Page 175 of Made for Sinners

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

He set his coffee down and cupped my face in his hands. “You will always see me again. I will always come for you. Always.”

Tears burned at the corners of my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall.

Instead, I leaned in and kissed him.

Slow. Deep. Certain.

Because I needed him to know.

That I was still here.

That I was still his.

That I wasn’t going anywhere.

Later that day, Dante called a meeting.

Not with the family. Not with the organization.

Just with me.

He had sent me a calendar invite a few hours prior. Official business style.

He led me into his office, the one with the floor-to-ceiling windows and the heavy desk that looked like it had been carved from a single tree. He gestured for me to sit, then walked around to the other side and opened a folder.

“This,” he said, sliding it toward me, “is yours."

The word “Winery” was embossed in gold across the top of the thick manila file, as if someone had decided to dress up a business deal in eveningwear. I blinked at it, then looked up at Dante, who was watching me with that unreadable expression he wore when he was either about to give me the world or burn it down.

“Yours,” he said again, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I blinked. “What do you mean, mine?”

He leaned back in his chair, one arm draped over the backrest, the other resting on the desk like he wasn’t currently flipping my entire existence upside down. “I bought it. For you. The vineyard. The house. The land. Everything.”

I opened the folder slowly, my fingers trembling slightly. Inside were photos—stunning aerial shots of rolling hills blanketed in grapevines, a stone villa nestled at the center like a crown jewel. There were architectural plans, financial projections, even a mock-up of a wine label with my name on it.

Emilia Conti. Proprietor.

My throat tightened.

“You bought me a winery,” I said, because I needed to hear it out loud again, just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

He nodded. “You said you wanted to breathe. To have something that was yours. This is yours.”

I looked up at him, my heart thudding in my chest. “You’re serious.”

“I don’t joke about things I intend to burn down,” he said, and there was a softness in his voice that didn’t match the steel in his eyes. “This is your escape. Your empire. Your freedom.”

My fingers brushed over the photo of the villa, the sun-drenched stone walls, the rows of vines stretching into the horizon. It didn’t feel real. Nothing about the last twenty-four hours felt real. I’d been kidnapped, gagged, threatened. I’d stared down death and come out the other side. And now I was sitting in my husband’s office, being handed a vineyard like it was a consolation prize.

“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered.

He stood and came around the desk, crouching in front of me. His hands found my knees, warm and steady, grounding me.

“Say you’ll go see it,” he said. “Say you’ll walk the land. Say you’ll plant something and watch it grow.”

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