Chapter 9 - The New Law of Chicago
Two months passed.
Winter fell over Illinois with a vengeance, burying the streets of Chicago under four feet of white snow that muted the roar of the traffic and turned the city into a sprawling landscape of ice and stone.
In the Gold Coast mansion, the mahogany dining table—the one that had sat untouched for five years, gathering dust in the gloom of my grief—was ablaze with light.
A fire crackled in the great stone hearth, sending warm orange shadows dancing across the oil portraits of Moretti ancestors lining the walls. The smell of roasted chicken, garlic potatoes, and Elena's signature yellow rice filled the high-ceilinged room.
Around the table sat four little boys.
They wore white shirts with the collars turned down, their hair combed back in neat waves. Each of them had a small silver fork in his hand, though Leo was currently using his fingers to inspect a piece of bread with scientific fascination.
At the head of the table, I sat in the high-backed leather chair where my father had sat before me.
Beside me sat Elena, no longer wearing her housekeeper’s uniform, but a simple, elegant dark green wool dress. She was no longer staff in this house; she was the boys’ guardian, the woman who had preserved the Moretti bloodline with her life.
To my left sat Lucian, quietly cutting a slice of roast beef, his eyes darting toward the window out of old military habit, though the perimeter was now guarded by sixty men who had sworn blood oaths on the cathedral steps.
"Leo," Elena said gently. "Use the fork, my little bird. A prince does not eat bread like a stray dog."
"I am not a prince," Leo replied, popping the crust into his mouth with a grin. "I am a soldier. Dante said so."
"Dante is four years old and knows nothing about soldiers," I said from the head of the table.
Dante looked up from his plate, his fork poised halfway to his mouth. "I know that soldiers don't eat broccoli, Papa."
A chuckle rippled around the table. Lucian hid a smile behind his linen napkin.
"A Moretti soldier eats what is on his plate," I countered, raising an eyebrow. "Otherwise, he doesn't get to go to the docks tomorrow to see the big freighters come in from Montreal."
Dante considered this trade-off for three seconds. Then, with an expression of immense personal sacrifice, he shoved the small piece of green vegetable into his mouth and chewed with exaggerated misery.
Mateo laughed, kicking his legs beneath the chair. "He looks like Bruno when he eats lemon!"
The laughter in the room was warm, continuous, and alive. It filled the corners of the mansion where silence had reigned for half a decade.
The telephone on the sideboard buzzed—a low, discreet chime that indicated an internal line from the security gatehouse.
Lucian moved to answer it, but I held up a hand.
I rose from the table, stepping over to the console, and lifted the receiver. "Speak."
"Boss," came the voice of Franco, the new head of the gate detail. "Don Carmine and the heads of the four South Side families are here. They brought the tribute from the November ports, and... they asked if they might pay their respects to the young Dons."
I looked across the room.
Mateo was showing Christian how to fold his napkin into the shape of a sailboat. Elena was laughing as Leo tried to copy them. Dante was watching me, his sharp eyes noticing the subtle shift in my posture.
They were boys. They had years of childhood ahead of them—years of running with Bruno in the snow, of learning Latin and mathematics, of fishing on the lake before the heavy crown of this city was placed upon their heads.
I would teach them how to rule, yes. But I would teach them how to live first.
"Tell Carmine to leave the ledgers with the front desk," I said into the receiver. "Tell him the tribute is accepted."
"And the boys, Boss? Do they enter?"
"No," I replied, my voice steady, iron-clad, and final. "Tell them the Moretti heirs do not receive visitors at dinner. Tell them the Don is having supper with his family."
I hung up the receiver.
I walked back to the mahogany table, looking at the four empty chairs that were now full, at the plates that were no longer cold, and at the small boy who pointed a silver spoon at me as I approached.
"Papa," Mateo asked, his crooked smile identical to the one I had worn in a photograph taken forty years ago. "Are we going to build the snowman tomorrow?"
I pulled my chair back and sat down, looking around the table at my four sons.
"Yes, Mateo," I said, reaching across to ruffle his dark hair. "Tomorrow, we build the snowman."
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And for the first time in five years, the most feared man in Chicago took his fork, smiled, and began to eat.
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