Chapter 7 - THE KING OF CHICAGO STEPPED DOWN
Vincent Hale pleaded guilty eight months after his arrest.
Attempted murder.
Conspiracy.
Racketeering.
Witness intimidation.
Michael Miller's death.
Several financial crimes.
His attorneys negotiated away a public trial because too many powerful men were terrified of what open testimony would expose.
He received a sentence long enough that neither Sammy nor Lucas—there was no Lucas. I corrected myself internally—long enough that Sammy would be an adult before Vincent had any realistic chance of freedom.
I attended sentencing.
In a wheelchair.
Not because I had to.
Because Michael deserved someone there.
Vincent asked to speak to me afterward.
Caleb hated the idea.
Rebecca hated it more.
I went anyway.
We met through thick glass.
Vincent's voice came through the phone.
“You look terrible.”
“I look better than you.”
“You can't see me.”
“Still true.”
He laughed.
For a moment, I remembered us at twenty.
Two idiots who believed Chicago belonged to whoever was willing to scare it hardest.
Then Vincent said:
“You destroyed everything.”
“No.”
“You handed decades of business to prosecutors.”
“I handed them crimes.”
“Same difference.”
“It isn't.”
“You think that maid changed you?”
I felt something cold.
“Her name is Rebecca.”
He laughed.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“Love.”
I did not answer.
Vincent continued.
“You always were weak when it came to family.”
“My family survived you.”
“Your father would be disgusted.”
For years, that sentence would have wounded me.
Now I smiled.
“Good.”
Vincent went silent.
“My father built an empire people obeyed because they were afraid.”
“And you inherited it.”
“I did.”
“And now?”
I looked down at my hands.
“Now I'm trying to build something a child doesn't have to be ashamed of.”
Vincent laughed again.
“You really think you can become respectable?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
“I can't erase what I did.”
I continued.
“I can stop adding to it.”
I hung up.
That was the last time I spoke to Vincent Hale.
The next morning, I resigned from every position tied to the old organization.
Legitimate companies moved under independent boards.
I remained an owner in some.
Sold others.
A federal monitor became involved in two trucking companies.
I hated every meeting with him.
He seemed to enjoy that.
The newspapers declared:
KING OF CHICAGO ABDICATES.
Sammy asked what abdicates meant.
“Means they needed a dramatic word.”
“Were you really a king?”
“No.”
“Did you have a crown?”
“No.”
“Then that's dumb.”
Correct.
Rebecca had stopped working as my housekeeper months earlier.
I offered her a severance package.
She stared at the number.
“This is ridiculous.”
“You worked in my house during an attempted coup.”
“I cleaned laundry.”
“You also prevented me from murdering my former best friend.”
“That wasn't in my job description.”
“Hazard pay.”
She accepted a much smaller amount after arguing with three lawyers.
Then she went back to school.
Before Sammy was born, Rebecca had studied occupational therapy.
Michael's death ended that.
Now she returned.
I did not pay the tuition.
She made that clear.
I did arrange for Sammy to have childcare whenever she needed it.
She made me sign an agreement charging her normal rates.
She was impossible.
I liked her.
More than liked.
That scared me more than Vincent ever had.
Physical therapy continued.
Ten seconds standing became thirty.
Thirty became two minutes.
Then steps between parallel bars.
My body moved like I was learning gravity from scratch.
Every step required concentration.
The first day I walked six feet with braces and a walker, Sammy measured the distance with a tape measure.
“Six feet, two inches!”
“I'm six foot one.”
“Not you. Walking.”
Right.
My vision improved slowly too.
In the left eye, bright objects became rough shapes.
Black and white.
Shadow and light.
Occasionally color.
Red appeared first.
Dr. Shah held up a card during testing.
“What do you see?”
“Something bright.”
“What color?”
I stared until pain formed behind my eye.
“Red?”
She smiled.
“Red.”
I cried.
Again.
Apparently that was my personality now.
Months later, Rebecca stood ten feet in front of me in the therapy garden.
“Can you see me?”
I narrowed my left eye.
A vertical shadow.
Light around it.
“I can see someone.”
“Very romantic.”
“You're wearing something dark.”
“Blue.”
“Close.”
“Not really.”
I smiled.
Then a smaller shape moved beside her.
“Sammy?”
“Yep!”
His outline was blurry.
Head.
Shoulders.
Movement.
Nothing more.
But for the first time, I was looking toward him instead of only hearing him.
“Come closer.”
He did.
Five feet.
Three.
My eye watered.
A patch of color appeared near his shirt.
“Red.”
Sammy gasped.
“My dinosaur shirt!”
I couldn't see the dinosaur.
Didn't matter.
“I can see red.”
He threw his arms around me.
My walker nearly fell.
Rebecca caught it.
“Careful!”
“I'm fine.”
“You almost fell.”
“I didn't.”
Sammy laughed.
For months, happiness arrived in embarrassingly small pieces.
A toe.
Six feet.
Red cotton.
Coffee with Rebecca.
Sammy falling asleep during baseball on television because he insisted I needed someone to explain what I couldn't see.
Then came one harder question.
Sammy asked it during dinner.
“Did you hurt people before?”
Rebecca froze.
I could have lied.
Six-year-olds do not need every detail.
But they deserve truth shaped safely.
“Yes.”
“Bad people?”
“Sometimes.”
“And good people?”
My chest tightened.
“Sometimes people who didn't deserve it got hurt because of things I did.”
Sammy stared at his plate.
“Do you feel bad?”
“Yes.”
“Does that fix it?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“No.”
He thought.
“What fixes it?”
“Some things can't be fixed.”
“Then what do you do?”
I swallowed.
“Try to repair what you can. Tell the truth. Stop doing the wrong thing.”
Sammy nodded.
Then ate his mashed potatoes.
Children rarely give you the punishment you expect.
Later, Rebecca found me on the terrace.
“You answered him.”
“He asked.”
“You could've protected your image.”
“What image? He already knows I'm terrible at walking.”
She laughed.
Then became quiet.
“Michael would have respected that answer.”
The wind left me for a moment.
“You think?”
“Yes.”
I turned toward her blurred outline.
“Rebecca.”
“Yes?”
“I don't know how to do this.”
“Walk?”
“You know what I mean.”
She did.
“I haven't been in a relationship since Michael.”
“I know.”
“You were my employer.”
“Not anymore.”
“You used to terrify half Chicago.”
“Probably less now.”
“You're still impossible.”
“Definitely.”
She laughed softly.
Then I said:
“Dinner.”
“We eat together constantly.”
“A real dinner.”
Silence.
“With no Sammy?”
“He can be bribed.”
“I heard that!” Sammy shouted through the open door.
Rebecca laughed.
Then:
“One dinner.”
“One.”
Sammy yelled:
“Two!”
I smiled.
Maybe hope was hereditary after all.
But before our first date, Caleb arrived with news I never expected.
Federal investigators had finished reviewing Michael's South Harbor archive.
There was money remaining in one hidden account.
Not criminal proceeds.
A whistleblower reward Michael had qualified for through an old insurance-fraud case before his death.
Rebecca and Sammy were legally entitled to it.
The amount was nearly $1.8 million.
Rebecca sat in stunned silence.
Then looked at me.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“What do I do with that?”
I smiled.
“Anything you want.”
For the first time, she did not need my house.
My salary.
My protection.
She could leave.
That night, I barely slept.
Because I discovered something humiliating.
I had spent months trying to become a man Rebecca could freely choose.
Now she was finally free enough to choose—
May you like
and I was terrified she wouldn't choose me.
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