Chapter 7 - The Photograph
One year later, there was finally a photograph inside the DeLuca mansion.
It stood on the piano.
Leo was in the middle.
I was on his left.
Roman stood on his right.
Nobody had planned the picture.
Leo's teacher had taken it at his school science fair.
Roman wasn't wearing a suit.
I wasn't wearing my bakery uniform.
And Leo was laughing because his volcano experiment had exploded foam across Roman's shirt.
The photograph wasn't perfect.
That was why I loved it.
Victor's betrayal had changed Roman's organization permanently. He cut ties with people he no longer trusted, sold several businesses connected to the darker parts of his empire, and began moving the legitimate DeLuca companies toward something Leo could someday inherit without fear.
He never became harmless.
Roman DeLuca would probably never be harmless.
But inside the mansion, he became something else.
A father who attended school conferences.
A man who occasionally burned pancakes.
And, eventually, the man who stood beside me beneath the same railway overpass where everything had begun.
The wrecked Cadillac was long gone.
Leo was spending the evening with Roman's sister.
Rain moved across Philadelphia.
Roman reached into his coat.
“Evelyn.”
“If that's another envelope, I'm leaving.”
“It isn't.”
He opened his hand.
A ring.
I stared at him.
“You're terrible at romantic speeches.”
“I prepared one.”
“You did?”
“Four pages.”
I laughed.
“What happened?”
“I forgot it.”
I looked into the eyes of the man half the city feared.
“Then don't give a speech.”
Roman stepped closer.
“Marry me.”
Simple.
Direct.
Very Roman.
I smiled.
“Yes.”
His shoulders actually dropped with relief.
“You weren't sure?”
“I negotiate acquisitions worth fifty million dollars without blinking.”
“But?”
“You once climbed into a burning Cadillac for a child you'd never met.”
He slipped the ring onto my finger.
“You terrify me.”
I kissed him.
When we returned to the mansion, Leo was supposed to be asleep.
Instead, he was waiting on the staircase.
He spotted the ring immediately.
His eyes widened.
“Did she say yes?”
Roman frowned.
“You knew?”
“Dad, everyone knew.”
I laughed.
Leo ran down the stairs and wrapped his arms around us.
Behind him, on the piano, stood that single imperfect photograph.
A boy.
His father.
And the stranger who had climbed through a broken window one freezing night.
I had thought saving Leo DeLuca would drag me into the most dangerous family in Philadelphia.
Maybe it did.
But that wasn't the part I remembered.
I remembered the mansion that once had no photographs.
The little boy who believed everyone eventually left.
And the feared mafia boss who had spent years building walls high enough to keep every enemy outside—
without realizing he'd also locked himself inside.
Until one night beneath an abandoned railway bridge,
May you like
a bakery cashier broke through the wrong window.
And somehow opened the right door.
