Chapter 37
SCARLETT
“He’s going to be fine,” the psychologist says, giving Luca and I a reassuring smile.
We’re in his office for Lucas’s third appointment since the cathedral incident. The weeks following it has been filled with recovery. Luca has nightmares from his experience and we had to seek professional help.
The first few days had been worse. I barely remember them as I survived in a morose state.
There were Just flashes of police sirens and hospital visits and holding Luca while he slept, afraid to close my eyes in case I woke up back in that nightmare.
Dante was on the phone constantly, meeting with people I didn’t recognize, and making plans I’m sure are connected to the ledger.
I didn’t question him, I just trust his leadership and trust him to do the right thing.
Then he started releasing the ledger. Piece by piece at first, through journalists he trusted and law enforcement contacts he’d built over years, until it became a full blown pandemic.
Every few days, another story would emerge.
Another big name would appear in the headlines.
Another corrupt official would be led away in handcuffs while cameras flashed.
The five families’ power structure crumbled slowly and spectacularly before the eyes of the public.
I watched it happen from the safety of our estate, holding my son and trying to process the fact that we’d survived. That Isabella was dead, and the nightmare I’d been running from for six years was finally and truly over.
Family heads turned on each other trying to save themselves.
Alliances that had lasted for decades crumbled overnight as everyone scrambled to make deals, point fingers, throw each other under the bus.
It was almost satisfying to watch, if I’m being honest. These men who had constantly terrorized people for generations, suddenly reduced to rats fleeing from a heavy rain.
But the one that shook the entirety of New York was Salvatore Moretti’s arrest. Dante’s father.
One of the biggest underground power and had the most influence in politics.
I watched the news coverage with Dante beside me, his jaw tight, his hands clenched into fists.
His father was led out of his mansion in handcuffs, looking old and frail and nothing like the monster he really was.
The charges were read out in a monotone voice by a reporter who seemed shaken reading out the atrocities.
Crimes against children. Trafficking. Conspiracy. Murder.
He would spend the rest of his life in prison. He would die there, alone, with the whole world knowing exactly what he was.
The Moretti name was destroyed forever.
I thought Dante would fall apart. Thought watching his father’s arrest, seeing his family’s legacy burn to the ground, would break something in him. But when I looked at his face, I didn’t see grief or regret. I saw relief. Like a weight he’d been carrying his whole life had finally lifted.
“It’s done,” he said quietly. “It’s finally done.”
But the cost of doing the right thing was enormous.
Dante lost connections he’d spent years building, even if he wasn’t tied to his father’s businesses.
Allies who had sworn loyalty turned their backs.
Most of his criminal empire evaporated as people distanced themselves from the toxic Moretti name.
The money, the power, the influence, all of it slipping away.
But according to him, he gained something more valuable. The ability to look Luca in the eye without shame. The ability to answer his son’s questions about right and wrong without being a hypocrite. The ability to build something new, clean, and worth passing down.
And with all of these, I thought we were finally safe. That the worst was behind us.
But I was wrong.
What’s left of the Morettis launched one final desperate attack on our estate three weeks after Salvatore’s arrest. Family members loyal to the old man, cousins and nephews and distant relatives who wanted revenge for the destruction of everything they’d built their lives around.
They blamed Dante for their patriarch’s imprisonment, for the loss of their money and power and status.
They came at night, heavily armed, determined to make him pay for his betrayal.
I remember the sound of gunfire shattering the windows.
Remember the alarms blaring and the guards shouting and the smell of smoke as parts of the estate caught fire from the assault.
Remember grabbing Luca and running for the panic room while the house erupted in chaos around us, my heart pounding so hard I could barely breathe.
And I remember the moment Dante took a bullet.
We were almost close to the safe room when one of the attackers broke through our security.
Dante shoved Luca behind him, put his body between our son and the gun, and the shot caught him in the chest. He went down hard, blood spreading across his shirt, and I thought he was going to die.
Thought I was watching the man I loved bleed out on the floor of our burning home after surviving the worst moments.
Luca was screaming. The attacker was raising his gun for a second shot, aiming at Dante’s head, ready to finish what he started.
And I moved without thinking.
Dante’s gun had fallen when he went down. I grabbed it, raised it, and pulled the trigger. Center mass, exactly where to kill.
The man stumbled backward, shock on his face. I shot him again. And again. And again, screaming until he stopped moving and the gun clicked empty.
I killed another person that night, my second kill. Chose violence to protect my family. Stood over a body with a smoking gun in my hands and felt nothing except the desperate need to get to Dante, to stop the bleeding, and to keep him alive.
I’m forever changed. I know that now. The girl who left Portland would never recognize the woman I’ve become. But I can’t bring myself to regret it. Not when Luca is alive. Not when Dante survived.
He spent two weeks in the hospital. The bullet missed his heart by inches, the doctors said.
A few centimeters to the left and I would have been planning a funeral instead of sitting by his bedside, holding his hand, waiting for him to wake up.
I barely slept those two weeks. Barely ate.
Just sat there watching his chest rise and fall, terrified that each breath would be his last.
When he finally opened his eyes, the first thing he said was Luca’s name. The second thing he said changed everything.
“I’m done.”
I thought the pain medication was making him confused. “Done with what?”
“All of it. The criminal life. The violence. The constant looking over our shoulders.” He reached for my hand, his grip weak but determined. “We’re going to dismantle everything. Go completely legitimate. Build something clean.”
“Dante, you don’t have to—”
“I want to. I should have done it years ago.” His grey eyes met mine, clearer than I’d ever seen them. “I almost died in front of our son. I’m not doing that again. I’m not putting you through that again. We’re done.”
And he meant it.
Six months later, we’re living in a secure but normal home in the countryside outside New York.
It’s nothing like the estate, no armed guards at every entrance, no panic rooms, no bulletproof windows.
Just a regular house with a big backyard and a tire swing Dante hung from the old oak tree because Luca begged him for three days straight.
There’s a vegetable garden that I’m slowly killing despite my best efforts, and a dog named Biscuit that Luca picked out from the shelter last month.
Dante runs a legitimate security company now.
Protecting people instead of destroying them, he says with a huge smile.
Using all those skills he developed over decades of violence for something good.
The business is doing well. Turns out there’s a market for security consultants who actually know what they’re talking about, who’ve seen real threats and know how to neutralize them.
Luca calls him Dad now. Not D, not Daddy sometimes and D other times.
Just Dad, said with the easy confidence of a child who knows exactly where he belongs.
He’s in therapy twice a week, working through the trauma of everything he witnessed, and his therapist says he’s making remarkable progress.
Kids are resilient, she tells us. Especially kids who feel safe and loved.
He feels safe now. I can see it in the way he sleeps through the night without screaming, the way he runs to Dante when he comes home from work, the way he laughs at stupid jokes and fights with his cousins and acts like a normal six-year-old instead of a child who survived a warzone.
Tonight we’re having a family dinner. The kitchen is a mess with smears everywhere.
Rosa is at the stove, arguing with Dante about whether the sauce needs more garlic.
Elena is setting the table while her kids run circles around the living room, chasing Luca in some complicated game that involves a lot of screaming and occasional furniture climbing.
I’m supposed to be making a salad but mostly I’m just watching, taking it all in, and marveling at how normal everything feels.
Elena catches my eye and smiles. She’s doing better now.
The trust fund Dante set up after Marco’s death has helped her rebuild, given her the security to grieve without worrying about bills or the kids’ futures.
She’s become close to us over the past months, part of our strange little family, connected by loss and loyalty and the shared understanding of what it means to love someone in this world.
“Luca, stop climbing on the couch!” I call out, not really expecting him to listen.
“But Mom, we’re playing volcano!”
“Play volcano on the floor!”
“That’s not how volcanoes work!”
I give up. Some battles aren’t worth fighting. Not with Luca anyway. Honestly, I shouldn’t be knowing fully where he got his blocked ears from.
Dante appears beside me, stealing a cherry tomato from my salad bowl. I slap his hand but he just grins, that rare genuine smile that I’ve been seeing more and more often lately.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” he says. “If Rosa ever stops criticizing my sauce.”
“Your sauce is fine,” Rosa calls from the stove. “It would be better with more garlic.”
“It has plenty of garlic.”
“It has adequate garlic. There’s a difference.”
I laugh and lean into Dante’s side, his arm coming around my shoulders automatically. This is what normal feels like. This is what I was running toward all those years without knowing it.
“Dad!” Luca comes charging into the kitchen, nearly knocking over a tray pan in the process. “Dad, I have a question.”
“What’s up, buddy?”
“Will the new baby have scary eyes like you?”
The kitchen goes quiet. Elena freezes by the table. Rosa turns from the stove with her eyebrows raised. Dante looks at me, then at Luca, then back at me.
“What new baby?” he asks slowly.
Luca rolls his eyes like we’re being impossibly dense. “The baby in Mama’s tummy. Nana Rosa said Mama’s eating for two now. That means there’s a baby, right? We learned about it in school.”
I’m going to kill Rosa. I was planning to tell Dante tonight, after dinner, when we were alone. I had a whole long ass speech prepared. But apparently my son and his grandmother had other plans.
“Scarlett?” Dante’s voice is careful and questioning. Like he’s afraid to hope.
“Surprise?” I say weakly.
He stares at me for a long moment, those grey eyes searching my face for confirmation.
Then he laughs. A deep happy sound, emanating from the deepest part of him.
Then he pulls me into his arms and spins me around, right there in the middle of the kitchen with everyone watching, and I’m laughing too, tears pricking at my eyes.
“A baby,” he says against my hair. “We’re having a baby.”
“We’re having a baby.”
Luca tugs at Dante’s sleeve. “Dad. You didn’t answer my question. Will the baby have scary eyes?”
Dante crouches down to Luca’s level, still grinning like an idiot. “My eyes aren’t scary.”
“They’re a little scary. But I like them anyway.”
“Then maybe the baby will have scary eyes too. Would that be okay?”
Luca considers this seriously. “Yeah. I’ll teach the baby not to be scared of them. Big brother stuff.”
I have to turn away so no one sees me crying. Hormones. Definitely the pregnancy hormones.
We finally sit to have dinner and it’s chaotic and absolutely perfect.
The kids make a mess that will take an hour to clean up, Rosa complains about the garlic levels at least three more times, Elena tells stories about Marco that make us laugh and cry in equal measure, and Luca asks approximately seven hundred questions about the baby, including whether it will like dinosaurs and if he can pick its name and if babies know how to play video games.
Normal family stuff. The kind of normal I never thought I’d have. The kind I’d stopped believing existed.
Later, after everyone’s gone home and Luca’s asleep with Biscuit curled up at the foot of his bed, Dante and I sit on the back porch watching the stars. It’s cold but we’re wrapped in blankets, pressed close together, his hand resting on my stomach where our child is growing.
The night is quiet. Peaceful in a way that still surprises me sometimes. No guards patrolling. No alarms ready to blare. Just crickets and the distant hoot of an owl and the sound of Dante breathing beside me.
“I’d burn the world down for you again,” he whispers. “You know that, right? If anyone ever threatened you or Luca or this baby, I’d destroy them all.”
I smile and place my hand over his. “I know you would.”
“Good.”
“But maybe this time,” I say softly, “we should build something instead. Something peaceful and serene.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then he turns his head and presses a kiss to my temple.
“Yeah,” he agrees, his voice soft in the darkness. “Let’s build.”
We sit there in the quiet night, wrapped in each other, planning a future that doesn’t involve blood or violence or looking over our shoulders. Our family is whole and healing. We’ve chosen light after living so long in darkness.
And for the first time in six years, I’m not afraid of what comes next.
I’m genuinely excited for it. Finally.