Chapter 7 - Shadows of the Past
Three months passed.
The lakefront house in Evanston was beautiful—a sprawling stone estate surrounded by tall oak trees and the calm, endless blue of Lake Michigan. For the first time in her life, my mother didn't have to work a twelve-hour shift. She spent her mornings painting on the patio and her evenings watching the sunset over the water.
Joseph visited every Sunday.
He came without his usual army of bodyguards, bringing only Marco, who would wait near the car while Joseph sat on the porch with my mother, talking quietly about the twenty years they had lost. They were like two strangers slowly learning the language of a forgotten country.
I continued my studies at Northwestern, though my life had changed entirely. I no longer worked shifts at restaurants. Instead, I spent two afternoons a week reviewing financial records for the Golden Crown under the guidance of Joseph's chief accountant.
One Sunday evening, as the autumn leaves began to fall, Joseph sat in the study of the Evanston house, looking over a map of Chicago. I walked in, carrying two mugs of black coffee.
"You're still fighting them, aren't you?" I asked, placing a mug on the mahogany desk.
Joseph looked up, his dark eyes tired. "The Moretti family was only one head of the hydra, Audrey. When a power vacuum opens in Chicago, smaller men fight to fill it."
"You could walk away," I said, leaning against the desk. "You have enough money for ten lifetimes. You could leave the syndicate behind."
Joseph shook his head slowly. "If I walk away now, the peace I bought for you and your mother disappears. In my world, you only retire when you are six feet underground, or when you have built a wall so high nobody dares to climb it."
"Is that why you haven't moved in here with Mom?" I asked gently.
Joseph looked out the window toward the garden, where my mother was pruning rosebushes in the fading evening light.
"I am a violent man, Audrey," he said softly. "My hands have done terrible things. Your mother is pure. She belongs in the light. I belong in the shadows that protect her. If I step fully into her world, I will bring the dark with me."
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"She loves you, Joseph," I said. "She never stopped."
Joseph closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. "And I love her more than life itself. Which is why I must finish this war before I can ever sit at her table as a whole man."
