Chapter 385: Live Your Life Well

The ocarina sitting in my palms was a perfect replica. Every curve, every tone hole identical to the one that had belonged to the silver-haired old woman. Everything that had been hovering at the edges of my mind clicked into place all at once, quiet and certain.Yael caught the way I was staring and tilted his head. "Elena, what’s wrong? Don’t you like it? I can make you a better one if you want."

I shook my head slowly. "No. This one is exactly right. Thank you." I looked up at him and managed a small smile, though my thoughts were still running. "I think everything just caught up with me at once. I’m worn out. I’m going to go check on your cousin." I paused, then added, "From now on consider us family."

He went completely still. His expression cracked open with something raw and disbelieving. "You... you don’t hate me?"

I gestured for him to come closer, and when he did, I reached up and rested my hand lightly on the top of his head the way you would with someone younger, someone who needed to be reminded they were still worth something. "Your hands are clean, Yael. You never took a life. You even went out of your way to help me when you didn’t have to."

He really was just another person shaped by circumstances he hadn’t chosen. Looking at him honestly, I wasn’t sure how different he was from me. I pulled him into a brief, gentle hug, and felt him go rigid with surprise before slowly relaxing. "One day you’ll meet someone who loves you the right way," I told him. "And when that happens, you’ll finally understand what it’s supposed to feel like."

He pulled back just enough to look at me, something cautious and hopeful in his eyes. "Could that person be you, Elena?"

"Before you can love anyone else," I said gently, "you need to figure out how to love yourself first."

"And if I learn how to do that would you love me then?"

"Lewis and I will both love you."

Yael’s face scrunched up immediately. "I don’t want his love. That’s disgusting."

"As if I’d want to love you either. Ugh."

The voice came from just behind me, dry and unimpressed, and I spun around to find Lewis standing a few steps away, arms loosely crossed, watching us with that particular expression he reserved for things he found mildly offensive.

"Elena," he said simply. "Come here."

Yael grabbed my hand in protest, tugging back. "Elena, you’re not some obedient little pup. Just because he calls doesn’t mean you have to come running. Have some self-respect."

I gently pulled my hand free and went anyway practically jogging and threw myself straight into Lewis’s arms. With a completely straight face, I looked back at Yael and said, "Woof."

Yael stood frozen. Something in his expression shifted through at least four emotions before settling on devastated. Without a single word, he turned and walked away into the dark.

Lewis flicked my nose lightly, his tone somewhere between scolding and fond. "Don’t do that."

"I was just teasing him. He’s basically still a kid, Lewis. He’s probably the most untouched person in this entire family." I thought about Vito the ferocity with which he’d thrown himself in front of his brother when everything fell apart. It made a certain sense. There was something worth protecting in Yael’s particular kind of innocence, especially to people like us who had stood close enough to death to feel its breath. I understood Vito’s instinct completely now.

"Whatever you say," Lewis said, in the tone he used when he’d already decided not to argue.

His eyes dropped to the ocarina in my hands, and something moved briefly across his face recognition, or maybe memory. I leaned into him without thinking, wrapping my arms around his waist and pressing my face against his chest, breathing him in.

"This time, things will end differently," I said quietly.

"I know."

He cupped my face in both hands and tilted it up toward his, his expression more open than he usually allowed. "If fate doesn’t bend for us, Elena if it comes for us anyway we face it together. Don’t leave me behind again. Promise me."

"If we live, we live as one," I said. "If we go, we share a grave. No more secrets. No more disappearing on each other."

We had both carried the particular ache of being left behind by the other. It had a specific weight to it, that kind of loss heavier than most. But standing here now, I found I wasn’t afraid of any of it. I tilted my chin up with a small smile. "We should probably pick out a spot with a good view. Pre-order a double plot. Somewhere nice."

If Grandma could hear me joking about choosing burial sites, she would have dragged me by the ear. But Lewis was the one person alive who would take my most absurd ideas completely in stride. He took my hand and led me to a wide, flat rock near the water’s edge. We sat down together, side by side, looking out at the sea as the last of the daylight bled out of the sky.

These moments still and unhurried had always been rare for us. I had learned not to take them for granted.

Lewis picked up the ocarina from where I’d set it between us, turning it over in his hands with a quiet half-smile. "Alright then. Where do you want it? This view of yours."

"Somewhere near the sea," I said. "With flowers that bloom in spring and fruit trees that last all year. Something alive and changing with every season. I could sit in a place like that for a hundred years and not grow tired of it as long as you were there."

"Then that’s where we’ll be," he said simply.

I looked at him. "Lewis, why are you so good to me?"

He was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing small circles across my knuckles. "Because we’ve wasted too many chances already, Elena. I’ve had everything the world considers worth having power, position, more than I could ever use. None of it ever came close to meaning what a single look from you does."

The sun finished setting. The water turned dark and silver. I threaded my fingers through his and held on. "Then let’s stay. No more goodbyes."

That evening, Vito came to tell me personally about Grandma’s cremation.

There was a strange, dark advantage to having spent this much time in enemy territory I ended up with the best position at the front, closest to the flames. I stood there in the flickering heat and said my goodbye in a whisper meant only for her.

Vito had kept Whitney away. He knew she wasn’t ready, and he was probably right.

Lewis stood just behind me, steady and present, though the shape of my grief was something he couldn’t fully reach. Grandma had done things that couldn’t be undone, and the fact that she’d gone quietly without suffering was already more than some would say she deserved. I knew all of that. I had turned it over enough times to know it completely.

And still, the tears came. Silent, and steady, and unstoppable.

"Grandma," I whispered to the fire. "I can only walk you this far. I’m sorry. I promised you’d see my wedding. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep that."

Something landed on the front of my coat so light I almost missed it. A black butterfly, settling perfectly still on one of my buttons, its wings barely moving.

I held my breath. "Grandma? Is that you?"

Lewis’s hand came to rest on my shoulder, warm and grounding. "Grandma," he said softly, speaking to the air, to the fire, to whatever might still be listening. "I’ll take care of her. I promise. Rest now."

The butterfly lifted once a single, unhurried movement and dissolved into the dark like it had never been there at all.

I had watched Nolan leave. Now I had watched her leave too. Grandma had gathered a lifetime of wrongs, and if there was truly a reckoning on the other side, she would face it without me. The thread between us had finally gone slack. What was the point of any of it, I wondered if love only ever taught you new ways to lose people?

Lewis wrapped both arms around me before the thought could pull me under. "You still have me, Elena," he murmured into my hair.

That was enough. It was enough. I pressed my face into his chest and let myself cry properly for the first time in what felt like days.

At dawn, Lewis walked me down to the docks.

Vito and Whitney arrived together, Vito carrying a small urn. He crossed to me without a word and held it out. I took it carefully. I already knew what it held Grandma’s ashes, the portion Dominic had refused. Vito had gone behind his father’s back and given her this much anyway. Harsh as he could be, ruthless as he had shown himself capable of being, he had still quietly done this one thing. He had kept it from both Dominic and Whitney, and he had said nothing about it. That mattered.

Vivian had figured out the truth on her own. She stayed close to Greg as they moved toward the boat, her grip on his arm tight, clearly done with this island and everything on it.

Whitney paused and turned back to look at Vito, her expression cold as stone. "You’re really letting me go."

She didn’t say it like a question. She said it like she was waiting for the catch, for the moment the game revealed itself.

Vito’s mouth curved barely a smile, more like the ghost of one. "You have a tracker in you. Wherever you go, I’ll find you. You’re mine, Anna. You always will be."

Her face darkened, and she turned away, walking faster.

"Anna." His voice dropped, losing its edge for just a moment something underneath it that was quiet and unguarded. "Can I have a hug? Just one."

She didn’t answer. She didn’t slow down.

He let out a short, low sound that was almost a laugh hollow and tired. "So heartless."

Then he closed the distance between them in a few long strides, and pulled her into him from behind, his face buried in the curve of her neck, hiding whatever expression he couldn’t keep controlled. When he spoke, his voice had gone rough. "Anna. Live well. I’m sorry I took so many years from you. You have every right to hate me for it." His arms tightened briefly around her, then loosened. "From now on, you’re free. Leave the Blackwells behind. Leave me behind. Leave every single thing that ever hurt you."

A beat of silence, just long enough to feel it.

"My Love. Live your life well."