Chapter 9 - The King’s Rebirth
Six months later, the spring sun was warm over the manicured lawns of Lake Forest.
The mansion on the lake was gone. I had sold the property to a commercial developer who tore down the limestone fortress and replaced it with a nature conservancy. The blood, the bullet holes, and the dark memories of my previous life were buried under topsoil and wildflower seeds.
In its place stood an expansive, sun-drenched estate twenty miles north, overlooking a quiet harbor where white sailboats bobbed in the gentle May breeze.
I stood on the stone veranda, leaning lightly on a polished ebony cane with a discreet gold handle. My gait was slow, accompanied by a slight, permanent limp in my left leg, but I walked under my own power, head held high, shoulders broad against the morning wind.
The Chicago underworld had changed forever.
The Rossi syndicate was extinct. With Carmine serving as my chief executive of civilian logistics, we had systematically divested from the rackets, the loan sharking, and the back-alley extortion. Every shipping container moving through the Port of Chicago was now licensed, union-backed, and fully legitimate. The capos who couldn't adapt to legal corporate balance sheets had been bought out or handed over to federal prosecutors with neatly tied bows around their financial records.
I was no longer a crime boss. I was an industrialist. A man whose power came not from fear, but from ownership, vision, and unassailable authority.
The French doors opened behind me.
Faith walked out onto the terrace carrying two porcelain cups of black coffee.
She wore a simple, elegant cream sundress that caught the breeze, her honey-brown hair falling in soft waves around her bare shoulders. On the ring finger of her left hand sat a flawless three-carat emerald-cut diamond, flashing brilliantly in the morning light.
She didn't hand me the cup with hesitation. She smiled, stepping right into my personal space, leaning up on her tiptoes to press a warm, lingering kiss against my scarred cheek before setting the saucer on the iron table.
"Mrs. Gable called from the downtown office," Faith said, her hazel eyes dancing with amusement. "She says the city council unanimously approved the South Side youth vocational center. Groundbreaking is scheduled for next Tuesday."
"Did they complain about the cost?" I asked, wrapping my free arm around her waist, pulling her close against my side.
"They wouldn't dare," she laughed softly, resting her head against my shoulder. "Carmine sat in the front row of the chamber wearing that three-piece suit that makes him look like a hitman on vacation. They signed the permits in four minutes."
I looked down at her, my heart swelling with a peace I had never believed existed in this world.
She had saved my life three times over: first from my own bitter despair, then from an assassin's poison, and finally from the spiritual death of becoming a helpless monster. She had taken a broken man sitting in an iron chair and taught him how to stand—not just on his feet, but as a human being worthy of love.
Two weeks ago, we had quietly visited the small house on the South Side where she had grown up. The title deed, paid in full and registered in her younger brother's name, was sitting on the dining table alongside a paid-in-full tuition receipt for his engineering degree.
"What are you thinking about?" Faith asked, tilting her chin up to look at me, her fingers resting lightly over the lapel of my linen blazer.
"I was thinking about the morning you spilled the oatmeal," I said, a slow smile touching my lips.
Faith groaned, swatting my chest gently. "You threw that tray on purpose! You were the most miserable, arrogant, unbearable man I had ever met."
"And you were a broke, stubborn girl who thought she could boss around the most dangerous man in Chicago."
"I didn't think I could boss you around," she whispered, her voice softening, her eyes turning deep, radiant, filled with an ocean of devotion. "I just knew you weren't finished yet. I knew you had too much fight left in you to rot in that room."
I dropped the ebony cane onto the stone terrace. It hit the pavers with a dull clatter, but I didn't need it.
I took Faith’s face in both of my hands, stepping fully into her space, my weight balanced evenly on my own two legs. She smiled up at me, wrapping her arms around my neck, anchoring herself to me just as she had done in the smoke and the fire.
"I love you, Faith," I said, the words steady, profound, echoing across the open harbor.
May you like
"I love you, Dominic," she answered.
I leaned down and kissed my wife under the bright, clear American sky, a free man standing tall on ground he had won back with his own blood, and with the heart of the only woman who had never been afraid of him.
