Chapter 8 - The Legal Separation
The headquarters of the Moretti family was no longer a smoky basement in Queens or a private room at a luxury Italian restaurant. It was a conference room on the forty-second floor of a glass tower in downtown Manhattan, overlooking the gray expanse of the East River.
Three months after the mountain ambush, Serena sat at the long mahogany table, wearing a simple navy blue wool suit. Her hair was pulled back into a neat knot, her hands resting flat on the polished wood. Across from her sat Lucian, wearing his usual charcoal suit, but his tie was missing, his top button undone, looking more like a man who had walked out of a long battle than a sitting Don.
Between them sat thirty-eight pages of legal documentation—the official restructuring of the Moretti corporate holdings.
"Everything is in the boy’s name, Serena," Marco said, stepping up to the table with a silver pen. He looked exhausted, but his eyes were bright with a strange, profound relief. "The shipping contracts, the real estate trusts, the legitimate logistics companies. By noon today, Lucian Moretti owns nothing but the clothes on his back and a small farm in Vermont."
Serena looked at her husband. "And the other families?"
"The Romanos are finished," Lucian said, his voice quiet but steady. "After the stunt they pulled in Vermont, the commission voted to strip them of their territory. I spent the last twelve weeks handing those lines over to the other three families. I gave them Queens, I gave them the Bronx, I gave them the docks. There’s nothing left to fight over, Serena. The Moretti name is out of the business."
Serena touched the edge of the paper. "You did this for him?"
"I did it for you," Lucian said, his gray-blue eyes locking onto hers. "You told me an empire was a pile of cold stones, Serena. You were right. I spent ten years building a wall to keep the world away, and I ended up locking myself out of the only thing that mattered."
He stood up, walking around the table until he stood beside her chair. He didn't lean down; he didn't try to touch her. He just stood there, completely unarmed, waiting for her judgment.
"The house in Vermont is registered under your name, Serena," Lucian said quietly. "If you want me to leave, I’ll take a flight to Chicago tonight. I’ll send the child support through the trust. You’ll never have to see my face again."
Serena looked up at him, noticing the silver scar on his cheek where a piece of glass had cut him during the ambush, the lines around his eyes that hadn't been there when they were in Italy, and the quiet, desperate hope that he was trying so hard to hide beneath his iron manners.
She reached down into her bag, pulling out a small wooden block—a red triangle that Nico had refused to leave behind at the hotel. She placed it on top of the legal papers.
"Nico asked for you this morning," Serena said, her voice dropping to a soft, emotional whisper. "He called the red block 'Dada'."
Lucian’s breath hitched, his hand coming up to touch the back of her chair to steady himself. "Serena..."
"The farm needs a new roof before the spring rain, Lucian," she said, a small, beautiful smile finally breaking across her face. "And I don't know anything about cutting wood."
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Lucian dropped to his knees beside her chair, his large hands wrapping over hers, his forehead pressing against her knuckles as he let out a long, ragged sob—the first tears the Ghost of Manhattan had shed since he was a boy of seven.
"I’ll fix the roof," he whispered into her skin. "I’ll fix everything, Serena. I swear to God."
