Chapter 9 - The Ghost of Vittorio DeLuca
Vittorio DeLuca had supposedly died sixteen years earlier.
Closed coffin.
Private burial.
No public viewing.
Dominic had been told the body was too badly damaged after a boating accident for identification by sight.
Dental records had confirmed it.
Or so everyone believed.
Marco discovered the dentist who signed those records had received half a million dollars through an offshore account three weeks later.
Dominic sat in the library staring at the evidence.
“My father is dead.”
It sounded less like certainty than prayer.
I sat beside him.
“What if he isn't?”
Dominic looked older than fifty that night.
“Then everything I built rests on a lie.”
“No.”
His eyes moved toward me.
“Everything you built happened whether he lived or died.”
He said nothing.
“You spent twenty-three years changing your family's businesses.”
“He would call it weakness.”
“Do you care?”
A pause.
“No.”
“Then stop giving a ghost voting rights.”
His mouth shifted.
“You have become extremely comfortable giving me orders.”
“I own eighty-three point two percent of my own company. It has gone to my head.”
That earned the smallest laugh.
By morning, Marco found Vittorio.
Not in Sicily.
Not South America.
Rhode Island.
He had spent years living under another identity in a secluded coastal estate while controlling remnants of his old organization through intermediaries.
Salvatore had not been the architect.
He had been another son desperate for his father's approval.
Vittorio requested a meeting.
Dominic agreed.
So did I.
“No,” Dominic said.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“We've had this argument.”
“And I disliked the outcome last time.”
“Marriage is repetitive.”
The meeting took place at noon in a waterfront restaurant closed to the public.
Police and federal agents were nearby.
Dominic had no intention of repeating his brother's warehouse drama.
Vittorio entered using a cane.
He was eighty-two.
Thin.
Elegant.
Terrifying only because everyone else behaved as though he were.
He looked at Dominic.
Then me.
“So this is Helena's daughter.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“My wife.”
Vittorio smiled.
“Even better.”
I disliked him instantly.
We sat.
Vittorio didn't.
He walked toward the windows.
“You destroyed what I built.”
“I cleaned it.”
“You made us ordinary.”
“I made us legal.”
“Same thing.”
Dominic leaned back.
“What do you want?”
“You.”
Vittorio turned.
“Back where you belong.”
“No.”
No hesitation.
Vittorio's expression tightened.
“You think this woman changed you?”
“No.”
Dominic glanced at me.
“She simply made me stop apologizing for having changed myself.”
I had never loved him more.
Vittorio placed a folder on the table.
Evidence.
Judges.
Police officers.
Businessmen.
Old payoffs.
Old crimes.
Enough to damage dozens of reputations.
“If I release this,” Vittorio said, “your respectable empire burns with mine.”
Dominic opened the folder.
He read three pages.
Then closed it.
“All right.”
Vittorio blinked.
“What?”
“Release it.”
“You'll lose everything.”
“Possibly.”
“Your hotels. Ports. Contracts.”
“Possibly.”
“Your name.”
Dominic smiled faintly.
“You've misunderstood me for fifty years. I never cared about the name.”
Vittorio looked at me.
“And you? You'd stand beside him while he throws away billions?”
I thought about the ballroom.
About a girl holding champagne with both hands because she was terrified of embarrassment.
That girl would have cared what Boston thought.
I didn't.
“I'd rather have a husband who can sleep at night.”
Dominic looked at me.
Vittorio's smile disappeared.
He had built his entire life on leverage.
And suddenly he had none.
The door opened.
Federal agents entered.
Vittorio turned sharply.
Dominic had already handed copies of the folder to prosecutors before the meeting.
The old man stared at his son.
“You betrayed your blood.”
Dominic stood.
“No.”
His voice was almost gentle.
“I stopped inheriting its mistakes.”
Vittorio was arrested.
The investigations that followed were ugly.
Names appeared in newspapers.
Old DeLuca companies were examined.
Dominic voluntarily relinquished two board positions while independent audits reviewed transactions predating his reforms.
He cooperated.
Some people called him weak.
Others called him courageous.
He ignored both.
For the first time, the DeLuca family had no hidden king.
Months passed.
Winter softened into spring.
One morning, I found Dominic on our terrace staring over Boston.
I wrapped my arms around him from behind.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Retirement.”
I laughed.
“You'd survive three hours.”
“Four.”
“Optimistic.”
He turned.
There was something in his hand.
A small velvet box.
My heart stopped.
“Dominic.”
“Our first marriage was practical.”
He opened the box.
Inside was a diamond ring.
Elegant.
Old.
Beautiful.
“I would like another.”
I stared at him.
“You're already my husband.”
“Yes.”
“That's generally how marriage works.”
“I want you to choose me without Salvatore, without contracts, without danger, without needing protection.”
His voice became quieter.
“I want to know whether, when nothing forces you to stay, you still will.”
I looked at the man who had once given me a longer drive home because he understood that silence could be kindness.
Then I closed the box.
His face fell.
I smiled.
“You're doing this wrong.”
His brows drew together.
I took his hand.
“If we're doing it again, I get to propose too.”
May you like
For once in his life, Dominic DeLuca had absolutely nothing to say.
And I intended to enjoy every second of it.
