Six months. It felt like both a lifetime and the blink of an eye. The scent of old leather and lemon oil in his father’s study was a constant reminder of the world he had inherited, a world he now commanded.
Sunlight, thick with the golden dust of late afternoon, slanted across the heavy mahogany desk, illuminating the crisp blueprints spread across its surface. La Fiamma Nascosta. The Hidden Flame.
Only this time, the plans showed a wider kitchen, a small garden patio, and reinforced windows. A fortress of culinary hope.
Alessandro De Luca, a name he hadn’t used in a decade, ran a hand over the smooth paper. He was still Sandro, the man who understood the precise moment a sauce would break or when a risotto achieved its perfect, creamy alchemy.
But he was also Don De Luca, the man who understood the delicate balance of power, the weight of a quiet promise, and the swift, cold necessity of a final command. The two identities no longer felt at war within him.
They had found a tense, symbiotic peace, brokered by the woman who had seen both and flinched from neither.
A soft knock drew his attention to the door. Enzo stood there, his weathered face settled into lines of weary contentment.
The old bodyguard had aged in the past few months, the years of hiding replaced by the burden of being Sandro’s most trusted advisor.
“Don De Luca,” Enzo said, the title still sounding formal on his tongue. “The Bastone brothers sent their regards. They accept your terms for the waterfront contracts. No trouble.”
Sandro nodded, leaning back in the worn leather chair that had once dwarfed him as a boy. “They’re smart men. They know cooperation is more profitable than conflict.”
He paused. “See that their eldest son’s debt is forgiven. A gesture of goodwill.”
Enzo’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Riccardo would have bled them for it.”
“Riccardo is gone,” Sandro said, his voice flat, devoid of triumph. It was simply a fact, like the turning of a season. “We’re building loyalty, Enzo, not fear. Fear is brittle. It shatters.”
His cousin’s reign had been a cancer, and cutting it out had been a bloody, messy surgery. The months since that night at the estate had been a slow, arduous process of resetting bones, stitching wounds, and purging the infection of Riccardo’s paranoia.
He had met with every captain, looked every man in the eye, and made his intentions clear. The De Luca family would be a shield for its people, not a sword against them. They would deal in business, not blood, unless absolutely necessary.
To his surprise, most of the old guard had seemed relieved. They were tired of the constant warfare, the looking over their shoulders.
Sandro offered stability. He offered honor. It was a language they hadn’t heard spoken in years, but one they still understood.
Enzo gave a short, respectful nod. “As you say, Don De Luca.” He turned to leave, then hesitated. “He would be proud of you. Your father.”
The words landed softly in the quiet room. Sandro didn’t reply, just watched as the old man closed the door behind him, leaving him alone with the ghosts and the blueprints.
He wasn’t sure about his father’s pride. He had run from this life, despised it.
But he had come to understand that you couldn’t escape what was in your blood. You could only learn to control it, to shape it into something better.
He rose from the desk, the day’s business done. The weight of the title seemed to slide from his shoulders as he crossed the threshold of the study, leaving the capo behind.
The air in the rest of the penthouse was different—lighter, warmer. It smelled of garlic, fresh basil, and something else… something uniquely Juliette.
He followed the scent to the kitchen, their kitchen, a bright, modern space of stainless steel and warm wood that looked out over the city.
She was standing at the island, her brow furrowed in concentration, a smudge of flour on her cheek.
A cookbook lay open, its pages stained with olive oil and tomato sauce. Her hair was pulled back in a messy knot, and she wore one of his old t-shirts over a pair of leggings.
The sight of her, so perfectly at home in the life they were building, sent a familiar, pleasant ache through his chest.
“This is a betrayal,” he said, his voice a low rumble.
She jumped slightly, then turned, a wooden spoon held like a weapon. A slow smile spread across her face, transforming her from a focused chef into the woman he loved.
“It’s research. And you were busy being… don-like.”
He moved to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder. He glanced down at the pan on the stove.
A simple pomodoro sauce was simmering, fragrant and rich. “My recipe for arrabbiata. You’re trying to steal my secrets.”
“I’m trying to understand your soul,” she countered, leaning back against him.
“The book is coming along, but I feel like I need to get my hands dirty. My editor loves the concept: ‘The Critic in the Capo’s Kitchen.’”
She was no longer writing reviews. After she’d reappeared, officially ending her ‘extended research sabbatical,’ she had quietly resigned from the paper.
The idea of tearing down someone else’s dream, she’d told him, no longer held any appeal. Instead, she was writing a book—part memoir, part cookbook—about food, passion, and the unexpected places you find a home.
It was her story. Their story.
He tightened his arms around her, inhaling the scent of her hair. “And what have you learned about my soul so far?”
“That it has far too much red pepper flake,” she teased, stirring the sauce. “Honestly, Sandro. This is spicy enough to be considered a weapon in some countries.”
He chuckled, the sound deep in his chest. “It’s meant to make you feel something. To wake you up.”
Her hand came up to cover his where it rested on her stomach. Her movements became still. “I don’t need waking up anymore,” she said softly.
“Not since I met you.”
The easy banter faded, replaced by the quiet hum of their reality. They stood like that for a long moment, the city lights beginning to glitter in the twilight outside the window.
The past was never truly gone. It lived in the fine white scar above his eyebrow from one of Riccardo’s men.
It lived in the way he always sat with his back to a wall in a restaurant, in the slight tensing of his shoulders when a car drove by too slowly.
And it lived in the unwavering strength in Juliette’s eyes, the strength of someone who had walked through fire and chosen not to run from the man who started it.
He turned her in his arms, his gaze searching hers. “No regrets?” he asked.
It was a question he’d asked before, and one he would probably ask for the rest of their lives.
She raised a hand to his cheek, her thumb tracing the line of his jaw.
“About giving up anonymous reservations and Michelin stars for a life with a reluctant mafia boss who makes the best damn carbonara in the world?”
She feigned a thoughtful frown. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
He didn’t smile. He just watched her, his heart, the one he had shielded for so long, laid bare for her.
Her expression softened, all traces of teasing gone. “Never, Sandro,” she whispered, her voice fierce.
“Not one. You think you pulled me into your dangerous world, but you didn’t. You pulled me into your life. You showed me the passion that was missing from mine.”
He leaned down and kissed her, a kiss that had nothing to do with the desperate, adrenaline-fueled encounters of their past. This was slow and sure, a conversation without words.
It spoke of shared mornings, quiet evenings, and the unshakable certainty of knowing you were exactly where you were supposed to be.
When he pulled back, he took the spoon from her hand. “You’re bruising the basil,” he murmured, his chef instincts taking over.
He dipped the spoon in, tasted the sauce, and nodded in approval. “Almost perfect.”
He reached for the pasta, his movements economical and precise. Together, they finished the meal, moving around each other in the easy, familiar dance of a couple who had found their rhythm.
They didn’t speak of contracts or captains, of threats or loyalty. They spoke of the new restaurant, of the shade tree they should plant on the patio. Juliette suggested a new name.
“Not ‘The Hidden Flame’ anymore,” she said, draining the pasta.
“It’s not hidden. Not with you. How about La Fiamma Rinata? The Reborn Flame.”
He looked at her, truly looked at her, the woman who had shattered his world with a review only to rebuild it with her love. She was right.
He had spent years hiding that part of himself, believing the chef and the son of the De Luca family could never coexist. He had thought the flame of his passion had to be kept secret to protect it.
But Juliette had shown him the truth. Their love hadn’t been sheltered from the fire; it had been forged in it. It was stronger, brighter, and truer because of it.
Later, sitting on their balcony with plates of pasta on their laps and a bottle of wine between them, they watched the city breathe below. His arm was a solid, comforting weight around her shoulders.
He was Don De Luca, the respected, reluctant leader who was bringing his family into a new era. He was Sandro, the chef who was about to build his dream for a second time.
But here, with her, he was simply whole. The hidden flame was finally free, not a secret inferno, but a steady, warm hearth, burning brightly in the home they had made together.