Chapter 9 - The Things We Choose to Keep
Luca survived.
The bullet missed his heart by less than an inch.
I learned this at 3:17 in the morning while sitting beneath fluorescent hospital lights with dried blood on my hands.
Bianca sat across from me.
For 2 hours, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “I was cruel to you.”
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
Apparently she had expected more diplomacy.
“You could pretend to consider it.”
“I’ve had a long night.”
Her mouth twitched.
“I knew Matteo.”
“You knew my father?”
“He was infuriatingly decent.”
That sounded like him.
“He discovered Bruno’s scheme and tried to save Antonio. They both died because Bruno learned about the meeting.”
“Why did you hate me?”
“I didn’t.”
“You have an unusual way of expressing affection.”
“I wanted you to quit.”
I stared.
She looked toward the operating-room doors.
“When I learned who you were, I thought if I made the mansion unbearable, you would leave.”
“You could have told me.”
“And then Bruno’s people might have learned you knew.”
“So you insulted my clothes and accused me of stealing china.”
“I never claimed it was a sophisticated plan.”
I laughed.
I could not help it.
Bianca did too.
It was absurd.
Perhaps survival often was.
The surgeon finally emerged.
Luca would recover.
I cried harder at those 3 words than I had at anything else.
He woke the following afternoon.
I stood at his bedside.
His first words were, “You’re fired.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“As a maid.”
“You were clinically dead for several minutes and somehow woke up worse.”
“I wasn’t clinically dead.”
“You’re missing the point.”
His mouth curved.
“I don’t want you cleaning my house.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re terrible at following instructions.”
“I saved your life twice.”
“Exactly. Completely outside your job description.”
I folded my arms.
“What am I supposed to do instead?”
“Whatever you want.”
The humor disappeared.
He looked serious.
“The legitimate businesses need someone who notices things.”
“You’re offering me a job?”
“I’m offering you a choice.”
That word mattered.
Choice.
My father had died trying to leave a life built on obligations.
My mother had spent years protecting me through silence.
Luca had inherited a world he did not know how to escape.
Maybe choices were the only inheritance worth keeping.
“I’ll think about it.”
He nodded.
“Good.”
I started toward the door.
“Rosalie.”
I turned.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
He looked embarrassed.
“For looking away.”
I remembered his shaking hand around the water glass.
“You’re welcome.”
Three weeks later, federal prosecutors charged Bruno and Marcus with a collection of crimes connected to the warehouse fire, financial fraud, extortion, and later violence.
Gabriel cooperated fully.
Bianca gave investigators records she had hidden for decades.
The old Vericio organization fractured.
Several men disappeared.
Others discovered sudden enthusiasm for legitimate employment.
Luca did something nobody expected.
He dismantled much of what remained.
Illegal businesses were shut down.
Companies that could survive legally were restructured.
People laughed when he announced it.
They stopped laughing when he continued.
“You’ll lose half your money,” Gabriel told him.
Luca shrugged.
“I still have too much.”
Gabriel eventually became his favorite cousin, though neither would admit it.
Marisol became my mother’s unofficial bodyguard.
My mother adored her.
This was a mistake because together they became intolerable.
As for me, I accepted Luca’s offer.
Not as a maid.
I joined the charitable foundation connected to Vericio Holdings, overseeing housing assistance and medical grants in neighborhoods like mine.
My first proposal was a medication fund.
Luca approved it without changing a word.
Six months passed.
Winter became spring.
One evening, I returned to the mansion for a foundation dinner.
The house had changed.
The armed men were mostly gone.
Curtains were open.
Someone had replaced the dying white roses with yellow tulips.
I found Luca in his office.
Same leather chair.
Different man.
His shirt was buttoned this time.
“Disappointing,” I said.
He looked up.
“What?”
“The first time I entered this room, there was significantly more drama.”
“I can reopen the wound if that improves the atmosphere.”
“Please don’t.”
He smiled.
I placed a folder on his desk.
“Our quarterly numbers.”
He barely looked at it.
Instead, he watched me.
“What?”
“Dinner.”
“What about it?”
“Have dinner with me.”
“We have dinner constantly.”
“With 40 employees.”
“Oh.”
His confidence disappeared slightly.
That pleased me.
“Are you asking me on a date, Mr. Vericio?”
“Yes.”
“That sounded painful.”
“It is.”
I pretended to consider it.
He became increasingly uncomfortable.
Finally I smiled.
“Yes.”
Relief crossed his face.
I walked toward the door.
“Rosalie?”
“Yes?”
“Why are you leaving?”
“Our reservation is tomorrow.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Gabriel told me yesterday.”
Luca closed his eyes.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“I’m not.”
That was the thing about Luca.
He had spent his entire life learning how to become dangerous.
Learning how not to be dangerous required far more courage.
And somehow, day by day, he was learning.
So was I.
But neither of us knew our final secret had already begun moving toward Chicago.
It arrived 2 days later.
Inside a small package addressed to me.
There was no return address.
Inside was my father’s old wedding ring.
And beneath it, a handwritten note.
Rosalie—there is one thing your father never told you.
I read the next sentence twice.
Then I sat down.
Because the handwriting belonged to someone I recognized.
May you like
Don Salvatore.
And according to the hospital, he had disappeared the previous night.
