28. Max
— ? —
Max
The red dress stops me dead in the doorway.
Cat is standing in front of the bedroom mirror, adjusting the fabric over her belly, thirty-one weeks now, impossible to hide, and she looks like something out of a painting.
Blood red silk, fitted enough to show the pregnancy without apologizing for it, low cut in a way that makes my throat go dry.
“Eyes up, Moretti,” she says, catching my eye in the mirror.
“I’m appreciating.”
“You’re going to be late.”
“I’m going to be exactly on time. The don is never late. Everyone else is early.”
She turns to face me, and the full effect hits me like a physical blow. The dress, the black hair falling in waves around her shoulders, the way she carries herself like she owns every room she enters.
“Is the tie right?” I ask, adjusting it unnecessarily. “I wasn’t sure if matching was too much.”
“It’s perfect.” She crosses to me and smooths the fabric against my chest. “We look like a united front.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Are you nervous?”
“I don’t get nervous.”
“Liar.”
“Okay, maybe a little nervous.” I catch her hand, press a kiss to her palm. “This is the first time we’ve stood together in front of both families since everything happened. Since I-”
“Since you made everyone think I was disposable?”
“Yes. Since that.”
“Then today you unmake it.” She squeezes my hand. “I’ll be right there with you.”
“I know. That’s the only reason I can do this at all.”
The meeting is held at a location we agreed on together, one of Enzo’s properties, jointly secured by both families’ men working together for the first time in months. We arrive in a convoy of black cars, security in layers, everyone on edge.
Cat sits beside me in the backseat, her hand in mine, watching the city roll past.
“What are you going to say?” she asks.
“The truth.”
“The whole truth?”
“The parts that matter.” I turn to look at her. “I’m going to tell them I was wrong. That I neglected you. That my strategy was never an excuse for how I treated you.”
“In front of everyone?”
“Every last one of them.”
She’s quiet for a moment, processing. “You don’t have to do that. The announcement about the peace is enough. You don’t have to-”
“Yes, I do.” I bring her hand to my lips.
“You were humiliated in that meeting. In front of my entire leadership. I let Sergio and his people believe you were worthless to me, and even if it was theater, even if I thought I was protecting you, it hurt you. Publicly. The repair needs to be public too.”
“Max-”
“This is what you deserve, Cat. Not just a private apology. A public acknowledgment that I was wrong and you were right to be hurt.”
She stares at me for a long moment, her eyes bright.
“I love you,” she says finally.
“I love you too. Now help me not throw up before we get there.”
“The great don of the Moretti family, nervous about a meeting?”
“The great don of the Moretti family is about to admit to two full families that he was an idiot. Allow me some anxiety.”
The room is full when we arrive.
Both families, seated on opposite sides of a massive table, Morettis on the left, Romanos on the right. Enzo at the head of his side, Nico at my right hand, both of them standing as we enter.
Every eye turns to us.
I feel Cat’s hand tighten in mine, and I squeeze back. We walk together, matching pace, presenting exactly the united front we discussed. Her red dress blazes like a signal fire. My red tie marks me as hers.
“Don Moretti.” Enzo’s voice is formal, but there’s warmth underneath. “Donna Moretti. Thank you for joining us.”
“Thank you for hosting, Don Romano.” I nod to him, then to Nico. “And for your work coordinating this meeting.”
“It was necessary.” Nico’s face is carefully neutral, but I can see the tension in his shoulders. His father tried to kill us. His sister helped plan it. He’s been walking a knife’s edge between loyalty and blood for weeks. “Both families needed to see you together. To hear from you directly.”
“They will.”
I guide Cat to the two chairs at the center of the table, the position of honor, the spot reserved for the don and donna of a united alliance. She settles into hers with a grace that makes me proud, her hand finding mine on the armrest between us.
As the room settles and Enzo confers with one of his captains about the speaking order, Cat leans close, her lips barely moving.
“You’re sweating.”
“I’m not sweating.”
Her fingers stay wrapped around mine under the table despite the dampness I would rather she hadn’t noticed.
“Your palm is damp. I can feel it.”
“That’s anticipation. Very different from sweat.”
“Anticipation doesn’t usually require a napkin.”
“Maybe I’m anticipating aggressively.”
The room is settling behind us, chairs scraping, voices low, the whole fractious apparatus of two families gathering to watch me eat crow in public.
“Is that what we’re calling nerves now?”
“I don’t get nervous.”
“You’ve said that three times today. It’s becoming less convincing each time.”
“I’m a don. Dons don’t get nervous.”
She runs her thumb over my knuckles, letting me know she is teasing and staying, both at once.
“Dons also don’t usually admit to two full families that they were idiots. Maybe today is a day for firsts.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m enjoying watching you squirm. It’s a rare pleasure. I’m savoring it.”
I huff, but my shoulders come down an inch. She keeps me breathing until it’s time.
“Remind me why I married you.”
“The treaty. My family’s shipping routes. My devastating wit.”
“The wit wasn’t in the contract.”
“Consider it a bonus.”
I squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back, and for just a moment, the room full of enemies and allies fades away.
“Thank you,” I murmur. “For being here.”
“Nowhere else. Not anymore.”
“Somewhere safe. Somewhere far from all this.”
“This is exactly where I’m supposed to be. Now stop stalling and go make your speech before you actually do start sweating.”
“I thought you said I already was.”
“I lied. But you will be if you keep delaying.”
Enzo turns back to us, signaling that the room is ready.
“Before we begin,” I say, pitching my voice to carry, “I have something to say. Not as announcement. As acknowledgment.”
Conversation dies. Every head turns toward me.
“Six months ago, I stood in a room like this one. Smaller, with fewer witnesses, but similar enough. And I said things about my wife, about the alliance, that were calculated to deceive the traitors I knew were listening.”
I can feel Cat’s gaze on me, steady and warm.
“I told that room I didn’t know if I loved my wife enough to keep her. I said I couldn’t stand the marriage much longer. I let everyone in that room, including the loyal men who deserved better from me, believe that Caterina Romano Moretti was worthless to me.”
A murmur runs through the gathered crowd. I press on.
“It was strategy. That’s what I told myself. I was protecting her from the coup, from the traitors, from the war I was fighting in secret. I thought if they believed she didn’t matter to me, they wouldn’t use her as leverage.”
“But strategy is not an excuse.” I turn to look at Cat directly, speaking to her as much as to the room.
“I neglected my wife. I shut her out, froze her out, made her feel invisible in her own home. I let her believe she was nothing to me because I was too proud, too strategic, too goddamn stubborn to trust her with the truth.”
Her eyes are shining, but she doesn’t look away.
“She ran because I gave her every reason to run. She hid because I made her feel unsafe in the house that should have been her sanctuary. She carried our child alone for months because I had already convinced her I didn’t care whether she lived or died.”
“I was wrong.” I say it clearly, letting the words ring through the room. “I was wrong about how to protect her. I was wrong about what she needed from me. I was wrong to treat our marriage as a chess piece in a larger game instead of as the partnership it should have been.”
“My wife’s seat at this table, at every alliance table, was written into the treaty for a reason. Because she is not decoration. She is not a symbol. She is the donna of this family, and her voice matters as much as mine. More, sometimes, because she sees things I miss.”
I turn back to the room, to every face watching us.
“The truce is still on. Stronger than ever, because we’ve cut out the rot that was trying to destroy it.
My wife and I are expecting a child, the first heir of the alliance, born to both families.
And anyone who threatens the peace we’ve built, anyone who comes after my wife or my child or the future we’re creating-”
I let the silence stretch.
“They will be removed. Exactly as the last people who tried have been removed.”
No one so much as breathes.
“My wife will speak now.” I sit down, turning my full attention to Cat. “As is her right. As should have been her right from the beginning.”
Before I yield the floor, I put the amended council rules beside her hand. No alliance decision takes effect without both our signatures. If a meeting concerns the treaty, calling it internal business no longer changes who must be invited. Enzo signs his agreement across the table, and I sign mine.
Cat rises.
She’s magnificent. Even seven months pregnant, even after everything we’ve been through, she commands the room like she was born to it. Which, in a way, she was.
“Don Romano.” She nods to her brother. A nod to Nico, acknowledging his role despite everything his family did. “Captains of both houses. Thank you for being here.”
“Six months ago, I ran from this family. I believed my husband wanted me dead. I believed the alliance was a lie and my marriage was a trap.” She pauses, letting the words land. “I was wrong about the first two things. The third…”
A small smile crosses her face.
“The third was more complicated.”
Nervous laughter ripples through the room.
“The war cost my father his leg. The peace my father-in-law built was his final act, he was already dying when he chose to end the bloodshed, to leave something better behind instead of more graves. Both of them believed, truly believed, that the future was worth more than the past. That their children could have something better than endless war.”
“I believe that too.” Her voice strengthens. “And I’m not going to let anyone destroy what they built. Not Sergio Greco, not his faction, not anyone who thinks the old ways are better than the new.”
She turns to look at me, and her expression softens.
“My husband made mistakes. He knows that. He’s spent months proving he understands what those mistakes cost us.
But he also saved my life, threw himself in front of a bullet for me and our baby without a moment’s hesitation.
That’s the man I married. That’s the man I’m choosing to build a future with. ”
“Until our child is born, Don Moretti and I will be at an undisclosed location. Nico will handle day-to-day operations for the Morettis. Enzo will continue to lead the Romanos. Any major decisions will require approval from both of us, but the families are in good hands.”
She looks around the room, meeting eyes, commanding attention.
“The peace is not a preference. It is law. And anyone who threatens it threatens both families, both bloodlines, simultaneously. We will respond accordingly.”
“Are there any questions?”
Silence. Then Enzo stands.
“I have one.”
Cat raises an eyebrow. “Don Romano?”
“When can we expect to meet our new niece or nephew?”
The tension breaks. Laughter rolls through the room, genuine this time, relieved.
“About two months,” Cat says, her hand finding her belly. “Give or take.”
“Then we have work to do.” Enzo’s voice carries command. “The alliance moves forward. The traitors have been dealt with. And in two months, we celebrate a new beginning.”
He raises his glass, the wine that was poured but not yet touched.
“To Don and Donna Moretti. To the peace. And to the future.”
“To the future,” the room echoes.
Every head bows.
We slip out before the toasting properly begins.
The side door leads to a service corridor, then to a back exit where our car is waiting. Cat’s hand is in mine as we walk, her heels clicking against the concrete, her red dress swishing with every step.
“That was-” She shakes her head. “That was something.”
“Too much?”
“No. It was exactly right.” She stops, turns to face me. “You didn’t have to do that. The public part. You could have just made the announcement and moved on.”
“I wanted to do it. You deserved it.”
“I know. That’s what makes it mean something.” She reaches up, cups my face in her hands. “I love you, Massimo Moretti.”
“I love you too, Caterina Moretti.”
“We should go home.”
“We should.”
“The farm is waiting.”
“Cannoli’s probably filed a complaint already.”
Neither of us moves. We’re standing in a service corridor behind a meeting hall, the most powerful don and donna in the city, and we can’t seem to stop looking at each other.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Now we actually go.”
“Yes. Now we actually go.”
The driver takes us home through quiet roads.
Cat leans against my shoulder, her eyes half-closed, exhausted from the emotional weight of the meeting. I wrap my arm around her and watch the city give way to suburbs give way to countryside.
“Max?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For what you said in there.”
“You already thanked me.”
“I’m thanking you again.” She shifts, looking up at me. “I know that wasn’t easy. Standing up in front of everyone and admitting you were wrong. That’s not… that’s not how dons usually operate.”
“I’m not a usual don.”
“No. You’re not.” She settles back against my shoulder. “You’re better.”
“I’m trying to be.”
“You’re succeeding.”
The farm appears in the distance, white clapboard, red roof, the place that started as my attempt to take care of her and became our home.
“Almost there,” Cat murmurs.
“Close enough to smell the lavender.”
Her hand finds mine on the seat between us. The ring on my chain presses against my chest, waiting.
Soon. But not yet.