Mother visits me in my dreams. Although something about this dream feels different. It feels like it's really happening even though I know it isn't.

"Mother?"

I take a step toward her. Her back is to me. All I see is the back of her, her long hair floating around her. She turns around and her eyes meet mine. They look calm and serene. At peace.

"Thank you." Her voice echoes around us. I'm not sure where we are. It looks like we're surrounded in nothing. "You brought me my peace, son. I can go now."

"Go?" My heart races. I know she's been gone for a year now but it never really felt like she was gone. Somehow, in this moment, I know she's really leaving this time. "Go where?"

"To your father. I've been waiting for so long to see him again. But I couldn't go back to him until I knew I could tell him everything is okay. That our boys are okay."

My lungs seize tightly when she turns around again. I can't fucking breathe. "Wait. Let me come with you."

She turns around again and this time her smile holds a touch of sadness. "It's not time for you to come with me, darling. Your brother needs you. Your wife needs you. Your duties lay with them now."

Felix. Mariana. I look around as if I might find them here.

"Where are they?"

"Waiting for you. It's time for us to return to the ones we belong with."

"Mother." Panic makes my voice shudder. My breaths come out in desperate bursts. "Don't. I still need you. I don't know how to get back. I don't know how to make Felix stop hating me. You can't leave us."

"I never did." Tears gather in her eyes and her smile becomes watery. "Don't let Felix push you away. I have found peace but he hasn't. And if you need to get back...just listen for her voice. I'll see you soon, my love."

"Wait!" I watch with dread when a blinding light overtakes her, threatening to swallow her whole. I push the words out the way I failed to last time. "I love you."

She laughs softly under her breath, pure happiness making her eyes shine bright. "I know. Now go tell her the same."

Her? I lose my breath completely when the blinding light explodes and then she's gone. Not a whisper of her existence left. Fuck. Fuck, she's really gone this time. The backs of my eyes burn and I fight against the sob clawing up my throat.

Goodbye, Mother.

I look around at the emptiness I'm surrounded in, panic causing ice to form in my veins. Now what? I'm completely alone. I always have been but at some point it stopped being bearable. Being alone doesn't feel as comforting as it once did. I need...I need...

"—not leaving."

A new voice echoes around me and I search frantically for where it came from. There's something about that voice. I just know it could fucking save me.

"—don't care!" The voice breaks in and out. I strain my ears to try and understand what it's saying. "You can fuck right off if you think I'm going to stand back like some distressed damsel when my husband's life is at stake. I'm staying."

What a fucking smart mouth. A smile overcomes me and I laugh in relief, finally recognizing who it is. Mariana.

There's a gasp. "Knox? Knox, are you awake?"

Yeah, baby, I want to say. Bring me back to you.

"Knox." The sensation of soft hands cradling my face startles me. I touch my cheeks and I swear I feel someone else's warmth. "Wake up, honey. I'm here. I'm right here."

She is. It's like her voice is a beacon. I follow it and each step brings more life in me. I no longer feel like I'm floating or drifting away. My feet feel grounded and I fight like hell to keep them there, to push one step after the other and follow the sound of her voice. To let her save me like she's been doing all this time.

And then I feel her. If Mariana was a feeling, she would be this—like being wrapped up in strength and warmth and knowing nothing will fucking hurt you anymore. I desperately chase it even though I don't know exactly where it's coming from. All I know is that she's on the other side and I have to go to her. To be with her.

I must be in the right place because that feeling swallows me whole and my entire body tightens. Light explodes around me and then...nothing.

I think someone dropped a fucking anvil on my head. My temple pulses painfully and the groan overtaking my lungs barely manages to come out, sounding more like a croak than anything.

"Oh my God." The same pair of hands I felt earlier cradle my face again. It takes all my strength to lift my arms. This time, I'm able to touch those hands and feel them, not just dream them. Their warmth is unmistakable. "Knox?"

"You know," I start, my voice raspy as if I haven't used it in days. "You had your chance to run away while I was knocked out. Just saying."

Mariana lightly pinches my cheek in reprimand and I laugh and groan at the same time. "Shut up, you asshole. You're not getting rid of me anytime soon."

"Yeah?" She finally comes into focus. I search those eyes I was convinced I'd hate for the rest of my life but I don't feel a single semblance of hatred anymore. Quite the opposite, actually, as they stare down at me through unshed tears. "Thank fuck."

She laughs too and then her mouth comes down on mine. Grounding me. Saving me. Choosing me. Even when I didn't give her one damn reason to.

When she breaks the kiss, I ask her the question burning at the back of my mind. I vaguely remember getting shot but it's all such a blur. "Your father...dead?"

"Gone," she confirms with a nod.

The relief I feel is suffocating and freeing all at once. My mother is finally at peace. Avenged. Just like she told me.

I intertwine my fingers with Mariana's and turn her palm towards my mouth so I can kiss it. "Are you okay?"

"More than." Her eyes darken but I'm not sure why. "My mother told me everything. Filled in all those missing pieces. God, I hope the bastard is burning in hell right now."

That's right. Her mother, who turned out to be alive. And she took my mother's name which means she knew her. I look around the room, recognizing it as a care room of one of the mafia's safe houses. "I need to speak with her."

"She'll explain everything," Mariana assures me, gently pushing me back down on the bed when I try to get up. "Just rest. The doctor and Cavallo have been hovering around you all day. You probably don't even feel recovered."

"That's who you were cussing off?"

She blinks. "You heard me?"

"I did." I pause, wondering if I should admit what happened. "I think I was about to die. I think I had the opportunity to choose. That's when I heard your voice and I guess...I guess I chose life. You."

More tears gather in her eyes and she shakes her head slowly, bringing it down until her forehead touches mine. My entire being immediately relaxes and fills with life. She's oxygen—my entire fucking will to live.

"Scelgo te," she whispers against my lips. I choose you.

"Solo te," I whisper back. Only you.

"How are you feeling?"

I look between my wife and her mother. There's little similarity between the two. Maybe the structure of their faces but that's about it. The younger Ferrera holds a much bigger resemblance. Her eyes are exactly the same as the woman in front of me.

I shrug in answer to her question and take a seat on the couch, stifling a pained groan. Apparently I was unconscious for a day and after I initially woke up, I slept for another eight hours. The pain in my shoulder has lessened exponentially but I'm still unable to move it around with the sling holding my arm in place. It seems like everyone but me has been caught up to speed and I'm equal parts wary and anxious at the set of expectant eyes on me from all corners.

Cavallo, Axel, Mariana, Alessandra, their mother, even that annoying friend Annalisa are all here. It's obvious they all know what I don't. There's another woman with them I don't recognize.

"That's Carlotta," Mariana explains as she sits next to me. She smiles at the woman who instantly returns it from her seat on the couch and Mariana drops her voice. "The woman who took care of Alessa and I while Mother was gone. She was in the dark like us and another pawn in Patrizio's game. It was because she worked for him and trusted Patrizio that other women trusted him too. It was what he wanted."

"Other women?" I look at her.

Something akin to pain flashes across her eyes and she glances in the direction of her mother. Gianna is already looking at me with an expression that makes me wary. Part of me doesn't want to fucking hear this but the bigger part of me wants this to be done.

"Say it," I order bluntly.

Though my question was for Mariana's mother, Cavallo answers.

"Gianna was pardoned for Ferrera's death. She was right—the evidence was too concrete."

"What evidence?"

This time he doesn't answer for her. Gianna stands up and walks to a window nearby. She stares outside like she might be looking for something, eyes sharp and shoulders tense.

"I found out about Carmella right before my so-called death." Her voice is steady and sure. It's obvious she's had to harden herself over the past few years. "Patrizio kept watch over her for years to make sure she never talked. He kept tabs on her at all times. Pictures, records, to make sure she was still clinically unstable and had no way of outing him."

I go stiff at the mere thought of Ferrera watching us all these years. I never suspected a fucking thing.

"It's not your fault." Mariana leans into me. She kisses my cheek and whispers, "Not a single person in this room knew of his true colours. We were all victims in this."

It's the truth but it does nothing to make me feel better. Gianna meets my eyes knowingly. "You're a smart man. This had nothing to do with him being a few steps ahead. He rigged the game to work in his favour. That's why he treated my daughters and I almost flawlessly, why he was always a faithful consigliere, and why he was able to get away with it all."

"He hid in plain sight," I finish for her.

"And we never see what's right in front of us, do we?" She smiles sadly but it slips off her face when she looks out the window again, taking a deep breath. "A few years back he'd started acting different. He used to be a devoted and caring man—or at least played the part convincingly well—but something changed. He became short-tempered and paranoid. Like any suspicious wife I'd just assumed he was cheating on me so I went digging where I wasn't supposed to."

Her voice trails off and she blinks hard. I've seen that look on my own mother before, like she's fighting off a memory. The younger Ferrera stands up from her seat and goes to her, hugging her from behind. Gianna grips her daughter's forearm with that look still in her eyes.

"I found drugs at first. I was appalled. His behaviour didn't add up to anything drug related so I looked into the stash of needles. It was propranolol—a drug typically administered for irregular heart arrhythmias but commonly known for making users forget parts of their memory. I couldn't fathom what he needed that for until I found them all prescribed to a woman named Carmella Marino. Patrizio had found a way to give her these drugs through your staff—who were actually his people—for years so that she would never remember. At that point I needed to figure out what he was trying to make her forget."

I fucking swear the blood drains from my face. Mariana burrows into my side and rubs my arm in a way that's meant to be comforting. I might feel comforted if I could feel anything at all right now.

"What the fuck?" I question with a harsh whisper. My staff? The group of nurses I hired when I was eighteen that have been with us since? "They were with him?"

"He has people everywhere, I'm afraid. They say to never trust a man with too many enemies but the truth is to never trust a man with too many allies. You don't need an army unless you're preparing for a war."

"Fuck." I shove my hand through my hair desperately. He had complete access to her all this time. "Before my mother died she mentioned she fought to stay lucid."

And then I remember her words. The voices wouldn't go away. The monsters made sure I heard them. She was trying to tell me the truth. It wasn't because she was goddamn insane. The monsters were the staff and the voices were the drugs. Fuck me.

Bile and a defeated scream both sit at the tip of my tongue, bitter and unforgiving, and threaten to emerge. I hold a hand over my mouth to keep them both back. If I start now, I won't fucking stop.

"Should I stop?" Gianna asks softly. She looks as solemn as everyone else in the room.

"No," I force myself to say. I can't fucking hear this anymore but I have to know. "What then?"

She nods, visibly bracing herself.

"Patrizio found me going through his things. You know one of his tactics was to always leave things out in the open. He thought I'd figured everything out and blurted the truth he didn't realize I was unaware of. How he was drunk when he raped her. How he thought she wanted it. How I needed to believe he changed. He took one look at my shocked expression and knew he fucked up. And then he had to fix his mistakes."

She laughs humourlessly but the sound is full of pain.

"Turns out he had been going paranoid because Lorenzo Cavallo had just revealed that he had cancer. Patrizio and Lorenzo worked closely together to keep his raping incident a secret. He feared that when Lorenzo died the secret might find its own way out so he lost it. Me finding out about Carmella was the last straw. He exploded on me, saying things like I was a whore who should have minded her business and that I'd pay the price. My fake death was orchestrated an hour after Patrizio and Lorenzo had dragged me off to one of their safe houses. Lorenzo organized the funeral, look-alike corpse, everything."

I can't help but glance at Cavallo. A muscle pulses in his jaw and he stares off at nothing in particular, what can only be described as disgust and rage lighting a fire in his eyes. He's only been Boss for two years and I hadn't personally know him until I contacted him to get Felix and I out of jail but even I know that his relationship with his father was always shit. He's not who his old man was. Apparently that's the running theme of this group.

"But why fake your death when he could have killed you?" I ask when I look away from him.

"He wanted me to suffer and death would have been too easy. So...he sold me."

My brows immediately come together. "Sold you?"

"Carmella wasn't the only woman he raped. After losing her to your father, he became vengeful. Thought women only belonged to those they were promised to and should be punished if they got away. Plus, he was a Made Man so it was good business. He opened up a sex trafficking ring and sold off women who were anything less than devoted to the men in mafia as punishment. Made good money and it stroked his ego. I didn't learn all this until I was sold myself but my cell mate had caught me up to speed. We were both raped multiple times, sometimes in front of each other, and, well...that makes you close, I guess."

Jesus fuck. Pin-drop silence follows with tinges of grief and discomfort. What the ever loving fuck do you say to something like that?

Mariana stifles a sob into my shoulder. I meet Annalisa's eyes who's watching my wife with the same helplessness I feel and then we both look to the younger one. Alessandra has long since let her mother go, curling into herself instead. Tears streak down her face that she quickly swipes away and hides with her hair by ducking her head. Axel glances at her, teeth grinding, and looks away with curled fists.

"She eventually helped me escape and died in the process," Gianna rasps. "She knew I had kids and wanted to help me get back to them. She couldn't have any of her own and her husband wanted a son to take over the family business so he sold her off. She had a soft spot knowing I left two girls behind and did everything to help me get out."

"We planned to the T but sometimes things just go wrong. We made it to the main roads before one of the guards found us. She led them in another direction and got shot in seconds but those were the seconds I was able to use to get away for good. I lay low for a while, recovering and healing and trying to figure out how the hell to go home without being killed. I needed to be able to defend myself. Maybe fate owed me something because I found a women's shelter after months of wandering and instantly knew they were mafia. They trained me for a year and when I was confident I could hold my own against Patrizio, I made my move."

Gianna looks at me with an expression I can't read. "I went after your mother first. To save her. I was in your house the day she died. We met, actually."

What the fuck? It isn't until she mentions it that something clicks. An image of her in nursing uniform flashes at the back of my mind before I'm struck with realization.

"You were one of the nurses I bumped into on my way out," I guess.

She nods. "I had plans to come with some of the trainers from the shelter but I kept tabs on Patrizio and one of your nurses told him that she saw her give you the charm. That she was lucid. He was on his way before you left the house so I made my move too."

Another memory burns at the forefront of my mind. "You were running out of the house when Felix and I were detained. You were bleeding."

"I fought off the other nurses and crushed every needle of propranolol to keep her lucid. That's about as far as I got until Patrizio's soldiers arrived and then I tried fighting them too. But I was on my own trying to protect Carmella and took one too many hits."

Something still doesn't make sense. "Ferrera killed her. Didn't he see you?"

She shakes her head and for the life of me I don't know what to make of the sympathy in her eyes. When she explains, I wish to hell she'd just kept her mouth shut.

"He didn't kill her. She killed herself."

____________________________

A/N

I WISH I COULD SAY IM DONE WITH THE TWISTS BUT...you know I gotta torture y'all, right?

But WOW, now that the whole thing has come together it's kind of mind-blowing how every piece in this story was connected, from the smallest pieces to the biggest. A dense plot is the hardest thing to create as an author and this plot is the one I've most proud of to date.

On that note I can't believe y'all thought Knox or Maria would die LMAO. THAT'S SO OBVIOUS AND CLICHÉ. No insult to stories where the main characters die (I love a good cry and am often in search for stories just like this in fact) but from the beginning I've insinuated that this story was meant to be so much deeper than it seemed.

I hope it makes sense why Maria's mother was the one to kill Ferrera. Not only was that her husband, but she was a firsthand victim to the trauma he inflicted. Knox and Maria suffered greatly too but they were not at the forefront. I truly believe the honour went to Maria's mother. And sure, Ferrera being tortured long and hard sounds amazing but he caused so much damage in his lifetime. Why draw out his life and give even a sliver a chance for him to escape or something along those lines? We, as readers, feel greedy and want to see it all but to those suffering, you'd just want your abuser gone and DEAD.

Every piece of the plot served a purpose. Everyone jumped to conclusions about the characters. This book was always meant to show you how we quick we are to judge when we've only just scratched the surface. So remember, give people the benefit of the doubt (my anti-hero Knox) and trust that their actions (hating Maria's eyes, not letting her work, his inability to love and act decent) might ACTUALLY be for reasons we can't even begin to fathom.

Please VOTE, comment and share if you liked this chapter!

Happy Reading :)