like it was obvious. "Now there's nothing stopping us. You're grown. I'm grown. We're both very, very adult."

She laughed despite herself. "Why do I feel like this conversation is about to go somewhere I should hang up on."

"Why would you hang up? I'm just stating facts. Two consenting adults, madly in love, currently separated by an unreasonable number of borders and family politics." A pause, and she could practically hear him smirking. "It's a tragedy, honestly. All this wasted adult potential."

"Krish."

"What? I'm being responsible. I'm just saying, when I finally do kidnap you like I promised-purely for the sake of uniting our families, obviously--you should know I have very specific, very adult plans for that trip."

"Oh my god." She pressed her palm over her eyes, though she was smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. "You've been thinking about this."

"I think about it constantly baby you have no idea." His voice dropped slightly, still teasing but with something warmer underneath it now. "Five years of only hearing your voice once a month does things to a man's imagination."

"You're impossible."

"I'm patient. There's a difference." A short silence, and then, softer: "But yeah. Impossible too, probably."

"So what exactly are these very adult plans, Mr. Rajput?"

"Oh, now you want details?" He laughed, low. "Careful, tiger, you're the one who said you'd start ignoring me."

"I changed my mind. Educational purposes only."

"Educational." He was full-on laughing now. "Sure. Let's call it that."

"Krish."

"Fine, fine." He exhaled, and when he spoke again there was something more sincere sitting under the teasing. "Honestly? My plans start with just getting to hold you again without a phone between us. Everything after that I'll figure out when I actually see your face and remember how much trouble you are."

She went quiet for a second, something in her chest going soft at that. "That's annoyingly sweet for someone who just spent five minutes talking about kidnapping me."

"I contain multitudes," he said. "Also I meant the kidnapping part too. Don't think I forgot."

They kept at it, back and forth, neither one willing to let the call end--five years of only hearing each other in short, careful monthly check-ins didn't just stop the moment the wall between them came down. If anything, it made both of them greedier for it, and the bickering rolled on well past midnight, neither one ready to be the one to say goodbye first.

Everyone else, in their own way, had found something like this too. Not always romance, but a settling. A life that had learned to keep going. They still missed Kiara. That hadn't changed and probably never would--there were still moments, quiet ones usually, at dinner or in the middle of an ordinary afternoon, when someone would go still for a second. remembering something they'd said to her, something they hadn't meant, or hadn't meant like that, and the guilt would come back up fresh even after all this time.

But grief that old eventually finds a place to sit that isn't directly in the middle of everything. They'd learned how to let it sit there and still get on with their days.
Kavya still refused to come back to Italy. Albert had tried more times than he could count, offered every version of a compromise he could think of--a new house, somewhere separate from the mansion entirely, so she wouldn't have to be under the same roof as anyone she didn't want to be near.

She always said no. It wasn't that she hated the family to want him cut off from them, she told him. She wasn't going to be the reason he lost that. She just wasn't going back. So Albert had settled on something simpler instead. Kavya stayed at the Romano house in India, and he went back and forth.

A lot of the work Donato and Aravi used to handle there had shifted onto albert alone over the years, which meant there was always a reason for someone to be traveling between the two countries anyway--Albert went often, and Aravi went with him sometimes too, staying with Kavya for stretches at a time so she wasn't alone in that big house.

Kavya and Albert had a daughter now, three years old, Elora, who according to everyone who'd met her was her mother's mini version-- same stubborn set to her jaw, same refusal to back down from anything.

Everyone had found their footing. Everyone except Donato. He'd stepped fully out of that other world, the one he used to run, underworld. and become simply a businessman now--office in the morning, home in the evening, and most nights after that spent in what used to be Kiara's library, the one she'd put together herself in the first year they were married, books arranged the way she liked them, nobody having had the heart to change a single shelf.

He still searched for her. He and Enzo both did, quietly, constantly, running down every lead that came close to plausible. They looked into the house near the forest, the one where they think it's possible she'd supposedly ended up after the accident. All they'd found was that the family who used to live there had sold it and moved somewhere nobody could trace.

They'd expanded the search outside the country too, eventually, when nothing inside Italy turned anything up. Still nothing. Eventually they'd settled on a different approach--sending men out quietly with her photograph, city by city, instead of going through any official channel. They couldn't put her face on the news.

Couldn't risk anyone connected to the Romano name's old enemies catching wind that she might still be alive, might still be findable, because if word got out before they found her themselves, there was no telling what someone with a grudge might do with that information first.

So the search stayed small, and stayed quiet. Only a handful of people even knew that Donato's wife was gone at all. Fewer still knew that he hadn't stopped looking. To almost everyone outside the family, Kiara Romano was simply dead, and had been for five years.

Thoughts 🤔