Chapter 9 - THE HEAD OF THE TABLE
Three months later.
The heavy silver centerpiece wasn't half as difficult to carry when both of your arms worked properly—and when you weren't terrified of the people sitting around the dining room table.
Not that I was supposed to be carrying it at all.
"Sophie, if you don't put that down right now, Mrs. Carter is going to have my head," a voice said from the doorway.
I turned around and smiled.
Luca stood leaning against the mahogany doorframe of the dining room. He wasn't wearing a stiff black suit tonight. He wore a soft charcoal cashmere sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, looking younger and infinitely lighter than the man I had served three months ago.
Before I could answer, he walked over, took the heavy silver bowl of white winter roses out of my hands, and set it squarely in the center of the long table himself.
"You aren't on the clock anymore," Luca said softly, his dark eyes warming as he looked down at me. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I took you off the payroll in November."
"Old habits die hard, Mr. Moretti," I teased, smoothing the front of my emerald green velvet dress—a dress he had insisted on buying when I told him I didn't have anything nice enough for Christmas Eve dinner.
"It's Luca," he corrected gently, reaching out to tuck a loose curl behind my ear, his thumb brushing lightly over my collarbone where the white sling used to sit. "And if you call me Mr. Moretti in front of the kids again, Maya is going to charge you another quarter for the swear jar."
As if on cue, the sound of rapid footsteps echoed down the grand hallway.
Ten-year-old Leo came sliding across the polished parquet floor in his wool socks, holding a freshly built wooden model airplane above his head, with my five-year-old daughter Maya chasing right behind him in a sparkly red dress, giggling at the top of her lungs.
"Uncle Luca!" Leo called out, skidding to a halt beside the table, his cheeks pink and healthy. "Grandma Bennett said the lasagna is ready, and she said we don't have to use the tiny forks for the salad!"
"Your Grandma Bennett is the boss of the kitchen now," Luca said gravely, resting a hand on his nephew's shoulder. "Whatever she says goes."
A lot had changed since that night at Union Station.
The photographs on Andrew Keller's Leica camera—combined with the files on the micro-SD card and Dr. Harris's full confession to avoid a murder charge—had blown the roof off Chicago's political establishment.
The Deputy Police Commissioner and Vanessa Bellini were both currently sitting in federal custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, facing life sentences without parole for the murder of Elena Moretti and Andrew Keller, alongside federal extortion charges.
When Viktor Bellini saw the photograph of his own daughter murdering the photographer to steal five million dollars he didn't even know existed, the old port boss had publicly disowned her and signed over his entire southside shipping fleet to Luca's logistics company just to keep the Moretti name out of the prosecutor's office.
And Luca had used that clean shipping company to finally step out of the shadows, turning his family's empire into a completely legitimate enterprise so Leo would never have to look over his shoulder again.
My mother walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel and smiling warmly at the sight of the two children setting out the napkins together.
After the night at our basement apartment on Fullerton, Luca had refused to let us return there. He had moved all three of us into the sunny east wing of the mansion—far away from the upstairs guest room, which he had ordered gutted and turned into a sunlit library and playroom for Leo and Maya.
"Dinner is on the sideboard," my mother announced happily, ushering the kids toward their chairs.
I started to step back toward the kitchen door out of pure muscle memory, used to waiting in the hallway while the family ate.
Luca caught my right hand.
He didn't pull my arm, mindful even after three months of the healed muscle beneath my shoulder blade. Instead, he laced his warm fingers through mine and led me to the head of the table.
He pulled out the high-backed velvet chair to his immediate right—the chair where Vanessa had sat in her red silk gown and diamonds.
"Luca, I can sit down by Maya," I whispered, my cheeks warming.
"Maya and Leo are busy arguing over who gets the corner piece of lasagna," Luca said quietly, his dark eyes holding mine with that steady, unwavering intensity that still made my breath catch.
He reached into his pocket and placed a small, rectangular velvet box on the white tablecloth beside my plate.
I opened it with trembling fingers.
Inside wasn't a forty-thousand-dollar diamond meant to show off to twenty-four corrupt politicians.
It was the deed to a newly established college trust fund in both Maya and Leo's names—and resting on top of the folded paper was a delicate gold locket on a thin chain.
When I clicked the locket open, one side held a tiny photograph of my mother, Maya, and me laughing in the mansion's snow-covered garden last week. The other side held a picture of Luca and Leo building a model train set on the study floor.
"You saved my nephew's life, Sophie," Luca murmured, leaning down so only I could hear him over the happy chatter of our family at the table. "And you brought life back into this house. You never have to carry anything heavy alone again."
He helped me sit down, pushing my chair in gently before taking his seat at the head of the table.
May you like
Looking down the warm, candlelit table at my mother pouring apple cider for the two laughing children, the pain in my back was finally nothing more than a faded memory.
I was home.
