Chapter 10 - The Sovereign Union
On the evening of New Year’s Eve, the Grand Sovereign’s rooftop terrace was an oasis of glass, heat, and fire forty stories above the frozen city.
Two hundred guests—the new city council, the union leadership, the clean corporate partners, and the senior directors of Bennett-Moretti Enterprises—stood beneath the heated glass canopy, holding flutes of vintage champagne as the midnight countdown began.
Below us, the city of Chicago was a vast, glittering grid of gold and diamond lights, stretching from the dark expanse of the lake to the western horizons, the snow on the skyscrapers glowing pink under the holiday fireworks bursting over Navy Pier.
I stood at the cedar railing of the southern terrace, wearing an architectural gown of black velvet with an open back that showed the clean, unblemished line of my spine, holding a glass of mineral water with a slice of lime.
Vincent stepped up behind me.
He wore an evening tuxedo of midnight-blue barathea wool, his hands resting lightly on the railing on either side of my hips, trapping me gently within the circle of his warmth.
“Five minutes to midnight, Mrs. Moretti,” he murmured, his breath hot against my ear in the winter air.
I leaned back against his chest, feeling the solid, unshakeable beat of his heart through the silk of his jacket.
“It’s been an eventful year, Vincent,” I said, looking out at the red and green bursts of light reflecting off the glass towers along the river.
“Our stock closed up twenty-four percent today,” he said, his mouth brushing against the curve of my neck. “The Calumet port concession was approved by the governor’s office at three o'clock. And the New York syndicate has formally surrendered their secondary claims on the midwest rail corridors.”
I turned within his arms, resting my hands against the satin lapels of his tuxedo, looking up into his hazel eyes.
“You’re talking about business again, Mr. Moretti,” I chided softly.
“I am an accountant, Claire,” he whispered, his hands sliding down to the small of my back, his thumb finding the platinum band on my fourth finger, pressing it into my flesh with an unyielding, permanent weight. “I keep the books.”
“And how do the books look tonight?”
Vincent looked down into my eyes—not with the predatory calculation of a mob boss, and not with the cold detachment of a contract partner, but with the deep, terrifying, absolute devotion of a man who had found his sovereign equal in the middle of a war and had surrendered his entire world to her hands.
“The liabilities are cleared, Claire,” Vincent whispered, leaning down as the crowd behind us began the final ten-second chant of the year. “The assets are secured.”
The fireworks exploded over the lake in a blinding, cascading wall of gold and emerald fire, turning the winter sky into day.
“And the partnership?” I asked, my lips an inch from his.
May you like
“The partnership,” Vincent murmured against my mouth, “is permanent.”
And as the city erupted into bells, cheers, and sirens beneath the freezing sky, Vincent Moretti kissed his wife, and neither of them ever looked back at the shadows again.
