Chapter 7 - THE SECOND CEREMONY
Z
St. Michael’s Cathedral looked different at night.
No flowers.
No organ.
No guests.
Only darkness between rows of pews and the red glow of sanctuary lamps beneath the vaulted ceiling.
Gabriel entered through the center doors.
Eleanor walked beside him.
No limp now.
Her ankle remained strapped, but pain had become background noise.
Gabriel carried Lucia’s ledger.
Eleanor wore the blue ribbon around her wrist.
Julian waited at the altar.
Lily sat in the first pew.
Derek Vance stood behind her.
Gun visible.
Nathan had been left with Marco three blocks away.
Gabriel had promised him they would bring Lily back.
Gabriel did not make promises casually.
Julian smiled.
“Beautiful.”
Gabriel stopped twenty feet away.
“Let her go.”
“Ledger first.”
Eleanor looked at Lily.
The child’s face was streaked with tears.
But she was alive.
“Aunt Ellie.”
“I’m here, baby.”
Derek tightened his hand on Lily’s shoulder.
Gabriel’s gaze changed.
Julian noticed.
“Careful.”
“You hurt her,” Gabriel said, “and there is nowhere on this earth you will be safe.”
Julian laughed.
“There he is.”
“Who?”
“The Gabriel I built.”
Gabriel almost pitied him.
Julian truly believed that.
“I wondered how long this performance would last. The reformer. The businessman. The respectable criminal.”
He walked down one altar step.
“You think your father was cruel because he enjoyed it? He understood something you never did. People obey fear.”
Eleanor looked at Gabriel.
Lucia’s letter.
Fear keeps people alive.
Julian had learned the wrong lesson from the same house.
Gabriel held up the ledger.
“You want this?”
“Yes.”
“Release Lily.”
Julian nodded at Derek.
Derek pushed Lily into the aisle.
“Walk.”
Lily ran.
Eleanor moved forward.
Gabriel stopped her with one hand.
Wait.
Lily crossed five feet.
Ten.
Then Julian raised a gun.
Not at Lily.
At Eleanor.
Gabriel had known.
Julian never wanted a clean trade.
The shot exploded through the cathedral.
Eleanor dropped.
Gabriel’s world stopped.
Then Derek screamed.
Marco’s sniper had fired through a side window.
Derek fell.
Lily ran.
Gabriel reached Eleanor.
She was on the floor.
Alive.
The bullet had struck the stone column behind her.
She looked up.
“You knew.”
Gabriel breathed again.
“Your cue was supposed to be before the gunshot.”
“I got nervous.”
He almost shouted.
Instead he dragged her behind the pew.
Moretti men entered through three doors.
Julian retreated toward the altar.
His escape routes closed.
He pointed the gun at Gabriel.
“Stop!”
Everyone stopped.
Julian was breathing hard now.
No smooth voice.
No elegant underboss.
Just a frightened man with a weapon.
“You destroyed everything.”
Gabriel stood.
“No. You did.”
“You think the government will forgive you?”
“No.”
“You’ll lose businesses.”
“Probably.”
“Men will turn on you.”
“Some.”
“You may go to prison.”
Gabriel looked at Eleanor.
She had Lily in her arms.
“I know.”
Julian stared.
He did not understand.
That was his weakness.
Every decision Julian made assumed other people feared losing what he feared losing.
Money.
Status.
Control.
Gabriel had spent most of his life protecting those things.
Now he knew their price.
Julian pointed the gun at Eleanor again.
“You choose her over everything?”
Gabriel’s answer came immediately.
“I choose not being you.”
Julian fired.
Gabriel moved.
A second gunshot followed.
Julian collapsed.
Not dead.
Marco had hit his shoulder.
The pistol slid across marble.
Gabriel kicked it away.
Julian groaned.
“Kill me.”
Gabriel looked down.
“You’d like that.”
Julian laughed weakly.
“You think prison makes you righteous?”
“No.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“It makes you available to testify.”
Julian’s expression changed.
For the first time, real fear.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I already did.”
Doors opened behind them.
Federal agents entered.
Rebecca Cole led them.
Julian stared at Gabriel.
“You brought the government into your church?”
Father Anthony appeared from a side door.
“My church.”
Even Eleanor laughed.
Three weeks later, Julian Cross was indicted on federal charges involving trafficking, kidnapping, racketeering, witness intimidation and conspiracy.
Derek Vance survived and began negotiating.
Two judges resigned.
A police commander was arrested.
Three Moretti companies were seized.
Gabriel voluntarily entered negotiations over financial crimes connected to businesses under his control.
Chicago newspapers called it the collapse of an empire.
Gabriel called it Tuesday.
Eleanor remained at Lake Forest.
The thirty-day marriage deadline approached.
Neither mentioned it.
On day twenty-eight Gabriel found her in the kitchen making pancakes with Lily.
Nathan had rented a house nearby.
Thomas Shaw was preparing to testify.
Life had become strangely domestic.
Gabriel hated how much he liked it.
Eleanor placed a pancake on his plate.
“You’re staring.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
Gabriel sat.
Lily looked between them.
“Are you getting divorced?”
Silence.
Eleanor nearly dropped the spatula.
Gabriel looked at Lily.
“Why do you ask?”
“Dad said your marriage was fake.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“I’m going to kill Nathan.”
Gabriel calmly cut his pancake.
“Get in line.”
Lily continued.
“You should stay married.”
“Why?” Eleanor asked.
“Because Uncle Gabriel has a giant house.”
Gabriel looked offended.
“That’s your reason?”
“And he likes you.”
Eleanor stared at him.
Gabriel stared at his plate.
Lily smiled.
“See?”
Children were dangerous.
That evening Gabriel found Eleanor on the dock.
The lake reflected Chicago’s distant glow.
“Two days,” he said.
She nodded.
“Our attorney already prepared the annulment papers.”
“I know.”
“You can sign tomorrow.”
“I know.”
Gabriel stood beside her.
For a man who negotiated with killers, bankers and federal prosecutors, he found the next sentence absurdly difficult.
“I don’t want to.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Don’t want to what?”
“Sign.”
Her breathing changed.
Gabriel continued.
“I don’t want a debt wife.”
“Good.”
“I don’t want a thirty-day wife.”
“Gabriel.”
“I don’t want anyone who stays because she is afraid to leave.”
Eleanor’s eyes shone.
“So what do you want?”
He took Lucia’s blue ribbon from his pocket.
Then he did something Eleanor never expected.
Gabriel Moretti went down on one knee.
Not in a cathedral.
Not before two hundred criminals.
On an old wooden dock beside Lake Michigan.
He held no diamond.
Only the ribbon.
“I want the woman who stopped being afraid of me before I deserved it.”
Eleanor covered her mouth.
Gabriel looked up.
“And I would like the opportunity to spend however long you allow proving I can deserve it.”
She laughed through tears.
“That is the least romantic proposal in American history.”
“I can improve it.”
“You’d better.”
He stood.
Eleanor took his face between her hands.
Then kissed him.
No contract.
No witnesses.
May you like
No debt.
For the first time, the choice belonged entirely to them.
