Chapter 7 - The Life I Chose
For the next forty-eight hours, Chicago seemed to close around me.
Federal agents questioned everyone.
The Venturi estate was searched.
Ryan confessed enough to implicate his father in my mother’s death, but Thomas Hale had died seven years earlier.
Salvatore disappeared.
A sick elderly man who supposedly needed assistance walking somehow vanished before investigators could arrest him.
Dominic’s penthouse became the safest place for Maya, my father, and me.
This time, when Dominic told me I could stay, it was different.
“You can leave whenever you want.”
I looked at him.
“That’s quite an improvement over ‘From now on, you stay.’”
A rare smile crossed his face.
“I’ve received feedback.”
“Terrible customer service.”
“I’ll work on it.”
I laughed.
Actually laughed.
It felt wrong after everything.
And necessary.
Maya was sleeping in another room.
My father had gone downstairs with federal agents.
For the first time, Dominic and I were alone without panic surrounding us.
I looked toward the chair where my clothes had been folded two mornings earlier.
“I really thought you kidnapped me.”
“I noticed.”
“You weren’t exactly reassuring.”
“I’m not practiced at reassuring people.”
“That may be the most believable thing you’ve told me.”
Dominic poured coffee.
For me.
Not himself.
He remembered how I took it.
One sugar.
No cream.
“You watched me at Obsidian before the drink was drugged.”
“Yes.”
“Because of my mother?”
“At first.”
“And after?”
He looked at me.
The room became quieter.
“After, because of you.”
My heart stumbled.
I wrapped both hands around the mug.
“That sounds dangerously close to flirting.”
“I’ve been accused of worse.”
“Frequently, I imagine.”
He smiled again.
The man newspapers described as terrifying seemed almost normal in sunrise light.
That frightened me more than his reputation.
Because I could imagine liking this man.
Not Dominic Romano the name.
Dominic.
“Why did you leave the criminal side of your family intact?”
I asked.
His smile faded.
“Because power doesn’t disappear when one person decides to become decent.”
“So you’re decent?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”
“Illegal?”
“Yes.”
“Violent?”
His silence answered.
I looked away.
He continued.
“When my father died, I inherited something built long before me. I spent years moving legitimate businesses away from everything else.”
“Obsidian?”
“Legitimate.”
“The penthouse?”
“Also legitimate.”
“The men with guns?”
“Security.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Very enthusiastic security.”
He almost smiled.
“I’m trying to leave the rest behind.”
“Why?”
“Your mother.”
I looked up.
“She once told me that surviving a violent world doesn’t require becoming the worst thing in it.”
That sounded like her.
My eyes stung.
“She really saved you.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re saving me because of a debt.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“No.”
“What changed?”
“You did.”
Before I could answer, Maya ran into the room holding the cassette tape from the vault.
“Eliza.”
“What?”
“There’s something on this.”
My heart raced.
“Did you find a cassette player in a Mafia penthouse?”
“No. Your terrifying friend has a media-conversion room.”
Dominic sighed.
“It’s for archival business records.”
Maya looked impressed.
“You really can make anything sound criminal.”
She handed me a digital recording.
My mother’s voice filled the room.
I stopped breathing.
“Gabriel, if you’re hearing this, then something happened to me.”
My knees weakened.
Dominic pulled out a chair.
I sat.
My mother continued.
“Do not give Salvatore the second key.”
Second key.
Maya looked at me.
The recording continued.
“The first box contains the truth about what he has done. The second contains what he fears losing.”
A pause.
“Eliza.”
My heart shattered hearing her say my name.
“If my little girl is old enough to understand this someday, tell her I’m sorry.”
I covered my mouth.
“I wanted to give her a life where our name didn’t decide who she became.”
Tears blurred my vision.
“I left the second key somewhere Salvatore would never look because he never understood ordinary love.”
The tape clicked.
Then my mother said one final sentence.
“Gabriel knows where I asked him to marry me.”
The recording ended.
My father entered minutes later.
When we played it, he began crying before it finished.
“Where?”
I asked.
He wiped his face.
“Lincoln Park.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down.”
“The conservatory.”
Dominic was already reaching for his jacket.
We drove there under federal protection.
My father led us past tropical plants and old stone paths until we reached a bench.
“There.”
He pointed underneath.
Nothing.
Then he touched an old bronze dedication plaque mounted beside the bench.
My mother’s initials had been scratched faintly into the underside.
I.S.
Gabriel unscrewed the plate.
Behind it was a tiny compartment.
Inside waited another brass key.
And an address.
Not a bank.
A law firm.
By afternoon, we sat inside a conference room while an attorney opened a file that had remained sealed for more than two decades.
My mother had created a trust.
Not criminal money.
Her personal inheritance.
Assets legally separated before she disappeared.
Property.
Stocks.
Investments.
The amount had grown enormously.
I stared at the attorney.
“How much?”
He turned the statement toward me.
$38.6 million.
I nearly dropped the page.
Maya made a choking sound.
My father laughed through tears.
Dominic said nothing.
The attorney continued.
“There is another provision.”
Of course there was.
“Ms. Isabella Marino directed that if Salvatore Venturi or anyone acting for him attempted to access the trust illegally, control of several properties he had transferred to Isabella would automatically pass to the beneficiary.”
“What properties?”
The attorney showed us.
The Venturi estate.
Two commercial buildings.
And partial ownership of several legitimate companies.
My grandfather had been living in a house that legally belonged to my mother.
Now it belonged to me.
The irony almost made me laugh.
“He spent decades looking for the ledger,” my father whispered, “when what he should have feared was this.”
My mother hadn’t only run.
She had built an escape route for me.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Salvatore.
COME HOME. WE CAN FIX THIS.
I stared at it.
Dominic read over my shoulder.
“You don’t owe him anything.”
“I know.”
And for the first time in my life, I truly did.
I typed:
That was never my home.
Then blocked the number.
My father watched.
“You’re free.”
I looked at him.
“Not completely.”
He understood.
“Eliza, I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I thought watching from far away was protecting you.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No.”
“You missed sixteen years.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know if I can forgive that.”
His eyes filled.
“You don’t have to.”
That answer mattered.
I stepped closer.
“But maybe you can earn something new.”
He nodded.
“I’d like that.”
That evening federal agents located Salvatore at a private medical facility in Wisconsin.
There would be charges.
Investigations.
Court hearings.
Dominic would testify.
So would Lucia.
Nothing would disappear quietly this time.
Standing beside the windows of Dominic’s penthouse, I looked over Chicago.
Two days earlier I had awakened here terrified.
Now the city looked different.
Dominic stopped beside me.
“What will you do with the money?”
“I don’t know.”
“Quit the coffee shop?”
I smiled.
“Maybe after I finish this week’s schedule.”
He stared at me.
“You’re worth nearly forty million dollars.”
“Denise is short-staffed.”
Dominic laughed.
A genuine laugh.
I realized I had never heard it before.
I turned toward him.
“What happens to you?”
“Investigations.”
“And after?”
“Hopefully something quieter.”
“Can Dominic Romano do quiet?”
“No idea.”
I smiled.
Then he became serious.
“Eliza.”
“Yes?”
“The first morning you were here, I told you that you would stay.”
“I remember.”
“I was wrong.”
I waited.
He looked almost nervous.
For a man feared by half the city, the sight was astonishing.
“You should never stay anywhere because someone commands you.”
My chest tightened.
“If you ever stay with me…”
He paused.
“It should only be because you choose to.”
I looked into his gray eyes.
Then toward the room where my entire life had changed.
I didn’t answer.
Not yet.
Because for once, nobody was deciding my future for me.
May you like
And I intended to enjoy that freedom.
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