Chapter 7 - Healing Scars
Three days later, the storm had passed, leaving behind a crisp, golden Chicago autumn.
The physical damage to the Moretti estate had been erased with the terrifying efficiency that only endless wealth could buy. New bulletproof glass gleamed in the windows; fresh plaster covered the walls; and the scent of fresh white lilies filled every corridor.
In the federal courthouse downtown, the news had exploded like a seismic bomb across the nation.
Front-page headlines blared across every major newspaper: *PROMINENT ATTORNEY CHARLES WHITMORE ARRESTED IN HIGH-SOCIETY KIDNAPPING CONSPIRACY; BELLINI HEIRESS FACES LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR SYNDICATE FRAUD.*
Judge Miller had already resigned in disgrace and was awaiting arraignment in an orange jumpsuit. The legal web Charles had spun to keep Lily from me had been completely vaporized by a team of twenty elite attorneys Luca had unleashed upon Cook County.
Sole, unchallengeable legal and physical custody of Lily had been restored to me by emergency decree.
Yet, despite the victory, a deep, gnawing anxiety pulled at my chest as I stood in the estate’s private library on the ground floor.
I was packing a small duffel bag.
A few changes of clothes, Lily’s coloring books, and the repaired rabbit.
Luca had saved our lives. He had given me back my daughter. But he was Luca Moretti. He was the head of a syndicate that had just survived a war. Every car that passed the estate gates, every guard with a rifle, every shadow in the garden was a reminder of the violent world he inhabited.
Lily deserved sunshine. She deserved playgrounds without snipers on the roof.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The deep, rumbling voice made me freeze.
Luca stood in the doorway of the library. His left arm was in a black silk sling, but he wore a tailored navy three-piece suit, looking every inch the king he was. His dark hair was combed back, his posture immaculate, but his eyes were burning with a dangerous, wounded fire.
I gripped the handles of the duffel bag tightly. “Luca… you’ve done more for us than anyone in my life ever has. You gave me my baby back. You cleared my name. But we can’t stay here.”
Luca walked into the room, closing the heavy oak doors behind him. Each step was slow, measured, closing the distance between us until he stood on the opposite side of the mahogany reading table.
“Why?” he asked simply.
“Because this isn't a life for a seven-year-old girl!” I cried, gestures flying toward the fortified windows. “There are bullet holes in your bedroom floorboards under those new rugs! There are guards with assault weapons outside her bedroom door! What happens when the next Donati comes? What happens when someone decides to target Lily to get to you?”
“No one will ever target Lily again,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a register of terrifying conviction. “Because by the end of this month, the Moretti syndicate will cease to exist as a criminal enterprise.”
I stared at him, my mouth dropping open in total shock. “What?”
Luca reached into his breast pocket with his good hand and tossed a thick leather-bound document onto the table between us.
“The Moretti shipping lanes, the construction firms, the real estate portfolios—they are all being transitioned into a fully legitimate corporate conglomerate,” Luca explained calmly. “The illegal contracts have been severed. The weapons trade on the docks has been dismantled. Donati’s remaining capos surrendered yesterday after the feds seized their offshore accounts. There is no war left to fight, Hannah.”
My head spun. “You… you dismantled your empire? For what?”
“Not for what,” Luca whispered, stepping around the table until he was standing directly in front of me. He reached out with his uninjured hand, gently taking the heavy duffel bag from my grasp and letting it drop to the floor with a dull thud. “For whom.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “Luca…”
“I have spent twenty years living in darkness, Hannah,” he said, his voice raw with an honesty I had never heard from a man before. “I took over this family at sixteen when my father was murdered. I learned to kill before I learned how to love. I thought power was the only thing that kept a man alive. And then you walked into this house.”
His hand rose, his fingertips gently tracing the curve of my jaw, his thumb brushing over my lower lip. The tenderness of his touch made my knees weak.
“For eleven months, I watched you clean my rooms, hum songs under your breath, and carry your grief with an elegance that humbled me,” Luca continued, his dark eyes shimmering with pure, unadulterated devotion. “I wanted to protect you from the first day I saw you. But I was trapped in an alliance with a venomous family, bound by oaths to men I despised. When Vanessa brought your daughter here… when I realized the depths of the cruelty they subjected you to… something inside me broke.”
He stepped closer, closing the last inch of distance between us until I could feel the heat radiating from his broad chest.
“I don't want an empire of blood, Hannah. I want a home. I want to wake up next to you every morning. I want to teach Lily how to ride a bicycle on the front lawn without looking over my shoulder. I want to be the man who earns your love, if you will let me.”
Tears spilled over my lashes, hot and fast. “Luca… I was broken. Charles took everything from me. I don't know how to be a wife to a man like you. I don't know how to trust.”
“Then let me teach you,” Luca murmured.
He leaned down, his eyes searching mine for permission. When I didn't pull away, his lips met mine.
The kiss was gentle at first, a reverent question asked in the quiet of the library. But as my hands reached up, finding the lapels of his suit jacket and pulling him closer, the kiss deepened into something fierce, passionate, and consuming. Three years of loneliness, three years of cold, suffocating pain dissolved against the heat of his mouth. He kissed me as if I were the most precious, sacred thing on earth, holding me against him with a protective strength that made me feel utterly invincible.
When he finally pulled back, resting his forehead against mine, we were both breathless.
“Don't leave,” Luca whispered against my lips. “Stay here. With me. Let us be a family.”
Before I could answer, a small voice piped up from the doorway.
“Mommy?”
We both turned.
Lily stood by the open door, holding Barnaby by the ears, looking between the two of us with wide, curious eyes.
“Are we going somewhere?” Lily asked, pointing at the duffel bag on the floor.
Luca looked down at me, a silent, hopeful question in his dark eyes.
I smiled through my tears, reached down, and kicked the duffel bag under the reading table.
May you like
“No, baby,” I said softly, holding out my hand to my daughter. “We’re not going anywhere. We’re finally home.”
***