Chapter 9 - I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD WHAT MY EMPIRE WAS WORTH
The first bullet struck the restaurant sign.
Glass exploded across the sidewalk below.
Marco killed the lights.
“Floor!”
Elena dropped instantly.
I grabbed Lily from the adjoining room and pulled her behind the brick interior wall.
She did not scream.
That frightened me more.
Children should scream when bullets hit buildings.
They should not know how to become silent.
“Stay with your mother.”
I moved toward the hall.
Elena grabbed my wrist.
“No.”
“Marco needs me.”
“Marco has six armed men.”
“So?”
“So Lily has one father.”
Those words stopped me.
Eight years ago, I would have gone toward the gunfire because going toward danger had been the only way I knew to prove I was a man.
At thirty-two, sick, exhausted, and kneeling beside my daughter, I suddenly understood something my father never had.
Sometimes courage meant staying.
Marco’s team returned fire only long enough to force the attackers away from the entrance.
Within minutes, federal agents were on the street.
Two gunmen surrendered.
A third crashed a vehicle three blocks away.
The fourth disappeared.
Rebecca Sloan arrived furious.
“You were supposed to be at a secure location.”
“This was a secure location.”
“It has windows.”
“Most buildings do.”
She stared at me.
“I see why prosecutors drink.”
Elena almost smiled.
Then an agent entered carrying a phone.
“One suspect had this.”
He showed us a message.
Payment upon confirmation of all three targets.
Three.
Me.
Elena.
Lily.
Except the original contract Marco had found listed Dr. Harris, not me.
Vincent had updated it.
He had known I was alive before the mansion raid.
“How?” Marco asked.
The answer came thirty minutes later.
Dr. Harris.
Not because he had betrayed us.
Because someone had accessed his hospital account.
A senior administrator had sold information to Vincent.
Money.
Always money.
The same disease wearing different faces.
By sunrise, the final gunman was in custody.
Vanessa and Vincent were held without bail.
Diane entered protective cooperation.
Rossi and Palmer began competing to see who could confess faster.
And I sat on the restaurant floor eating cereal with my daughter.
Life is strange.
Lily looked at the bruises on my hand.
“Did being a mafia boss do that?”
“Some of them.”
“Mom says mafia bosses are bad.”
Elena nearly dropped her coffee.
I looked at Lily.
“Your mother is usually right.”
“Usually?”
“Dominic,” Elena warned.
I smiled.
Lily ate another spoonful.
“Are you going to keep being one?”
The question was so simple.
The answer was not.
“I don’t know.”
“That means yes.”
“You’re very judgmental for someone eating marshmallow cereal.”
She looked at my bowl.
“You’re eating it too.”
Fair.
Two days later, I met Rebecca Sloan again.
This time my attorney was present.
The deal took nine hours.
I would surrender control of all criminal operations and provide evidence concerning activities committed by Vincent’s faction and several corrupt associates.
I would not become some movie-style informant naming every man I had ever shared dinner with.
But I would dismantle the machinery that had made Vincent powerful.
In return, prosecutors would consider cooperation, the distinction between legitimate assets and criminal ventures, and the fact that several cases against me were weaker than newspapers believed.
Nothing was guaranteed.
That mattered.
For the first time, I was making a decision without being guaranteed control.
Marco opposed leaving the organization.
Until I offered him legitimate control of Romano Logistics.
“You’re serious?” he asked.
“You’ve complained for ten years that crime has terrible retirement benefits.”
He stared at me.
“What am I supposed to do with three hundred trucks?”
“Ship things legally.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“You’ll adapt.”
He eventually smiled.
Three weeks later, I returned to the mansion.
The medical equipment was gone.
So was Vanessa’s wardrobe.
I had every room she used stripped to the walls.
Not because I wanted revenge.
Because I did not want Lily sleeping beneath a roof filled with ghosts.
She chose the bedroom across from mine.
Not the biggest room.
Not the one with a lake view.
The smaller bedroom with a window seat.
“Why this one?” I asked.
“It feels normal.”
That answer quietly destroyed me.
Elena remained cautious.
She moved into the guest wing, not my bedroom.
I did not ask her to change that.
Trust built slowly.
I had spent my life demanding loyalty immediately.
Elena taught me loyalty requested by force was not loyalty at all.
One evening, we sat on the terrace overlooking Lake Michigan.
My hands had stopped trembling completely.
I had gained twelve pounds.
Dr. Harris said my heart showed no permanent damage.
“You look less dead,” Elena said.
“Romantic.”
“I try.”
I looked at her injured arm.
The sling was gone.
The scar remained.
“You took a bullet for me.”
“I was aiming for the ground.”
“Liar.”
She smiled.
Then the smile disappeared.
“What happens now?”
“Vincent goes to trial.”
“I meant us.”
I looked at her.
There it was.
The question scarier than anything else.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s unusual.”
“I’m learning to admit it.”
She looked toward the water.
“I loved you once.”
My chest tightened.
“I didn’t know.”
“You weren’t exactly emotionally observant.”
“I was twenty-four.”
“You were an idiot.”
“Also true.”
She took a breath.
“Then I spent eight years convincing myself loving you had been a mistake.”
“And?”
“And then you almost died.”
I waited.
“That was inconvenient.”
I laughed softly.
She looked at me.
“I don’t know if I can become the woman standing beside Dominic Romano.”
“Then don’t.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“I don’t want someone standing beside Dominic Romano.”
I moved closer.
“I want Elena.”
Her face changed.
“The man Lily knows. The man who eats terrible cereal. The man who gets yelled at by doctors. Maybe I can figure out who he is.”
“And the mafia boss?”
“He’s retiring.”
She actually laughed.
“Can mafia bosses retire?”
“I own a logistics company now.”
“Very respectable.”
“Painfully.”
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then she leaned forward and kissed me.
Not like the night eight years ago.
There was no desperation.
No rain.
No two strangers pretending tomorrow did not matter.
This kiss was slower.
Careful.
A beginning instead of an escape.
When we separated, Lily’s voice came from inside.
“Gross!”
Elena closed her eyes.
I laughed.
My daughter stood in the doorway.
“You said you were doing homework.”
“I finished.”
“You were spying.”
“I was observing.”
Definitely my child.
Six months later, Vincent Caruso was convicted on conspiracy, attempted murder, kidnapping, financial crimes, and charges connected to the deaths of Anthony Romano and Mateo Ramirez.
Vanessa accepted a plea agreement after learning Vincent intended to blame everything on her.
Her wedding magazines became evidence exhibits.
I did not attend either proceeding.
I was somewhere else.
At Lily’s school.
Sitting in a chair designed for a person half my size while she stood onstage wearing a cardboard costume shaped like Saturn.
I had missed eight birthdays.
Eight first days of school.
Eight Christmas mornings.
I could not get them back.
But when Lily searched the audience and found me, her whole face lit up.
I understood exactly what my empire had been worth.
May you like
Nothing compared with that.
And for the first time in my adult life, I was rich in something nobody could steal.
