Chapter 9
Chapter 9
“I’ve never seen the Mediterranean in the spring,” he murmured, his hand gently finding hers through the falling snow. “My grandmother used to say the water off Sicily was so clear you could see the pebbles twenty feet down.”
“Is that an offer, Capello?” she asked, tilting her head slightly, her thumb tracing the line of his knuckles where the cold wind was turning the skin slightly red. “Because I don’t take orders from former bosses.”
“It’s a request,” Lorenzo answered, his voice dropping into that low, magnetic timber that had commanded respect across an entire city. “From a man who owes you three lives, and would like to spend the fourth one saying thank you.”
She looked down at Daniel’s badge in her pocket, then back at Lorenzo. The ghosts had finally laid down their weapons, the ledger was closed, and the shadows of Chicago had nothing left to steal from either of them.
“Ten minutes, Capello,” she whispered, matching the words she had spoken in the kitchen alley when the world was falling apart around their heads. “You have ten minutes to get us to the airport before I change my mind.”
Lorenzo smiled—a real, unfiltered smile that erased years of violence and heavy crowns from his aristocratic face. He took her hand firmly, leading her down the marble steps into the waiting car as the city slept below.
May you like
The sedan pulled away from the curb, its tires hissing softly against the fresh snow on Michigan Avenue, leaving behind the ashes of an empire, the ghost of Daniel Cross, and the empty restaurant where a waitress had finally chosen to live.
—END OF Chapter 9,
