Chapter 9 - THE HOUSE OF MORETTI
Three months later, the April sun poured through the tall windows of the dining room, catching the prism crystals of the chandeliers without a trace of winter sleet outside.
The long mahogany table where forty guests had once sat in cold silence was shortened now, covered in a simple cream linen cloth and set for six people on a Sunday afternoon.
There were no waiters standing like statues against the walls, and no armed men watching the doors from inside the house.
I walked through the swinging doors from the kitchen carrying a large ceramic platter of baked ziti—not in a gray uniform dress and white apron, but in a soft blue cashmere sweater and dark trousers.
Before I could set the heavy dish down, Luca stood up from the head of the table and took it from my hands himself.
“I told you ten minutes ago,” Luca said, a warm, rare crease appearing at the corners of his dark eyes as he placed the platter in the center of the table. “You aren’t working in this house anymore, Hannah. If you carry one more plate out of that kitchen, I’m locking the pantry door.”
“Somebody had to make sure you didn’t burn the garlic bread, big brother,” I teased softly, though my throat still tightened a little every time I said the words aloud.
Sitting to Luca’s right was my mother, Clara Collins—her silver hair neatly curled, her hip completely healed after the physical therapy Luca had arranged at Northwestern Memorial, and her hand resting warmly over Teresa Moretti’s hand on the tablecloth.
Across from them sat Adrian Costa, wearing a pressed flannel shirt and his reading glasses, helping eight-year-old Sophie put the final silver link onto a newly repaired charm bracelet.
In the ninety days since the night of the engagement dinner, the Chicago papers had been filled with the trial that ended the old Bellini-Moretti syndicate forever.
With Sonny Varga testifying under immunity and the paper trail from Vito Bellini’s safe, Michael Moretti and Vito had pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the tampering of the black sedan that killed Elena, while Vanessa took a five-year plea deal for unlawful restraint and extortion.
And Luca had done something no one in Chicago believed a Moretti boss could ever do: he had turned the South Side dock leases over to a legitimate maritime logistics board, shut down his father’s old rackets, and restructured the family holdings into commercial real estate and construction.
“There,” Sophie announced proudly, holding up the silver charm bracelet so the afternoon sunlight hit the tiny charms hanging from the chain.
Instead of Vanessa’s cold diamonds, Adrian had helped a local jeweler melt down the broken gold casing of Elena’s father’s pocket watch—replacing the cracked face and mounting the miniature gold timepiece onto the center of a sturdy silver band alongside the faded tin star from Sophie’s pink suitcase.
Sophie slipped off her chair and walked around the table to stand between Teresa’s wheelchair and my chair.
“It’s for you, Aunt Hannah,” Sophie said simply, holding the bracelet out with both hands. “Grandpa fixed Mommy’s watch so it ticks again, and I put my silver star on it because you stayed with me when I was scared.”
My eyes blurred with hot, sudden tears as I knelt beside her chair and let her small fingers fasten the clasp around my wrist—right over the faint white scar where I had grabbed Vanessa’s arm by the north gate.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” I whispered, hugging her tightly as she wrapped both arms around my neck. “I’m never taking it off.”
“You live here now, right?” Sophie asked against my shoulder, her voice carrying that small, careful weight children get when they’ve seen too many people leave. “And Grandma Clara stays in the sunny room next to Grandma Teresa, and Grandpa Adrian comes over every day after school?”
“Every single day, principessa,” Luca answered before I could, resting his large hand on the back of his daughter’s head while his other hand came to rest firmly on my shoulder. “Nobody is ever leaving you behind again.”
At the table, Teresa lifted her water glass with her left hand—steadier now after twelve weeks of real daily speech and occupational therapy with a specialist who came to the house four mornings a week.
“To… my… children,” Teresa said clearly, her dark eyes shining as she looked from Luca, to me, and then to Clara, the woman who had protected her baby girl for twenty-five years when the world was on fire. “And… to… Elena.”
Adrian raised his glass, the bitterness that had aged him for four long years finally gone from his face as he looked at his granddaughter smiling between us.
“To Elena,” Adrian said softly. “She tried to get her little girl somewhere safe. I think she can rest easy knowing we finally got there.”
After dinner, while Adrian and Clara took Sophie out to the conservatory to plant spring bulbs in the terra-cotta pots along the repaired glass terrace, Luca walked me out onto the stone patio overlooking the quiet green lawn.
He reached into his suit jacket and handed me a thick cream-colored folder—not a pawn ticket or a blackmail receipt, but the deed to the three-flat building on Western Avenue, transferred jointly into my name and Clara’s, along with the paperwork for the pediatric speech-therapy scholarship fund he had just endowed at St. Jude’s Hospital in Teresa’s and Elena’s names.
“You start your classes at Loyola next month,” Luca said quietly, looking out over the open iron gates at the end of the driveway, which stood wide open to the afternoon sun for the first time in Sophie’s life. “You spent twenty-five years on the outside of this family paying for our father’s war, Hannah, and eleven months scrubbing floors in your own house while I didn’t even know your name. You don’t owe anybody another paycheck for your dignity.”
May you like
I looked down at the silver rosary Teresa had given me, tucked safely beside the ticking gold watch charm on my wrist, and leaned my head against my brother’s arm as Sophie’s laughter drifted out from the conservatory doors.
For the first time in four years, the house wasn’t a fortress anymore; it was finally a home.
