Chapter 9 - The Salt on the Glass
By nightfall, the mansion on Astor Street was empty of soldiers.
The street bosses had returned to their warehouses on the South Side; the guards had taken up their quiet, invisible posts along the perimeter walls; and the heavy oak table in the dining room had been wiped clean of maps and radio transmitters.
The silence that settled over the house was different now. It wasn't the suffocating, tense quiet of Vanessa’s reign, nor was it the sterile, professional calm of an employer and his staff.
It was the deep, expectant silence of a house holding its breath.
I sat by the window in the second-floor suite, wearing a simple gray wool sweater and dark trousers that Mrs. Carter had brought up from a boutique on Michigan Avenue. The room was vast, furnished in pale silk and dark walnut, with a private fireplace crackling softly against the chill of the evening.
On the small desk beside me sat the brass key stamped with 412, resting on top of a clean sheet of legal parchment.
A soft knock sounded at the adjoining door—the door that connected this suite directly to Luca’s private study.
"Come in," I said.
The door swung open. Luca stood in the frame.
He had showered, his dark hair still damp, wearing a black crewneck sweater and trousers. The hard, predatory lines of the mafia boss were still there in the broad set of his shoulders and the scars along his jaw, but the coldness in his eyes had been replaced by an exhaustion so deep it made him look almost human.
He held a bottle of red wine and two glasses.
"May I?" he asked, gesturing to the small table by the window.
"Of course, Mr. Moretti."
He walked over, set the glasses down, and pulled the cork from the bottle with a soft pop. "I told you yesterday, Olivia. Stop calling me Mr. Moretti."
"It's hard to break the habit," I said, a faint smile touching my lips despite the dull ache that still lingered in my cheek. "For nine months, if I forgot to call you sir, Mrs. Carter would make me polish the library brass twice."
"Mrs. Carter won't be giving you orders anymore," Luca said, pouring two inches of dark, ruby-red liquid into each glass. He handed one to me, his fingers brushing against mine. The contact sent a tiny, sharp spark of electricity racing up my arm, making my heart skip a beat against my ribs.
He sat down in the armchair opposite me, looking out the tall glass panes toward the lake.
"Antonio’s plane crossed into Canadian airspace an hour ago," Luca said quietly. "He’s heading back to Naples. The federal prosecutor confirmed that Vanessa’s bail hearing was denied. She stays in the Loop until trial."
I looked down at the wine in my glass, the dark surface reflecting the amber flames of the hearth. "And the South Branch?"
"The city’s development board received the registered copy of the deed at noon," Luca replied. "Registered under the Hayes-Moretti Foundation. A fifty-fifty non-profit partnership."
My head snapped up. "What?"
Luca leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, his gray eyes pinning me to the chair with an intensity that took my breath away.
"You wanted to know why my grandfather gave that land to your father, Olivia," he said softly. "It wasn't just to hide it from the feds. In nineteen-sixty-two, when my family was starving in a cold flat on Taylor Street, your grandfather gave Antonio Moretti five hundred dollars from his rail union savings to buy his first delivery truck."
He reached out, his thumb gently tracing the line of my collarbone, stopping just short of the brass key resting against my throat.
"We don't forget our debts," Luca whispered. "The foundation will build a community health center and a technical trade school on the river. In your father's name. You will be the executive director."
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes, hot and sudden. "Luca... I don't know how to run a foundation. I don't know how to deal with city planners and lawyers."
"You learned how to survive twenty-six wolves at my dinner table with your face bleeding," Luca said, his voice dropping into that deep, husky register that made the room feel three times smaller. "You have more courage than every man who sat in that library today. I can teach you the paperwork, Olivia. But you can't teach someone how to have a soul."
He stood up, stepped around the small table, and reached down, offering me his hand.
I hesitated for a second, looking at his calloused palm, the dark cross tattooed on his wrist, and then placed my small, trembling hand into his.
He pulled me up gently until I was standing inches from him, our breath mingling in the warm, firelit air. His hands came up, resting lightly on my hips, his touch firm and reverent, as if he were holding something precious that might shatter if he moved too fast.
"Elena told me something before we left Lake Forest," Luca murmured, his gaze dropping to my lips before rising back to my eyes.
"What did she say?" I breathed, my heart hammering like a trapped bird.
"She said that if I was stupid enough to let you walk back out into that city, I deserved to be buried in the foundry floor."
A soft, breathless laugh escaped my lips. "Elena seems like a very wise woman."
"She is," Luca said.
He leaned down.
His lips touched mine—softly at first, testing the waters, giving me time to pull away if I wanted to. But I didn't pull away. I leaned into him, my hands finding their way up the soft wool of his sweater to his broad shoulders, my fingers curling into his hair.
The kiss deepened, fierce, possessive, and full of a dark, intoxicating hunger that wiped out the memory of the pantry door, the cold alley, and the fear that had ruled my life for twenty-eight years. For nine months, I had watched this man from the shadows of his hallways, terrified of his power; now, held against his chest, I realized that the only thing more dangerous than Luca Moretti was the way he looked at me when the doors were closed.
When he finally pulled back, his forehead resting against mine, his breathing was ragged, his eyes dark with an emotion he couldn't hide.
May you like
"Stay here tonight, Olivia," he whispered against my lips. "Not because of the deed. Not because of Bellini. Stay with me."
I looked into his eyes, feeling the brass key cool against my chest, and nodded. "I'm staying."
