Chapter 211 Book 2 CHPT 43: Hokkaido

Chapter 211 Book 2 CHPT 43: Hokkaido
ALINA

Dante now controlled what remained of the Romano empire.

Not as a tyrant. Not as a puppet of old rules.

But as a man who understood what power truly cost.

There had been peace.

A strange, unfamiliar peace, the kind that hummed beneath your skin and never let you forget what it had cost to earn.

But peace did not heal everything.

I was living proof of that.

“Alina…” Giulia’s voice broke through my thoughts, soft and careful, pulling me back from the edges of memory.

I blinked slowly, forcing myself into the present.

“Yes?” I whispered, my voice smaller than I expected.

She stepped closer, her gaze dropping briefly to the swell of my stomach before returning to my face.

“You are due for delivery any moment now,” she reminded me gently.

I nodded slowly.

“I know,” I murmured, my voice hollowed by six months of grief that still refused to leave me.

Her lips pressed together, her brow tightening as she chose her words carefully.

“You said you didn’t want to give birth here,” she said softly.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Not in a place that still feels like… this. Not in this city that reminds me of him every single second.”

I exhaled slowly, letting the cool Toronto air fill my lungs. My gaze drifted toward the window, toward the endless white stretching across the city.

This place was far from the bloodshed, far from the chaos, far from the guns and screams.

But the memories were not.

Every night I still saw him.

I still heard him. I still felt him.

I felt the hot, heavy warmth of his blood slipping through my fingers. I heard his voice, low and ragged, whispering, “Moglie mia (my wife),” like it was the only thing left for him in this world.

I remembered his last look, pleading for me to be strong, even as his life left him.

I closed my eyes, a shudder ripping through my body.

The ache in my chest deepened, heavy and constant.

“I bought the villa,” I whispered finally, my voice barely more than a breath, trembling as if the words themselves were too heavy to carry.

Giulia’s brows lifted slightly, a quiet question in her gaze.

“In the mountains of Hokkaido, Japan,” I continued.

“A secluded, quiet, peaceful place behind the mountains, where no one will find us.”

I pressed a hand to my stomach, feeling the life growing within me, the tether to hope, to love, to what was left of Valentino.

“It’s where I will raise our child,” I said, though my chest still ached with the weight of loss.

“It’s where I will finally breathe and heal from all the pain.”

Valentino had always dreamed of Hokkaido.

He loved the land, the quiet rhythm of life there, the culture, the snow-laden winters, and the gentle simplicity of it all.

He once told me that if he hadn’t been a Don, bound by power, blood, and responsibility, he would have been a farmer there—living quietly, tending the land, raising a family, and finding peace in the ordinary beauty of life.

I wanted to grant him that wish.

To give birth to our child in the place he loved, to honor the life he could have had, and to let our bambino grow surrounded by the peace he always longed for.

Here, far from the violence, I could carry on the love he left behind and maybe, just maybe, make a life he would have been proud to see.

Giulia studied me for a long moment, her expression unreadable, yet I felt understanding in her eyes.

She nodded slowly.

“Va bene (alright),” she said at last, her voice low, firm. “Then it’s time to leave.”

My chest tightened—not with fear, but with the gravity of leaving this place, leaving a life I had known, leaving a chapter of myself that could never return.

I looked down at my stomach again, brushing my fingers lightly over the curve that carried the last piece of Valentino left in this world.

A lump formed in my throat, but I swallowed it down.

I had cried enough. I had broken enough.

Now I had to live.

For him.

For the man I had lost.

For the last fragment of love he had left in me.

I inhaled sharply, the cold air biting my lungs, and felt the sharp edge of grief alongside the soft thread of hope.

“Ti amo (I love you),” I whispered again, though I wasn’t sure if I was speaking to him or the life about to enter the world.

Maybe both.

I glanced once more at Toronto, the city of my past, and felt the pull of the future waiting in a far-off land: Hokkaido.

I tightened my fingers over my stomach, feeling our child stir gently.

“It’s time to go, my love,” I whispered, letting the cold Toronto air fill my lungs one last time.