Chapter 15: Smoke and Vows

The funeral was quiet.

There wasn’t a body to bury — Ravan had burned with the warehouse after Helena planted the charges. But Matteo insisted on a ritual. For closure. For peace.

They scattered petals into the Ganges before dawn, the water dark and endless beneath the amber sky. Aaravi stood in silence, her fingers laced with Matteo’s, watching the current swallow the pain of generations.

“My father would’ve liked this,” she whispered.

Matteo nodded. “He would’ve been proud of you.”

She didn’t answer. But a tear slid down her cheek, and Matteo caught it with his thumb.

They didn’t speak on the drive back.

But something had shifted between them — a weight lifted, a fire dimmed. Not gone. But changed. The kind of pain that didn’t burn anymore, just… hummed.

---

Back in Jaipur, the city felt different.

The bookstore, which Aaravi hadn’t seen in weeks, still smelled like coffee and old pages. She opened the door and stepped inside like she was entering a memory.

Matteo stood behind her, quiet.

“You saved this place,” she said softly.

He shrugged. “It was yours before it was mine.”

She turned to him, heart heavy. “And now?”

He walked toward her, slow and sure, until his hands cradled her face.

“Now it’s ours. If you want it.”

She smiled — a real one. Small, but warm.

Then, softly, “I want everything with you.”

That was all it took.

He kissed her like the world was ending. Like they hadn’t just ended a war. Like she was the only thing that made sense in the chaos of his dark, broken empire.

He didn’t take her against a wall this time.

He carried her.

Upstairs, through the hallway, into her bedroom — the one filled with fairy lights and soft sketches of imaginary cities. He laid her on the bed like she was art. Undressed her slowly, reverently, his fingers shaking as he slid the fabric down her skin.

“Aaravi,” he breathed, kneeling over her, “do you even know what you’ve done to me?”

She touched his face. “Tell me.”

“I built a kingdom from blood,” he whispered. “But with you, I want to build a home.”

He entered her like he was surrendering.

This time, it wasn’t hard or fast. It was deep. Slow. Like he was memorizing her from the inside. She arched beneath him, sighing his name, her nails digging into his back as he moved — each thrust slow, steady, full of heat and ache.

When he finally came, it was with her name in his mouth, his forehead against hers, his body shuddering, lost.

And when she followed, she cried — not from pain, not from pleasure, but from the overwhelming truth of it:

She loved a mafia king.

And he had given her every piece of himself.

Even the broken ones.

---

The next morning, they didn’t get out of bed.

Matteo had one arm slung over her waist, his other hand tracing lazy circles along her back.

“Marry me,” he said softly.

Aaravi blinked. “What?”

“I said marry me.”

She stared at him.