Chapter 10 - THE TABLE BY THE WINDOW
Clara opened Salvatore Russo’s letter on a Sunday morning.
Dominic sat beside her.
He had offered to leave.
She asked him to stay.
The letter was short.
Salvatore admitted he had failed Thomas Jenkins.
He had promised to protect him but waited too long to act against Gallagher.
After Thomas’s murder, Salvatore created a trust for Clara and her mother.
He never had the opportunity to deliver it.
The trust contained ownership shares in several legitimate properties.
Over eleven years, their value had grown to more money than Clara could comprehend.
She read the final paragraph twice.
Thomas was braver than I was. If his daughter ever receives this, tell her the money is not payment for her father’s life. Nothing could be. It is simply something that should have reached her long ago.
Clara lowered the letter.
Dominic said nothing.
Finally she whispered, “I don’t know what to do with it.”
“You don’t have to decide today.”
“What would you do?”
“The old me?”
“Yes.”
“Buy something unnecessary.”
“And the new you?”
Dominic thought.
“Ask you what you want.”
Clara smiled.
Six months later, she knew.
The Jenkins Foundation opened in Ohio with programs supporting physical rehabilitation for low-income families.
Clara’s mother attended the opening.
She cried through the entire ceremony.
Clara cried harder.
Dominic denied crying at all.
Sofia produced photographic evidence.
Victor framed it.
Life became surprisingly ordinary.
Dominic still had enemies.
He still carried scars from the world he had inherited.
But the criminal empire disappeared piece by piece.
Legitimate businesses remained.
Giovanni’s Prime survived.
Paulie finally stopped sweating every time Dominic entered.
Mostly.
Clara became a partner in the restaurant using part of her inheritance.
Her first decision was raising employee wages.
Her second was banning gym brochures from the premises.
Dominic objected.
She ignored him.
One year after the night they met, Dominic reserved the same corner booth.
Clara arrived after closing.
The restaurant was empty.
One table remained set.
Two glasses.
One silver pitcher of ice water.
Clara laughed.
“You’re brave.”
Dominic stood.
“Sit.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Excuse me?”
“Would you please sit?”
“Better.”
They ate ribeye.
Medium rare.
Perfectly cooked.
After dinner, Dominic pushed an envelope across the table.
Clara stared suspiciously.
“What is it?”
“A contract.”
“Very romantic.”
“Read it.”
She opened it.
It was not a marriage contract.
It transferred Dominic’s ownership interest in Giovanni’s to the restaurant employees.
Clara looked up.
“You’re giving it away?”
“Not giving. Transferring.”
“Why?”
“Because Paulie told me something.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
“He said the staff still become nervous when I walk through the door.”
Clara smiled.
“Can’t imagine why.”
“I don’t want people working in fear because of my name.”
She closed the folder.
“I’m proud of you.”
Dominic looked away.
Praise still embarrassed him.
Clara loved that.
Then he reached beneath the table.
She immediately pointed at him.
“No giant diamond.”
Dominic froze.
“You ruined it.”
“You are extremely predictable.”
He laughed.
Then he came around the table.
Clara’s heart began pounding.
He knelt.
This time there were no cameras.
No audience.
No mobsters.
No terrified customers.
Only Clara.
Dominic opened a small box.
Inside was a simple oval diamond surrounded by a thin gold band.
Normal.
Almost.
“I practiced this speech.”
“Oh no.”
“And forgot all of it.”
“Good.”
He looked up at her.
The arrogance she had first seen in those steel-gray eyes was gone.
Not completely.
Dominic would always be Dominic.
But it no longer ruled him.
“I spent most of my life thinking love meant possession,” he said. “Then you taught me that if someone cannot leave, choosing to stay means nothing.”
Clara’s eyes filled.
“So I’m asking. No pressure. No audience. No expectation.”
He took a breath.
“Clara Jenkins, will you marry me?”
She deliberately waited.
Dominic’s confidence cracked after three seconds.
“Clara?”
She waited another second.
“Are you enjoying this?”
“Immensely.”
He laughed.
Then her expression softened.
“Yes.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
Relief transformed his face.
“Yes?”
“Yes, you idiot.”
He slid the ring onto her finger.
Clara pulled him up by his collar and kissed him.
Then she whispered against his mouth, “Medium rare.”
“What?”
“You forgot dessert.”
Dominic stared at her.
She laughed.
Two months later, they married in a small ceremony beside Lake Michigan.
Clara wore ivory.
Dominic wore black.
Her mother sat in the front row beside Sofia.
Victor served as best man.
Paulie cried harder than anyone and denied it afterward.
There were no reporters.
No social media livestream.
No empire watching.
When the officiant asked Dominic whether he took Clara as his wife, he answered before the sentence was finished.
Clara elbowed him.
“Let the man finish.”
Everyone laughed.
Dominic did too.
Three years later, Giovanni’s Prime remained one of Chicago’s busiest restaurants.
On Tuesday evenings, Clara sometimes worked the dining room simply because she missed it.
One rainy night, she approached the corner booth carrying a silver pitcher.
Dominic sat there with their two-year-old daughter, Emilia, perched on his lap.
The little girl had Clara’s stubborn chin and Dominic’s gray eyes.
Clara set down the water.
“Gentleman.”
Dominic looked around.
“Who?”
“Sorry. Force of habit.”
Emilia giggled.
Dominic pointed at the pitcher.
“Careful.”
Clara smiled.
“Why?”
“I know what you do with those.”
She poured his glass.
The water reached the rim.
Dominic watched suspiciously.
Clara kept pouring.
Water spilled across the table and onto his cuff.
He stared at her.
Clara stared back.
Emilia gasped dramatically.
Then Dominic laughed.
Not the dark laugh of the man who had frightened an entire restaurant years earlier.
A real one.
Warm.
Unprotected.
Clara leaned down and kissed him.
“Still fragile?”
“Completely.”
“Good.”
He caught her hand before she could walk away.
“Stay.”
Clara looked around the crowded restaurant.
“I’m working.”
“I know.”
“People need their food.”
“I know.”
She smiled.
Then she sat beside him anyway.
For years, Dominic Russo had believed power meant making other people kneel.
He had built a life around fear and called it respect.
Then a plus-sized waitress with aching feet, an impossible mouth, and more courage than anyone he had ever known had refused to bend.
She had not become smaller for him.
She had not softened herself to make him comfortable.
She had not needed him to rescue her.
Instead, she had demanded that if he wanted a place beside her, he become the kind of man worthy of standing there.
And somehow, against every expectation, he had.
Emilia reached for the water pitcher.
Clara caught it.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
Dominic laughed.
“She gets that from you.”
“The attitude?”
“The courage.”
Clara looked at him.
“No.”
She placed their daughter’s little hand inside his.
“She gets that from both of us.”
Outside, Chicago disappeared beneath the rain.
Inside Giovanni’s, glasses clinked, candles burned, and families talked over plates of pasta and steak.
Nobody fell silent when Dominic entered anymore.
Nobody lowered their eyes.
Nobody was afraid.
And at the same corner table where their story had begun with an insult, a pitcher of ice water, and two people determined to hate each other, Dominic Russo looked across at his wife and understood the lesson it had taken him a lifetime to learn.
Love was never about making someone kneel.
May you like
It was about finding the person worth standing beside.
And Clara Jenkins had been standing all along.
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