Chapter 4 - The Price of Loving Salvatore
The photograph arrived at midnight.
It showed me outside the café with Ethan.
A red circle had been drawn around my head.
Beneath it:
THE OLD MAN FINALLY HAS SOMETHING TO LOSE.
Salvatore stared at the photograph for approximately three seconds.
Then the penthouse transformed.
Doors locked.
Security doubled.
Phones appeared.
Men began speaking in clipped Italian.
I stood in the middle of our living room and watched the man I loved disappear behind the face everyone else feared.
“Who sent it?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Then let me help.”
“No.”
My head snapped up.
“No?”
“You will stay here.”
“That wasn't a question.”
“Neither was my answer.”
There it was.
The first real fight of our relationship.
“I am not furniture you can lock inside your penthouse.”
“This is not negotiable.”
“Everything involving my life is negotiable.”
His eyes flashed.
“Not when someone threatens to put a bullet in you.”
“And if they threaten you?”
“That is different.”
“Why?”
“Because I chose this life.”
“And I chose you.”
Silence.
Everyone in the room suddenly became fascinated by their phones.
Salvatore lowered his voice.
“Lily.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“You don't get to love my independence when it's charming and confiscate it when you're scared.”
His expression shifted.
That landed.
“I am scared,” he said.
The room seemed to stop.
Salvatore did not admit fear.
Perhaps not even to himself.
He turned toward his men.
“Leave us.”
They disappeared.
When we were alone, he removed his jacket.
“I buried one woman I loved.”
His voice was quieter now.
“I will not bury another.”
My anger softened.
But I refused to surrender the point.
“And I won't spend my marriage locked behind bulletproof glass because you're afraid of losing me.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Protect me. Don't erase me.”
He looked at me for a long time.
Then nodded once.
“Fair.”
That became our rule.
Security, yes.
Prison, no.
The threat came from Victor Bellini, a rival businessman whose organization had been losing territory and contracts to Salvatore for years.
Except something didn't fit.
Victor had never targeted families.
Salvatore knew it.
So did his consigliere, Luca Moretti.
“This is sloppy,” Luca said the following morning.
Salvatore studied the photograph.
“Victor isn't sloppy.”
“Someone wants you looking at him.”
I walked into the study carrying coffee.
Both men stopped talking.
“Continue.”
Salvatore frowned.
“Lily.”
“Protect me. Don't erase me. Remember?”
Luca coughed to hide a smile.
Salvatore glared at him.
Luca suddenly found the ceiling fascinating.
They continued.
The investigation uncovered something stranger.
Someone had accessed my mother's medical records again.
Someone knew my schedule.
Someone knew Ethan had returned.
And someone had photographed our engagement party from inside the building.
The threat was closer than Victor Bellini.
Meanwhile, the public spectacle around our relationship became ridiculous.
Photographers camped outside.
Talk shows debated whether I had “daddy issues.”
One columnist called Salvatore “an aging king purchasing youth.”
I found him reading that one.
“Stop.”
He folded the newspaper.
“I was merely curious.”
“You were brooding.”
“I don't brood.”
“Strategic reading?”
“Precisely.”
I climbed into his lap.
He raised an eyebrow.
“You're interrupting.”
“Good.”
“You realize I have a meeting in seven minutes.”
“Cancel it.”
“I own the company.”
“Then complain to management.”
His arms closed around me.
That was how we survived the pressure.
Humor.
Honesty.
And occasionally locking Salvatore’s phone in a drawer.
Two weeks before the wedding, my mother invited him to lunch.
Alone.
He returned three hours later looking more nervous than after meetings with federal prosecutors.
“What happened?”
“Your mother interrogated me.”
I laughed.
“About?”
“Retirement plans.”
I laughed harder.
“Not funny.”
“Did she ask about your cholesterol?”
“Yes.”
That nearly killed me.
Salvatore removed his coat.
“She also asked whether I intend to have children.”
My laughter stopped.
We had never seriously discussed it.
Not because I didn't want children.
Because I knew what asking meant.
He was sixty-five.
I was twenty-seven.
“What did you say?”
“That the decision belongs to us.”
“And what do you want?”
He sat beside me.
“I thought that part of my life was over.”
“That isn't an answer.”
He smiled faintly.
“You've become annoyingly good at saying that.”
“Learned from an expert.”
He took my hand.
“If you want children, Lily, I would be honored to have them with you.”
My throat tightened.
“But?”
“But I need you to understand reality. I may be seventy-five when our child is ten.”
“And?”
“I may not see every milestone.”
There was no dramatic music.
No magical promise.
Just reality.
I squeezed his hand.
“Then we make whatever years we get count.”
His eyes lowered.
When he looked up again, they were bright.
Our wedding happened twelve days later.
Small chapel.
Forty guests.
My mother cried.
Luca cried harder and denied it.
Salvatore wore black.
I wore ivory silk.
When the priest asked Salvatore to repeat his vows, his voice broke on my name.
Just once.
Almost imperceptibly.
I heard it.
I squeezed his fingers.
At the reception, Ethan did not attend.
But flowers arrived.
White roses.
The card read:
Be happy. You deserve it. — Ethan
Salvatore read it.
Then looked at the flowers.
“You may keep those.”
“How mature.”
“I am evolving.”
I kissed him.
“I'm proud.”
He leaned closer.
“I still hate him.”
“Baby steps.”
For three months, marriage was surprisingly ordinary.
Salvatore left his cuff links everywhere.
I stole his shirts.
He complained about decorative pillows.
I discovered he secretly watched cooking competitions.
He discovered I ate cereal at midnight.
Then one November morning, I walked into his study holding a pregnancy test.
Two pink lines.
Salvatore stared at it.
Then at me.
Then back at it.
“Is that…”
“Yes.”
He sat down.
The most feared man in New York sat down because his knees apparently stopped working.
“You're pregnant?”
I nodded.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he covered his face.
“Salvatore?”
When his hands lowered, tears were running down his cheeks.
I had never seen him cry.
He stood.
Crossed the room.
Dropped to his knees.
And pressed his forehead gently against my stomach.
“Hello,” he whispered.
I laughed through my tears.
Then his phone rang.
He ignored it.
It rang again.
And again.
Finally he answered.
Luca spoke loudly enough that I heard four words.
“Salvatore, we found him.”
My husband slowly stood.
His happiness vanished.
“Who?”
Luca answered.
May you like
“The man watching Lily.”
And when Salvatore heard the name, his face went white.
