Chapter 14 - The Choice Luciano Never Expected
Celia Vescari had been declared dead thirty-one years earlier.
She arrived at the hospital that afternoon.
Kate stood when she entered.
Luciano remained beside her but did not interfere.
Celia looked at her daughter.
“You have Eleanor’s eyes.”
Kate’s voice trembled.
“You're alive.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever intend to tell me?”
“Every day.”
Kate laughed bitterly.
“Apparently that's what everyone in this family says before explaining why they disappeared.”
Celia flinched.
“You’re right.”
That simple admission disarmed some of Kate’s anger.
“Why did you leave me?”
“To keep Antonio from finding you.”
“He found me anyway.”
“Not until you married Luciano.”
Kate looked toward her husband.
Their accidental meeting had illuminated her location.
“Why steal the trust?”
“Because it should never have existed.”
Celia placed it on the table.
“I wanted to destroy it.”
Kate stared at the document that had cost people decades of their lives.
“Do it.”
Celia blinked.
“What?”
“Destroy it.”
Luciano said nothing.
Kate looked at him.
“Your fortune—”
“Isn't contained in one piece of paper.”
“But control—”
“Kate.”
He smiled.
“Burn it.”
They did.
Not dramatically.
Not ceremonially.
A hospital maintenance worker brought them a secure disposal container.
The document went inside.
Paper curled.
Ink blackened.
And a thirty-year war became ash.
Celia testified.
Vittorio confessed.
Antonio was charged.
The network unraveled.
There would be trials.
Investigations.
Years of consequences.
But the danger surrounding Grace was finally becoming something courts could handle instead of armed men.
Three weeks later, Kate returned to Hawthorne Ridge.
Grace remained hospitalized but was growing stronger every day.
Luciano came with Kate.
Not with guards crowding the halls.
Not with orders.
With two suitcases.
Kate looked at them.
“Two?”
“One is mine.”
“You assume you're staying?”
“No.”
He pointed toward the second suitcase.
“I packed in case you ask.”
Kate tried not to smile.
“And if I don't?”
“Hotel.”
“Which hotel?”
“The nearest.”
“Not one you own?”
“I checked. Unfortunately I own part of it.”
Kate laughed.
Luciano watched her.
“I missed that.”
“What?”
“You laughing at me.”
“I frequently laughed at you.”
“Usually behind my back.”
“For safety.”
He smiled.
They entered the bedroom where Grace had been born.
The medical equipment was gone.
The blood-stained sheets were gone.
But the leather case remained on a chair.
Luciano opened it.
Inside were the torn divorce papers.
Kate touched them.
“You kept these?”
“I thought you should decide what happens to them.”
She looked at him.
“You mean that?”
“Yes.”
“If I ask for new papers?”
“I sign.”
“If I ask you to leave?”
“I leave.”
“If I ask you to stay?”
His composure cracked.
“I stay.”
Kate stared at the man she had loved.
The man she had feared losing herself inside.
He wasn't suddenly perfect.
Neither was she.
Love had not erased what happened.
But perhaps love wasn't supposed to erase.
Perhaps it was supposed to make truth worth facing.
“Stay tonight,” she said.
Luciano nodded.
“Tonight.”
“No assumptions about tomorrow.”
“None.”
“And no security decisions without me.”
“Yes.”
“No tracking my phone.”
“Yes.”
“No interrogating people because they looked at me strangely.”
He hesitated.
“Luciano.”
“Fine.”
She laughed.
Then he grew serious.
“I have one condition.”
Kate raised an eyebrow.
“You tell me when you're afraid.”
She looked down.
“And you tell me when you're trying to control something because you're afraid.”
“Deal.”
They shook hands.
Then Kate pulled him closer.
Their kiss was quiet.
Nothing like the desperate night before she left.
This one contained no fear of morning.
When they separated, Luciano rested his forehead against hers.
“Kate.”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
He smiled.
“That isn't the traditional response.”
“I’m considering mine.”
A phone rang downstairs.
They both froze.
Old instincts.
Luciano looked at Kate.
She nodded.
Together.
They walked downstairs.
Daniel stood in the foyer holding an envelope.
“No return address.”
Luciano sighed.
“Burn it.”
Kate took it instead.
“Absolutely not.”
She opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Grace in her hospital incubator.
But this photograph wasn't threatening.
On the back someone had written:
SHE DESERVES THE TRUTH.
Kate frowned.
Beneath the photograph was a legal document.
She unfolded it.
Her face changed.
“What?”
Kate handed it to Luciano.
It was a DNA report.
Grace Aruri.
Luciano Aruri.
Probability of paternity: 99.99%.
Luciano looked confused.
“We already knew.”
Kate shook her head.
“There’s another page.”
He turned it.
A second relationship test.
Luciano read the name.
Then read it again.
His face went completely still.
Kate whispered, “Who is she?”
Luciano looked toward the open front door.
A car had just stopped outside.
May you like
A woman stepped out.
And in her arms was another baby.
