Chapter 7 - The Empire Strikes Back
Three weeks later, the front-page headline of the Boston Globe financial section read:
FERRARO HOLDINGS RESTRUCTURED: LUCA FERRARO CUTS TIES WITH BOARD ELDERS IN SHOCKING CORPORATE OVERHAUL.
Inside the penthouse office overlooking the Boston harbor, Teresa Ferraro sat in a leather armchair that had once belonged to her grandfather, looking at the newspaper with an expression of cold, murderous disbelief.
"He stripped your voting shares?" Uncle Silvio roared, pacing across the Persian rug like an enraged bear. "He locked us out of the logistics accounts? After everything we built?!"
Teresa didn't look up from the paper. Her hands were trembling, not with grief, but with unadulterated fury. "He didn't just lock us out, Silvio. He sold the Narragansett estate."
Silvio stopped dead in his tracks. "Sold it? To whom?"
"A commercial real estate trust," Teresa whispered, her voice shaking. "And according to corporate registry filings... the primary shareholder and lead architectural consultant of the trust is Claire Donovan."
Silvio stared at her in horror. "The electrician's daughter?"
"She didn't just beat us, Silvio," Teresa said, closing the newspaper slowly, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "She dismantled us from the inside out using our own legal loopholes. And Luca helped her write every single clause."
At that exact moment, five hundred miles away in a sunlit brownstone in Brooklyn Heights, Luca Ferraro was standing on a wooden ladder holding a spool of copper electrical wire while Claire stood below him holding a flashlight and checking a set of architectural blueprints.
"A little to the left," Claire instructed, pointing with a pencil. "If you wire the main breaker into the kitchen before securing the ground wire, you're going to blow every fuse in the brownstone."
"Yes, boss," Luca replied, grinning down at her from the ladder, his designer shirt replaced by a gray t-shirt covered in drywall dust.
Claire laughed, setting the blueprints down on a stack of moving boxes. She walked over to the ladder, resting her hands on the wooden rungs, looking up at him with eyes full of a fierce, unshakeable light.
"You know your mother sent another fruit basket today," Claire said casually.
Luca groaned, dropping his head back against the wall. "Please tell me you threw it in the incinerator. Last time she sent one, the pears tasted like litigation and passive aggression."
"I gave it to your security detail," Claire smiled. "Marcus looked like he needed the sugar."
Luca climbed down the ladder, stepping right in front of her. He reached out, his grease-smudged hands gently cupping her face, his thumbs brushing her cheekbones.
"You're not scared of her, are you?" he asked softly.
"Of Teresa?" Claire tilted her chin up defiantly. "Luca, I spent three years dealing with municipal building inspectors in South Boston who wanted bribes in cash and contractors who tried to substitute PVC pipe for cast iron. Your mother is just a woman with an expensive haircut and too much time on her hands."
Luca let out a deep, rumbling laugh, pulling her flush against his chest. He bent down and kissed her—deeply, thoroughly, with none of the hesitation or fear that had poisoned their past.
May you like
"Remind me never to get on your bad side, engineer Donovan," he murmured against her lips.
"You're already on my good side," she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck. "And you better stay there, or I’ll rewire your entire life again."
