Chapter 9 - EIGHTEEN MONTHSPrison taught Dante Moretti things no enemy ever had.
New York devoured the story.
The feared Moretti boss.
The secret daughter.
The murdered father.
The uncle who had orchestrated everything.
News vans camped outside the courthouse.
Reporters shouted questions whenever Dante appeared.
“Mr. Moretti, are you cooperating for immunity?”
“Did you order violent crimes?”
“Is your daughter the reason you turned against the organization?”
“Are you still in control of the Moretti family?”
Dante answered none of them outside court.
Inside, he answered almost everything.
Not because he had suddenly become innocent.
He wasn’t.
He had committed crimes.
Threatened people.
Approved illegal operations.
Benefited from fear.
Federal prosecutors offered reduced sentencing because of the evidence he provided, but they made no promise that he would simply walk free.
Dante accepted that.
Elena did not.
“You could go to prison.”
They stood in the kitchen of a rented house in Connecticut where she and Rosie had been moved for protection.
Dante poured coffee.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“You say that too calmly.”
“Panicking rarely improves mathematics.”
“This is not funny.”
“No.”
She crossed her arms.
“You should have told me.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“After you signed the cooperation agreement.”
“You would have tried to stop me.”
“Of course I would have tried!”
“That’s why.”
Elena glared.
Dante handed her coffee.
She took it automatically.
Then glared because she had taken it.
He almost smiled.
“You’re impossible.”
“You’ve mentioned that.”
“I mean it.”
“So did everyone else.”
The argument had become strangely domestic.
Rosie entered wearing dinosaur pajamas.
“Are you fighting?”
Elena immediately softened.
“No.”
Dante said, “Yes.”
Elena stared.
Rosie sighed dramatically.
“What?”
“Mama says people who lie about fighting fight more.”
Dante looked at Elena.
“She says a lot of things.”
“Yes.”
Rosie climbed onto a chair.
“Can I have cereal?”
Dante opened the cabinet.
Rosie pointed.
“Not that one.”
He tried another box.
“No.”
Another.
“No.”
Dante stared at the collection.
“There are twelve cereals.”
“I want the rainbow one.”
“We don’t have rainbow.”
Rosie shrugged.
“Then pancakes.”
Elena laughed.
Dante narrowed his eyes.
“This was planned.”
Rosie smiled.
Fatherhood, he discovered, was a criminal enterprise with better marketing.
He made pancakes.
They were surprisingly good.
After breakfast, Rosie went outside with two protection officers and the large dog Dante had eventually agreed to adopt.
The animal was a Newfoundland named Walter.
Rosie had wanted to call him Pancake Two.
Dante vetoed it.
Elena watched them through the window.
“She loves you.”
Dante stood beside her.
“I love her.”
“I know.”
The answer mattered more than he expected.
Elena looked at him.
“Which makes this worse.”
“What?”
“If they send you away.”
He said nothing.
She turned.
“I spent five years telling myself Rosie didn’t need a father.”
Dante waited.
“That I could be enough.”
“You were.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No.”
“She asks about you constantly.”
Dante’s chest tightened.
“What does she ask?”
“If you’re coming for dinner. If you’ll take her to school. Whether you know how to braid hair.”
“I do not.”
“I told her.”
“She seemed disappointed.”
“She said we can teach you.”
Dante looked through the window.
Rosie was throwing a tennis ball.
Walter ignored the ball and sat on a protection officer’s foot.
Dante had negotiated multimillion-dollar deals with less pressure than learning braids.
Elena’s voice softened.
“I’m scared.”
He looked at her.
She rarely admitted fear.
“Of what?”
“That I’ll lose you again.”
The words hung between them.
Dante did not move.
“Do you want me?”
Elena smiled sadly.
“That’s an unfair question.”
“Why?”
“Because wanting you was never the problem.”
Dante’s throat tightened.
She continued.
“I loved you when I left.”
“I loved you when you left.”
“I know that now.”
He stepped closer.
“What about now?”
Elena looked at him.
“Now I don’t know who you’re becoming.”
“Neither do I.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s true.”
She laughed softly.
Dante touched her cheek.
The bruise from Vittorio had faded.
Elena did not move away.
“I cannot undo what I was.”
“No.”
“I cannot give you back five years.”
“No.”
“I cannot promise the government won’t take more.”
Her eyes filled.
“No.”
“But if I’m allowed to stay…”
He stopped.
Elena waited.
“I want every ordinary day you’ll give me.”
The feared Dante Moretti had once been able to terrify a room with silence.
Now he found himself terrified of one woman answering one question.
Elena covered his hand with hers.
“You really want ordinary?”
“Yes.”
“School pickups?”
“Yes.”
“Dentist appointments?”
He hesitated.
She raised an eyebrow.
“Yes.”
“Parent-teacher conferences?”
“Yes.”
“Laundry?”
“No.”
Elena laughed.
“Honesty is important.”
“I can hire—”
“No.”
“Fine. Laundry.”
She smiled.
Then kissed him.
It was not dramatic.
No music.
No fireworks.
Just a soft kiss in a rented kitchen while their daughter shouted at a giant dog outside.
It was perfect.
A week later, Dante received sentencing.
Eighteen months.
Elena cried.
Rosie did not understand.
“Daddy has to go somewhere?”
Dante knelt.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He had spent days deciding how much truth a five-year-old deserved.
“Because I made some bad choices before I knew you.”
Rosie frowned.
“Like what?”
“Choices that hurt people.”
“Did you say sorry?”
“I’m trying to.”
“Then why do you have to go?”
“Because saying sorry doesn’t always erase consequences.”
Rosie thought about this.
“Are you coming back?”
Dante swallowed.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After eighteen months.”
“How long is that?”
“Two birthdays.”
Her face crumpled.
Dante’s composure broke.
He hugged her.
“I know.”
Rosie cried into his shoulder.
“Don’t go.”
Elena knelt beside them.
Dante closed his eyes.
He had survived bullets more easily.
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“So when I come home, nobody can say I ran away from what I did.”
Rosie sniffed.
“Like a coward?”
Dante glanced at Elena.
“Your mother has influenced your vocabulary.”
Elena laughed through tears.
Rosie wiped her face.
Then she reached into her pocket.
Mr. Pancake.
The stuffed bear.
“You can take him.”
Dante stared.
“That seems important.”
“He gets scared at night.”
“So do I.”
Rosie looked surprised.
“You do?”
“Everybody does sometimes.”
She hugged the bear.
Then handed it over.
“Okay.”
Dante took it.
The next morning, he surrendered.
No entourage.
No armored convoy.
Just Dante, Elena, Rosie, and Walter outside the courthouse.
Before entering, Dante crouched.
Rosie threw her arms around him.
“I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you more.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I love you the most.”
Dante smiled.
“We’ll argue about it when I get back.”
Elena kissed him.
“I’ll be here.”
He looked at her.
“Promise?”
She smiled.
“Apparently we make promises now.”
Dante walked into the courthouse carrying a five-year-old’s stuffed bear.
Cameras flashed.
Reporters shouted.
For once, he did not care how the photograph looked.
May you like
Because power was no longer the ability to make people fear him.
Power was knowing exactly where he wanted to return.
