Everett leans closer, rogueish and playful as he traps heat between their bodies. She tilts her chin up a little further, inviting a kiss he’s very obviously delaying.

“What about your other favourite things?” Vivianne prompts him with dancing eyes and a dimpled smile. A better topic, she thinks. Less risk of provoking a furious blush, or the indignant flutter of age-old butterfly wings as he corners her in the kitchen and reads her like an open book. “Remind me again, amante… Which are those?”

He chides her for her capricious attempt at distancing, ‘Craven’ here and ‘coworker’ there. It’s true that she’s enjoyed pulling such strings over the years, tossing around superficial labels like lover or ex or associate or old flame, if only to see that beautiful, rebelliously responsive spark in his eyes. Half warning, half challenge as he reasserts (with a confidence borne of several decades’ worth of trials and tribulations) the title and role he now occupies in her life, and in her heart. 

Husband… The most disarming name she’s ever had for Everett, and yet the only one that has ever fit him quite so right. As golden and constant as the sun, or the faithful wedding band around her finger. If he was born to play the part – adoring husband, exemplary father – then like the thief in paradise she counts herself lucky for having won the lottery. The eternal gift to be at his side, hand in hand until the end of days.

I love you, she thinks. My Everett.

She suspects he’s spied out the sentiment when his expression softens inexplicably and a bemused ‘Oh Viv…’ hums out of his throat. The wife shifts her weight against the counter and fights the stupidly reflexive smile that tugs at her mouth any time he says that. “Does this mean you’ll give me back some of my power? Or are we still at an impasse?” She tests the waters before submitting to a coquettish grin.

“ — Careful, or I’ll have to sweeten the deal.” Kiss me, kiss me and you’ll find out.

Yet if Everett has a secret power of his own, it’s in how easily he makes her forget her tendency for rumination and pulls her safely from the spiral of her fretful thoughts. Already she’s forgotten the high-stakes risks of Cyrus falling in love, or Maddalena’s schoolgirl crush on an older boy. It’s all shunted to the back of her mind, shielded and kept at bay with Everett’s protective arms on either side of her, and the comfort to be found on a lazy Sunday afternoon, in their cozy kitchen.

The comfort to be found in their age-old banter, too, even where it comes at her expense. 

‘That’s a rather scandalous confession. So you admit I drove you mad that night?’

“No! What I admit–…” Vivianne trails off when she realizes he’s caught her in a catch-22. “Oh Dio, you’re impossible!” Either confess that she had fallen head-first into the sea for him, more and more in love with each sunrise and each sunset as they went on the run together… Or confess that the night she’d proposed on a whim she’d been strung up along a velvet shore with him, dizzy in the afterglow of unyielding desire. But even though she knows which of the two she’d more readily admit if pressed, she knows the answer Everett likes best, and the one that also happens to be most true. 

“Bene, bene… You win this round, furbacchiona. But don’t think I won’t remember the trick.” Vivianne warns, unfolding her arms to reach up for him at last. He’s making her work for this kiss, and she files away a mental note to make him pay for it later.

Tutto è lecito in amore e in guerra.

“I never needed to come around…” She confesses finally, as Everett takes enough pity on her to cant lower so that she may better wind her arms around his neck. His own arms slide snugly around her waist, drawing her away from the counter. “I was always yours – mia anima gemella, piantagrane, cuore mio – I just didn’t always know it.” 

An insistent tug and Everett’s down. Satisfied, Vivianne doesn’t waste any time in finding his smiling mouth once more with hers. “L'amore della mia vita.”

Selfishly, she’s rather glad that Cyrus hasn’t fallen too hard for anyone yet. 

Not because she doesn’t wish for him to experience the feeling at some point – but because that would mean two headaches in her skull instead of just the one. Not that she hasn’t had her suspicions about him lately, either. But if she’s asking anything of fate at the minute, it’s that her two children may fall stupidly in love with strangers at slightly different times, so that she may better be equipped to handle it. 

She needn’t admit that to Everett, though. 

“— Or maybe it’s because he’s inherited my sturdy head on his shoulders instead of having adopted your soft-heartedness.” She fires back, arching one brow as if to say have you considered that? “Less susceptible to your infectious sentimentalities than I am.” It’s a breezy challenge as Vivianne gazes up at the man who for all his softness, has still managed to trap her effortlessly against the kitchen counter. Just like he has a hundred times before. Not always with his hands either, but sometimes merely with a knowing look or a measured smile. Sometimes, with only a few trifling words.

Maybe Cyrus isn’t ready to be so easily disarmed when it comes to love, the mother considers hopefully, ignoring every recent shred of evidence to the contrary.

‘… Nine months older, same as you. Cradle robber.’

“Craven, per l'amor del cielo! I did no such thing.” The woman protests, resurfacing from her thoughts with a whack of her fist against Everett’s chest. She isn’t rewarded with the yelp she’d hoped for, but instead an unrepentant grin. I really am losing my touch, Vivianne thinks to herself in chagrin. Not so long ago such a strike would have been enough to steal the air right out of his lungs, wind him up like a toy.

“Besides, you know well the opinions of other means almost nothing to me when it comes to our children.” A staunch, haughty declaration. “ — Except yours, of course.” She amends all too quick, fingers flattening against his chest as she shoots him a sweetly conciliatory smile. “… Yours always count for something.”

But the spousal ceasefire doesn’t last very long.

Mostly because Everett’s playing dirty, she reflects, as his arms go lax at the elbows on either side of her, eliminating some of the space between them. She’s certain he knows it too. Her gaze falls reflexively to his lips for half a heartbeat, only to shoot back up to find him still watching her, mischief glinting in his green eyes.

It’s well that he hasn’t yet turned on the stove, else she’s fairly certain they’d be burning the caramelized onions by now. Been there, done that plenty.

‘You’re formidable enough,’ he tells her, even though the former Capobastone feels anything but when he looks at her like that. “Assurdo. You only like how I’ve turned out because I can’t order you around the way I used to,” Vivianne harrumphs, arms tightening over her chest for good measure. It’s only half true. It might no longer take the form of a sharp-shooting political order these days, but Everett remains tuned to her bidding, nonetheless. Add a bat of her eyelashes here, or a tiny moue there and she can get him eating out of her palm if she must. Always the temptation to abuse that power, of course, but most days it’s love that keeps her in line. 

An invigorating reminder; one that brings some consolation to the pesky feeling of being – on days like this one – almost inescapably at his mercy.

‘Why, Signora Craven… Are you finally admitting you were madly in love with me?’

Vivianne’s cheeks flush a little more red as she studies her husband closely. His skin looks warm in the glow of a late-afternoon sun, his expression captivating and full of life. She’s overcome by the sudden want to kiss him; to unfold her arms and wrap them around his waist instead, palms sliding up against the familiar heat between his shoulder blades. Failing that, a kiss to shut him up at least.

She holds her ground. 

(She also sticks her chin up a fraction, in case it gives him any very good ideas.)

“You know very well that’s not what I’m saying, mio caro marito... And that’s not how it happened either.” Vivianne insists, gaze flickering back to his mouth. “If I was half out of my mind that night it was entirely your fault. Bene, that and far too many brain chemicals.” She informs him airily, remembering a tangle of limbs and sheets, and their chests rising and falling in unison. Not the most opportune mental image when ridding herself of a self-conscious flush. Not the most conventional proposal, either.

“Who knows where we’d be if it wasn’t for that night.” A bluff. “I admit nothing more.”

If her children are like the galaxy, filling her life with colour and meaning and wonder (and sometimes chaos, too) — then Everett is still the sun, the epicentral anchor around whom her days are centered. 

After-all, Nena will soon be leaving them for university, and Cyrus – who’s become as much Everett’s son as her own – is finally every bit the successful, independent man he dreamt of being (or thought he already was) in his early twenties. Soon, it’ll be just the two of them again. Just she and Everett in their twilight years, as their children blink in and out of their daily lives like fiery-tailed comets. 

“Bene, he looks like a particularly stupid deer. Hmph... We should ask Cyrus. I bet he would agree with me.” The mother stubbornly defends. So fiercely proud of her son, Vivianne is, even if she does maintain some stoicism whenever he visits, for the sake of not fanning the flames of his already healthy ego. Maybe finally healthy is a better term for it. After almost two decades of rebuilding all the brittle, broken parts of him and making up for the damage she herself had sowed in the two decades before it.

“We know precious little about him… Isn’t he a whole year older? We’ve almost never spoken to him.” Naturally, that wasn’t counting the times he’d dropped Maddalena off at home, or the small talk the boy had made earlier today while waiting for her. Everett had opened the door and engaged him rather pleasantly, while Vivianne had hung further back in the foyer, watching like a hawk. He’d spoken to Everett politely enough, and there was some admitted entertainment to be found when his eyes would dart nervously over her husband’s shoulder only to find hers staring right back.

Not that the conversation had lasted long, anyway. 

No, Maddalena had made sure of that; bolting down the stairs two by two; a long-legged, hair-streaming flash, the moment she’d heard her father’s voice mixing with that of her crush. Funny, Vivianne thinks drily. For a girl who could spend ten hours getting ready, there was nothing quite like the risk of parental embarrassment to get her out the door at the impressive speed of light.

“… Maybe we shouldn’t have let her leave so fast.” She frets now. They had stared at each other in bemusement after that. After their daughter’s blushing goodbyes and the hasty slam of the front door still echoing in their ears. Half an hour later, they’re still discussing it in the kitchen. “Inoltre,” Vivianne sniffs, “If I were still Capobastone of an international syndicate, he wouldn’t have dared make such a hasty escape.”

But Everett’s laugh is a brilliant, carefree sound that never fails to monopolize her attention. Her eyes flicker back to his face, to that wide, easy grin, the amusement glinting in his green eyes and to his salt-and-pepper hair – which she thinks, entirely objectively – has never suited a man so handsomely as it does him. 

Not that his good looks stop her from objecting when he defends the boy’s youth. 

“Please. He’s hardly a teen, I was a full adult at his age.” Her voice drips with scorn as she watches Everett cook, and pulls fresh, if slightly crumpled leaves of parsley out from her apron to smooth lovingly on the counter next to him. “I bet I never looked so silly at eighteen,” Vivianne grumbles, more to herself than to her husband.

‘… When we were in university, I used to stare at you like a deer in the headlights when I thought you weren’t looking, and you still proposed to me.’

“More’s the pity,” Instantly, the threat of a blush begins to pool in her cheeks. Much to her chagrin, it never fails to spring at the reminder of how exactly they ended up hitched. “Look how I turned out.” The woman bites back, though it’s toothless when paired with the fact that she hasn’t made any move to step away from Everett as he abandons his cooking briefly and moves closer to her, curling his fingers around the pocket of her apron. It’s dangerous, that smile. A little deadlier every year for how it chips away at the sustained seconds of her resistance. Already, she feels her insides beginning to soften under his spell. Still, there’s something to be said about facades, even after all these years, so Vivianne lifts her arms to fold them tightly across her chest as he tugs her closer with that devilishly charming expression.

“ — E comunque, Craven. I was half out of my mind when I said it… You know that.”

L’EPILOGO. @lavolumnia​

In the end, despite her rebellious spirit, it’s more difficult to break away from Verona than ever Vivianne would’ve imagined. 

From a practical perspective, it was to be expected. Setting the stage for such an exit– an absence that few knew would be more than just a temporary business trip – was a bold and clandestine endeavor. They’d agonized over every detail, she and Everett, for what felt like an eternity. Yet at the same time, the date chosen for their departure seemed to hurtle towards them, like an unbroken stallion crashing through a gate.

But what had proven most difficult by far, was the part of it concerning matters of the heart. Perhaps it was her fault for always underestimating them – and anything else related to that overly-sentimental organ– but every goodbye seemed to tug at the few heartstrings she had left and tempted her terribly to reconsider. Better the devil you know, she’d thought to herself more than once since having privately voiced her decision in March. But every droplet of blood shed between then and now reinforced the need make a change, come hell or high water.

So at long last, when it was all set in motion, she broke the news to Harriet, too. With glistening eyes, she thanked the woman for her friendship above all else, and for tirelessly preserving in the Underboss that tiny flame of human vulnerability, which Vivianne herself had often wanted to snuff out. She thanked the woman for being wiser, kinder, for knowing better, and for being as unwavering as an anchor in a blue-green sea. It wouldn’t be the last time they see each other, she knew, but it’d never again be as simple as popping by Harriet’s charming home or being mercilessly dragged through twinkling Christmas markets every year at the woman’s will.

All the more impossible to say goodbye to Juliana. They wouldn’t be able to see each other again, at least not with the relative ease that Harriet’s neutrality provided her, not without bringing considerable risk to one another. It wasn’t just the remoteness of future rendezvous that made it such a heartbreaking endeavour to part ways.

Juliana had always been closer to a daughter to the woman than a mentee, or a mere protégée. There was something more bitter than sweet in having to leave her. 

So much so that she’d blurted it out one night, paired with an idea that up until then, had existed only within the bounds of her bridled fantasy. “What if you retired from it too, cara mia?… You’ve found the power and the voice that I always wanted for you, but I fear that a life in la mafia will make you no happier than it did me, in the end. If you want to, I will stay long enough to help you achieve it.” Juliana had gazed at her for a long while after that, equal parts warmth and sadness in her beautiful eyes. For a moment, Vivianne dreamt that she’d convinced her. But then the girl had lifted her palms to cup the Underboss’ face, and in her sweet nightingale voice, had told her no.

Still, Vivianne has hope.  

Hope, maybe it’s Everett who taught her that.Hope that maybe one day, Juliana will make a similar choice. End her association with the mob not as a thief in the night, but a trailblazer; dismantling it slowly, from the inside out.

It wasn’t a conversation she’d even attempted with Tiberius, on the other hand, who’d condescended just enough to give her a bone-tight embrace though little else during her final hour in Capulet Headquarters. That he’d managed to hold his tongue while doing it, was perhaps the most selfless gift he could afford her. 

The other goodbyes were silent, one-sided things. Squeezing Halcyon’s hand on a walk one day, feeling a melancholic stab as she wondered what would become of the Captain, when she was no longer there to guide her. Attending baking class one final Thursday and making pasticciotti with Castora; going as far as to let the Montague get in a verbal jab without a characteristically immediate riposte. The same with a few others left that mattered… She took note of such final, fleeting things; a smile here, a funny retort there, and tucked them safely away to the back of her mind.

In the end, it’s a lot of uprooting for a woman who’d spent the better part of the last decade convinced she had nothing left to lose. 

And while Everett spends his final hour in the city kneeling inside a derelict church, Vivianne strolls through a dusky graveyard; hoping to put to rest some of the last ties that lie dormant here and that have haunted her for years. Quietly, she says goodbye to her parents once more. Knowing she’ll carry her childhood and their memories no matter where she goes— but willing to unshackle herself from the dead-weight.

She can’t change the past. All that’s left is to look to the future.

Their future… A surge of rebellious butterfly wings beat beneath her ribcage as she rejoins Everett in the old Cattedrale, standing next to him, side by side. 

Anything’s possible, so long as it starts and stays that way.

They don’t linger long. Soon, they’re back on an empty road and then finally, finally on a windswept landing strip. Everything they’ve ever dreamt of has led up to this moment. He’s unusually quiet as they wait together on the tarmac, and her lips tease up into a smile as she slips an arm around his waist and gives him an affectionate squeeze. Everett draws her close with a shaky breath, kissing the crown of her head.

There’s no more goodbyes to be said, and on her part she’s glad for it. She’s rather sick of goodbyes. Vivianne tugs at his evergreen tie to bring his mouth down before rising on the toes of her high heels. “Hello, caro futuro...” She murmurs before kissing him. It’s delicate and unhurried, despite the pulse still hammering in her throat. “… Have I told you that I-...” She trails off, drumming her fingers playfully against his sternum. And then she cocks a brow and pulls away. “Bene, you’ll just have to get onboard for the rest of that confession.” Vivianne tells him, half coy, half rhetorical. 

 A few feet away, the plane’s ramp begins its slow descent towards the ground.

They watch it a minute or so until it settles and locks in place with an echoing clang, sending up miniscule whirls of dust on either side. One heartbeat, two…

She reaches for Everett’s hand.