Chapter 10 - The Sunlight on the Sound
Three months later, the carriage cottage at the edge of the woods was demolished.
In its place, Dante had ordered a greenhouse built, filled with winter roses and citrus trees that bloomed despite the January snow dusting the Long Island coast. The hidden tunnel beneath the foundation had been filled with three hundred tons of quick-dry concrete, sealing the dark artery of the past beneath five feet of solid stone.
The Castiglione family was gone—dismantled by federal indictments and Dante’s ruthless efficiency within thirty days of the attack. Silvio had lasted less than forty-eight hours in New York before disappearing into the wind, an old, penniless ghost stripped of his empire.
The third floor of the Moretti mansion had been completely renovated.
The cold, minimalist lines of Dante’s private suite had been replaced with warm oak, soft wool carpets, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Down the hall from the master bedroom, Sophie’s new room was painted the color of morning sunlight, with windows of reinforced ballistic glass that overlooked the open water.
Every evening at dusk, Bruno walked the perimeter of the terrace, checked Sophie’s door with a nudge of his wet nose, and then curled himself onto the heavy rug at the foot of Dante and my bed.
I stood by the kitchen island on a Sunday morning, pouring fresh coffee into two mugs.
Outside, snow fell softly against the panoramic glass. In the snowy courtyard below, bundled in a bright red parka and matching mittens, Sophie was laughing hysterically as she rolled a giant snowball across the lawn.
Beside her, Bruno pranced through the powder like an overgrown puppy, barking at the snowballs she threw at his chest.
Dante stepped up behind me, sliding his arms around my waist. He rested his chin on my shoulder, breathing in the scent of my hair, his body a wall of steady, quiet warmth against my back.
“She’s fast,” Dante murmured, watching Sophie chase the dog through the drifts. “She’s going to run the estate before she turns twelve.”
“She gets that from her father,” I said softly, leaning back into his chest.
Dante didn't stiffen. For three months, we had spoken of Miguel often, honoring the quiet clerk whose courage had saved us all. Dante had set up an endowment in Miguel’s name in Greenpoint—a sanctuary for families caught in the crossfire of the city’s underground.
“And you?” Dante asked, his hands resting gently over mine on the marble counter. “Are you still listening for knocks at the window, Elena?”
I turned in his arms, looking up into the dark, steady eyes that had once terrified me. The hard lines of his face had softened around the edges, smoothed by the quiet domesticity we had built out of the ashes of that October storm.
“No,” I whispered, reaching up to touch the faint scar on his temple. “The shadows are gone, Dante.”
He leaned down and kissed me—a slow, deep promise sealed against the cold of the winter outside.
Down in the snow, a small snowball struck the lower pane of the French doors with a soft, cheerful *thud*.
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Sophie waved her red mitten frantically from the lawn, her cheeks rosy with health and joy, while Bruno let out a loud, joyous bark that echoed across the frozen Sound.
There were no more taps in the night. No more secrets hidden behind the walnut panels. For the first time in my life, beneath the roof of the most dangerous man in New York, my daughter and I were finally home.
