Chapter 10 - The Table Where Everything Began
Two years later, Giovanni's Steakhouse closed for one private dinner.
No guards lined the walls.
No illegal documents covered the tables.
No weapons hid beneath tailored jackets.
The private dining room looked almost exactly as it had the afternoon Autumn Rivers walked inside carrying entrées.
Almost.
Autumn stood beside the window in a dark green dress while Chicago glittered beneath her.
Rivers Security now operated in twelve countries.
Sparrow had become one of the industry's most respected defensive cybersecurity platforms.
Noah had married.
Cross's daughter had started medical school.
Roman still complained about paperwork.
Some things remained impossible to fix.
Dominic entered carrying two plates.
Autumn stared.
“What are you doing?”
“Serving dinner.”
“You own approximately zero restaurants now.”
“Exactly. I'm exploring new careers.”
She inspected the plate.
“This steak looks suspicious.”
“I didn't cook it.”
“Then there's hope.”
Dominic had spent the previous two years rebuilding his life.
His remaining legitimate assets funded community technology programs and scholarships for students from working-class families.
He never tried to rebuild the old organization.
Some people believed he had surrendered power.
Autumn knew better.
He had finally learned that power and control were not the same thing.
They ate.
They talked.
They laughed.
Then Dominic placed an old object on the table.
Autumn recognized it immediately.
Her battered USB drive.
Electrical tape still wrapped around one side.
“You kept this?”
“It saved my life.”
“It saved your files.”
“Same thing at the time.”
She picked it up.
Something rattled inside.
Autumn frowned.
“You put something in here.”
Dominic suddenly looked nervous.
That alone made her suspicious.
She pulled away the electrical tape.
A small diamond ring slid into her palm.
Autumn stared.
Dominic stood.
“Oh, absolutely not.”
He froze.
“What?”
“You are not proposing beside the laptop where you threatened to throw me into Lake Michigan.”
“I never specifically said Lake Michigan.”
“You heavily implied Lake Michigan.”
“Can I finish?”
She tried not to smile.
“Proceed.”
Dominic lowered himself onto one knee.
The same man who once controlled rooms through fear now looked up at the woman everyone else had overlooked.
“Autumn Rivers, you walked into my life carrying a tray of food and proceeded to destroy almost everything I thought mattered.”
“That doesn't sound romantic.”
“I'm building toward it.”
She laughed.
Dominic smiled.
“You showed me that loyalty without honesty is worthless. Power without responsibility is empty. And surviving isn't the same thing as living.”
Autumn's eyes filled.
“You gave me a second life when I didn't know I needed one.”
He held out the ring.
“I don't want you beside me because you need protection. You never did. I want you beside me because you're the smartest, most infuriating, courageous woman I've ever known.”
Roman's voice suddenly came from behind the door.
“She's going to say yes. Some of us have reservations.”
Autumn covered her face.
Dominic closed his eyes.
“I told him to stay downstairs.”
Roman opened the door.
Noah stood behind him.
So did Cross, his daughter, Victor Lau, the restaurant manager and half of Rivers Security.
Autumn stared at them.
“You invited an audience?”
Dominic looked guilty.
“I may have miscalculated.”
Noah shouted, “Answer him before Roman starts giving advice.”
Autumn looked down at Dominic.
Seven years earlier, she had believed her life had ended when MIT expelled her.
She had been wrong.
Her life had simply taken the long route toward becoming her own.
The waitress everyone dismissed had exposed an international conspiracy, cleared her name, built a company and found something she had never expected inside the wreckage.
A family.
Dominic raised an eyebrow.
“Well?”
Autumn smiled.
“Yes.”
The room erupted.
Dominic stood and kissed her while Noah cheered and Roman pretended he had something in his eye.
Later, after everyone left, Autumn and Dominic remained beside the windows.
Her engagement ring caught the chandelier light.
Dominic looked toward the old laptop displayed inside a glass case near the wall.
Autumn had placed a small plaque beneath it.
THE DAY EVERYTHING CRASHED.
Dominic laughed.
“You realize most people don't display their worst cybersecurity failure.”
“Most people didn't meet their future husband because of it.”
He wrapped an arm around her.
“Do you ever miss waitressing?”
“Absolutely not.”
“MIT?”
“Sometimes.”
“The life you would have had?”
Autumn considered the question.
Then shook her head.
“No.”
Because the truth was simpler now.
She could hate what had been stolen from her without wishing away everything she had built afterward.
Dominic kissed her forehead.
Outside, Chicago moved beneath them.
Seven years earlier, Blackbird had taken Autumn's future.
Two years earlier, the same code had brought her into Dominic's world.
But Blackbird had never defined her.
Neither had MIT.
Neither had Voss, Vincent, poverty, fear or the uniform she wore when fifteen powerful men assumed she was nobody.
Autumn Rivers had defined herself.
And Dominic Kaine had finally learned to do the same.
On the table behind them sat the battered three-dollar USB drive that had saved a nine-hundred-million-dollar deal, exposed a conspiracy and changed both their lives.
Autumn looked at it.
Then at Dominic.
“There's still one thing bothering me.”
His expression immediately became serious.
“What?”
“That first afternoon.”
“Yes?”
“You said I'd be compensated if I fixed your laptop.”
Dominic stared at her.
Autumn held out her hand.
“You never paid me.”
He laughed so hard he had to lean against the table.
“You're serious?”
“Seven years of self-taught cybersecurity expertise isn't free, Kaine.”
Dominic reached for his wallet.
“How much?”
Autumn considered it.
Then smiled.
“Dinner for the rest of my life.”
He put the wallet away.
“That sounds expensive.”
“It is.”
Dominic took her hand.
“Deal.”
May you like
And this time, unlike the first deal that brought them together, neither of them needed thirty minutes to decide.
They already knew.
