Chapter 8 - The Cleansing of the House
By 4:00 AM, the DeLuca lakefront estate was ablaze with light.
Black SUVs were lined up along the grand driveway, and dozens of accountants and legal fixers had been summoned from their beds to process the unconditional surrender of the Marcone empire. In the grand parlor, where floral arrangements still stood from the morning, stacks of deeds, port manifests, and non-disclosure agreements covered the mahogany tables.
Upstairs, in the master wing, a hot shower ran, filling the marble bathroom with thick, soothing steam.
I stepped out of the shower wrapped in a plush white robe, drying my damp hair with a towel. The adrenaline that had carried me through the last eighteen hours was finally draining away, leaving my muscles aching and my mind utterly exhausted.
Adrian stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass doors overlooking the stormy lake, holding two mugs of hot tea. He had showered in the adjoining guest suite and had changed into clean dark trousers and a soft gray sweater. The cuts on his face and shoulder had been properly stitched and dressed by the family physician.
He turned when he heard my footsteps, offering me one of the mugs with a tentative, cautious softness.
“Chamomile,” he said quietly. “With honey. The way you like it when you can’t sleep.”
I took the mug, wrapping my cold fingers around the warm porcelain. “Thank you.”
We stood side by side in the silence of the massive bedroom, watching the gray dawn begin to crack across the horizon of Lake Michigan, turning the dark water into shades of steel and violet.
“Lily signed the confession,” Adrian said after a long silence. “She admitted to planting the transponder on your bridal car and coordinating with Marcone’s men. Dante is escorting her to a private charter flight to an isolated estate in Northern Canada. She will live under constant guard, without internet, without luxury, and without a single penny of DeLuca money for the rest of her days. She will never step foot in this country again.”
I took a slow sip of the tea, feeling the warmth spread through my chest. “You could have executed her.”
“She wasn't worth the bullet,” Adrian answered, turning his body toward me. “And more importantly... I didn't want any more blood on our hands that didn't need to be there. I spent the last three years thinking I had to be an unfeeling monster to protect this empire. I thought keeping you away from the ugliness was the only way to keep you pure. But I almost lost you because of my own arrogance.”
“You didn't almost lose me to Marcone, Adrian,” I said, looking up into his dark, tired eyes. “You almost lost me because you treated me like an ornament. You put Lily in that car because you thought my feelings were something you could manage later, while her drama was something you had to appease. That broke my trust more than any bullet ever could.”
Adrian set his mug down on the low table. He took a slow, deliberate step toward me, dropping to one knee on the hardwood floor.
My breath hitched.
Adrian DeLuca, a man who answered to no law, who made federal prosecutors tremble and syndicate bosses bend the knee, was kneeling before me in the quiet light of dawn.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black velvet box. Inside rested a new ring—not the traditional diamond solitaire he had proposed with two years ago, but an extraordinary, flawless emerald surrounded by a halo of black diamonds.
“This belonged to my great-grandmother,” Adrian said, his voice thick with an emotion he had never once allowed the world to see. “She was the one who built the foundation of our family when my great-grandfather was sent to prison. In our bloodline, the emerald is only worn by the true head of the family. The woman who holds the iron and the soul together.”
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He looked up at me, his eyes shining with unshed tears.
“I don't want a trophy, Evelyn. I don't want a quiet socialite who waits in the parlor while I fight the wolves. I want my equal. I want my partner. I want the only woman who had the courage to tell me to go to hell when I failed her, and the strength to stand beside me in a gunfight when the world burned. Will you marry me, Evelyn? Not for an alliance. Not for Chicago. But because you are the only home I will ever know?”
