Chapter 8 - The Velvet Box
Enzo crawled forward on his hands and knees across the icy concrete floor, stopping three feet from my boots.
He held up the small velvet box with trembling hands.
"I went to the jeweler in Oak Brook yesterday," Enzo wept, opening the box to reveal a sparkling diamond band—an exact replica of the ring I had thrown into his whiskey glass, but twice the size. "I had them engrave the date... the date we were supposed to welcome our child."
I looked down at the glittering diamond sitting in the black velvet lining.
It was breathtaking. It was absurd. It was the frantic, pathetic gesture of a man trying to buy forgiveness for a debt that could only be paid in soul and blood.
"Do you know what I was doing while you were at that jeweler, Enzo?" I asked, my tone entirely flat.
Enzo looked up at me, his face wet with tears. "No..."
"I was standing in the private chapel at St. Mary’s," I said quietly. "Selecting a tiny white marble headstone for a grave that doesn't even have a name on it because my child died before I could hold him."
Enzo buried his face in his hands, letting out a loud, agonizing wail that echoed off the high corrugated steel walls of the warehouse.
"I would give up everything!" Enzo screamed through his sobs. "I would give up the Moretti name! I would give up every dollar, every territory, every gun I own just to go back to Tuesday afternoon and pick up that phone!"
"You can't go back, Enzo," I said, leaning down slightly so my face was level with his. "That’s the beauty of time. It shows us exactly who people are when they think no one is watching."
"Please..." he whispered, grabbing the hem of my coat. "Give me a chance to earn it back. One year. Two years. Let me work for you, Carmela. Let me be your guard, your soldier... anything. Just don't erase me from your life."
I gently reached down, took the hem of my coat out of his grasp, and stepped back out of his reach.
"I'm not erasing you, Enzo," I said. "I'm leaving you right where you belong. In the past."
I turned my back on him and began walking back toward the iron staircase.
May you like
"Carmela!" Enzo shrieked behind me, his voice cracking with absolute despair. "CARMELA! DON'T LEAVE ME!"
"Take him out to his car," I told Mateo, who was standing at the base of the stairs holding his rifle. "If he returns to the docks again, break his legs."
