Chapter 9 - The Silence of the Lake
Three months passed, and spring arrived in Chicago with an explosion of green across the Gold Coast.
The scandal that shattered the Bellini family had dominated the front pages of the Chicago Tribune for eight straight weeks. Vanessa Bellini had entered a guilty plea to federal charges of kidnapping, wire fraud, and interstate conspiracy, sentenced to twelve years in a federal penitentiary in West Virginia. Her father, Don Antonio, had suffered a massive stroke during the asset forfeiture hearings, effectively dissolving the Bellini syndicate into history.
The nursery on the second floor of the Moretti estate had been dismantled, its walls repainted in soft sage green, converted into an expansive private library and sitting room overlooking the gardens.
Hannah Walsh was living comfortably in a sunlit townhouse in Evanston, her mother’s medical care funded permanently through an anonymous charitable endowment managed by the Moretti foundation. Two weeks earlier, she had given birth to a healthy, eight-pound baby boy named Leo. Luca had sent a massive arrangement of white orchids and a sterling silver rattle, but he had never intruded on their peace.
My knee had healed completely, leaving only a faint, silvery scar across my kneecap that Dr. Harris assured me would fade with time.
I no longer carried a duster or an apron.
I wore tailored silk blouses, cashmere cardigans, and gold jewelry, spending my mornings overseeing the estate's charitable allocations and my afternoons walking the private beach with Luca. The staff had long stopped whispering about the "maid who moved upstairs." Mrs. Carter treated me with the deep, protective affection of a mother, and Chef Antoine spent every evening preparing elaborate dinners that we ate together by the open French doors of the grand dining room.
On a warm, breezy evening in late May, the waters of Lake Michigan were as flat and blue as turquoise glass.
Luca had returned from a brief business trip to New York early in the afternoon. He had spent the last two hours locked in his private study, reviewing the final restructuring of the Great Lakes shipping permits.
I was sitting on the stone terrace overlooking the lake, reading a book of Italian poetry he had left on my nightstand, when the double glass doors clicked open.
Luca walked out.
He had shed his suit jacket and tie, wearing a dark navy dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a crystal glass of bourbon in his hand. The setting sun bathed his sharp, aristocratic profile in warm shades of copper and gold.
He walked over to my chair, reached down, and took my book, setting it on the marble table before offering me his hand.
"Walk with me, Lauren," he said softly.
I placed my hand in his, smiling as he pulled me up. We descended the stone steps to the private sandy beach below the estate’s bluffs, our shoes discarded on the grass, the cool lake water lapping gently at the edge of our bare feet.
Luca was unusually quiet, his thumb idly stroking the back of my hand as we walked along the shore.
"What is it, Luca?" I asked, looking up at his handsome, pensive face. "Did New York cause trouble?"
"No," he replied, stopping by a large piece of bleached driftwood, turning his body toward me. "The Commission ratified the new port boundaries without a single objection. The Moretti name is entirely secure."
"Then why do you look like you're still fighting a battle?"
Luca looked down at me, his gray eyes filled with an emotion so deep, so fiercely tender that it made my heart flutter against my ribs. He reached up, his fingers brushing against the gold locket that still hung around my throat—the locket I had never taken off.
"Because a kingdom is just an empty pile of stone and cold iron, Lauren," Luca whispered, his voice rough with emotion. "Until you find the person you want to build it for."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, worn black leather notebook, offering it to me.
"What is this?" I asked.
"Open it to the last page," he said.
I opened the brittle pages.
It was his father’s private journal from thirty years ago. On the final page, written in bold, slanting black ink, was a single entry dated the day Luca was born:
A Moretti does not choose a woman for her pedigree, her dowry, or the name of her father. A Moretti chooses the woman who will stand in the fire beside him when the world turns to ash. When you find her, Luca, give her the cradle.
Tears pricked my eyes, blurring the faded cursive.
I looked up at Luca.
He didn't say another word. He simply reached into his pocket once more, pulled out a small, velvet box, and dropped to one knee before me in the damp sand of the Chicago shoreline.
He flipped the lid open.
Inside rested an antique platinum ring holding a flawless, five-carat cushion-cut emerald, flanked by two brilliant triangular diamonds that sparkled in the dying sunlight like fire on water.
"Lauren Mitchell," the most feared man in Chicago said, his voice trembling with a raw, breathtaking vulnerability. "You saved my soul from the wolves. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"
A choked, joyous laugh escaped my lips as hot tears spilled over my cheeks.
May you like
"Yes," I breathed, dropping to my knees in the sand beside him, throwing my arms around his neck. "Yes, Luca. A thousand times, yes."
He slipped the heavy platinum ring onto my finger, framed my face with his large hands, and kissed me as the last rays of the sun melted into the quiet waters of the lake, sealing our future in the warm, velvet twilight.
