Chapter 9 - THE FUTURE SHE WAS ALLOWED TO CHOOSE
A year after Chase’s arrest, Katarina woke before her alarm.
Her first instinct was still to check whether the clock was plugged in.
She hated that.
Then she learned not to hate it.
Healing did not mean never remembering.
It meant remembering without obeying the memory.
The alarm clock sat beside her bed.
Cord visible.
Plugged in.
Katarina had chosen the model herself.
Loud.
Ugly.
Reliable.
She smiled every time it rang.
Her apartment no longer looked temporary.
Photographs filled shelves.
Joanna drinking margaritas in Miami.
Katarina’s mother holding an enormous birthday cake.
Nathan asleep at a charity dinner while everyone else posed for pictures.
And Vittorio.
Not many photographs.
Enough.
One at a Phillies game where he looked deeply offended by stadium food.
Another at Christmas wearing a sweater Joanna had forced on him.
A third taken on the sidewalk outside Katarina’s apartment.
Vittorio laughing.
Actually laughing.
She loved that photograph most.
They had been dating eight months.
Slowly.
Sometimes painfully.
Katarina occasionally pulled away for reasons neither understood immediately.
Once Vittorio called three times because she did not answer for two hours.
When she saw the missed calls, panic hit.
Chase used to do that.
She told Vittorio.
He never called repeatedly again unless it was urgent.
Another time Vittorio arranged security outside her building after a suspicious vehicle appeared.
He forgot to ask her first.
Katarina was furious.
They argued.
Vittorio initially defended himself.
Then stopped.
“You’re right.”
“Stop saying that like it solves everything.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Then what happens?”
“I apologize. I change it. Then you decide whether that matters.”
It did.
The security was removed.
The car turned out to belong to a neighbor’s brother.
No catastrophe followed Katarina’s anger.
That mattered too.
At Servino Holdings, she thrived.
Her department expanded from four analysts to sixteen.
They created systems designed to identify internal fraud without turning employees into suspects.
Katarina insisted on independent reporting channels.
Vittorio occasionally complained compliance paperwork had doubled.
She reminded him fraud had once cost thirteen million dollars.
He stopped complaining.
Joanna became communications director.
Nathan claimed that decision would eventually destroy the company.
Joanna put his quote on a coffee mug.
Vittorio’s world changed as well.
Federal scrutiny of older Servino businesses forced restructuring.
Vittorio could have resisted.
Instead he moved aggressively toward legitimate holdings.
Construction.
Real estate.
Logistics.
Hospitality.
Private investment.
There were still whispers about the Servino name.
There probably always would be.
But Vittorio understood that inheriting a reputation did not require preserving every habit that created it.
One evening in October, he took Katarina to his childhood home outside Philadelphia.
Not the gated mansion gossip columns imagined.
A three-story stone house his mother still owned.
Inside, Vittorio showed Katarina Amelia’s room.
His sister.
Photographs remained.
Books.
A jewelry box.
A faded concert ticket.
Katarina stood beside a picture of seventeen-year-old Amelia making a ridiculous face.
“She looks fun.”
“She was.”
“You loved her.”
“Yes.”
“You still do.”
He looked at Katarina.
“Yes.”
She touched his hand.
“I’m glad.”
Vittorio’s mother joined them downstairs.
Lucia Servino was seventy-two and approximately five feet two inches of unstoppable opinion.
She hugged Katarina immediately.
Then examined Vittorio.
“You look thin.”
“I’m not.”
“You don’t eat.”
“I eat.”
“Katarina, does he eat?”
Katarina smiled.
“Constantly.”
Lucia nodded.
“Good girl.”
Vittorio sighed.
Dinner lasted three hours.
Lucia told embarrassing childhood stories.
Katarina learned Vittorio once cried because a pigeon stole his sandwich.
He denied it.
His mother produced photographic evidence.
On the drive home, Vittorio was silent.
Katarina looked at him.
“What?”
“You fit there.”
Her heart shifted.
“At your mother’s?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds suspiciously serious.”
“It is.”
Katarina looked out the window.
Vittorio did not push.
After several minutes, she said, “Serious still scares me.”
“I know.”
“Not because of you.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to wake up five years from now and realize I disappeared into another relationship.”
Vittorio pulled the car over.
Katarina frowned.
“What are you doing?”
“Listening properly.”
He turned off the engine.
She almost laughed.
Vittorio faced her.
“Then don’t disappear.”
“Excellent advice.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“Keep your apartment.”
She stared.
“What?”
“Keep your job. Your accounts. Your friends. Your ugly alarm clock.”
“My alarm clock is perfect.”
“It sounds like an air-raid siren.”
“Reliable.”
Vittorio smiled.
Then continued.
“If we ever live together, keep a room that is yours.”
Her expression softened.
“I don’t want your life smaller because I’m in it.”
Katarina’s eyes filled.
Vittorio reached toward her hand.
Stopped.
She took his instead.
“What if I want some parts combined?”
His face softened.
“Then combine those.”
“You make relationships sound like corporate restructuring.”
“It’s my vocabulary.”
She laughed.
By winter they began discussing moving in.
Discussing.
Not assuming.
They toured apartments together because Katarina refused to move into Vittorio’s penthouse.
“It feels like your territory.”
“It has furniture.”
“So does IKEA.”
Vittorio looked personally offended.
They eventually chose a new place.
Neither had lived there.
Neutral.
Two offices.
Two closets.
One absurd kitchen.
Katarina signed the lease herself.
The first night they moved in, Vittorio placed her alarm clock on the nightstand.
Then plugged it in.
Katarina watched.
He noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
That was not true.
Everything.
The gesture was so small nobody else would understand.
A cord.
An outlet.
A man leaving something exactly where she wanted it.
That night Katarina slept beside Vittorio.
At 6:30, the alarm screamed.
He nearly fell out of bed.
“What is wrong with that thing?”
Katarina laughed so hard she could barely breathe.
Vittorio glared at the clock.
“You’ve weaponized mornings.”
“Reliable.”
Three months later, Servino Holdings launched the Amelia Initiative.
Not a publicity foundation.
A confidential support program providing paid emergency leave, legal consultation and temporary housing for employees facing domestic abuse, stalking or coercive control.
Vittorio proposed naming it after Katarina.
She refused.
“This existed before me.”
So they named it after Amelia.
Vittorio’s sister.
The first employee used the program eleven days later.
Katarina never learned her name.
That was intentional.
She only received a note through the administrator.
Thank you for giving me somewhere to go before I was ready to explain.
Katarina kept the note.
One Friday evening, she found Vittorio standing in his office holding another paper.
“What is it?”
He handed it over.
The Amelia Initiative had been adopted by three partner companies.
More than seven thousand workers now had access.
Katarina smiled.
“She gave doors too.”
Vittorio understood.
“Yes.”
He looked at his sister’s photograph.
“For a long time I thought the only thing I could do with losing her was regret it.”
Katarina touched his arm.
“And now?”
“Now something exists because she existed.”
Katarina leaned against him.
They stood silently.
Then Vittorio said, “Dinner tomorrow?”
She smiled.
“Are you asking?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes.”
“Seven?”
“No.”
He looked suspicious.
“Why?”
“Eight.”
“Why eight?”
“I have plans with Joanna.”
“Of course.”
Katarina kissed his cheek.
Vittorio watched her leave.
Then called after her.
“Katarina.”
She turned.
He held up his hands.
“Not an order.”
She laughed.
“What?”
“Don’t be late.”
Katarina stared.
Then smiled slowly.
May you like
“No promises.”
And walked away.
