Chapter 7 - Until the Sun Came Up
Three years later, Helena stood inside the same penthouse where she'd once removed two bullets from a stranger.
Everything looked different.
The dark furniture was gone.
The security presence was smaller.
Sunlight filled rooms that had once been hidden behind blackout curtains.
And somewhere down the hallway, a little girl was laughing.
“Daddy!”
Adrien appeared carrying their two-year-old daughter, Sofia, on his shoulders.
“Your daughter refuses to sleep.”
Helena folded her arms.
“My daughter?”
“She has your stubbornness.”
“She has your dramatic personality.”
Adrien looked offended.
“I am not dramatic.”
Toby walked through the room carrying a birthday cake.
“You once offered my sister fifty grand a week because you couldn't sleep.”
Adrien pointed at him.
“We agreed never to discuss that.”
“We absolutely did not.”
Toby was healthy now.
His cancer remained in remission, and he was completing graduate work in astrophysics.
Helena had become a nurse practitioner and clinical director at the hematology center.
Adrien's legitimate businesses had survived the transition.
More importantly, so had he.
Later that evening, after everyone left, Helena found him standing beside the windows.
Chicago glittered beneath them.
She slipped her arms around his waist.
“What are you thinking?”
“The first night.”
“The shooting?”
“Before that.”
“The terrible job offer?”
Adrien smiled.
“I thought fifty thousand dollars could buy peace.”
“That's because you were an idiot.”
“I was bleeding to death.”
“You were still an idiot.”
He turned.
“I was also right.”
“About what?”
“You were different.”
Helena rested her hands against his chest.
Beneath her palm was the scar she'd stitched years earlier.
“Do you still see him?”
Adrien knew exactly who she meant.
His father.
“Sometimes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
She waited.
Adrien smiled faintly.
“But it doesn't control me anymore.”
From the bedroom came Sofia's voice.
“Mommy!”
Helena sighed.
“Your daughter.”
Adrien caught her hand.
“Our daughter.”
They found Sofia standing in her crib, furious with the concept of bedtime.
Adrien picked her up.
“No sleep?”
“No!”
Helena laughed.
“Definitely yours.”
Adrien carried Sofia into their bedroom.
The little girl settled between them.
Within minutes, she was asleep.
Helena looked across her toward Adrien.
“Remember our first night in a bed together?”
“You stayed on the edge like I had a contagious disease.”
“You were a mafia boss.”
“Former.”
“You were still terrifying.”
“You told me I needed psychiatric treatment.”
“You did.”
“I went.”
“And?”
“My therapist agrees with you far too often.”
Helena smiled.
Adrien reached across their sleeping daughter and took her hand.
Years ago, he'd offered Helena fifty thousand dollars a week for one simple thing.
Stay until sunrise.
He'd believed her presence was medicine.
Then he'd believed it was dependence.
Eventually, he understood what it really was.
A beginning.
Helena squeezed his hand.
“Goodnight, Adrien.”
“Goodnight.”
“See you in the morning.”
His eyes closed without fear.
Outside, Chicago remained the same restless city where they'd first met—full of danger, ambition, mistakes, and second chances.
Inside, Adrien Russo no longer needed an armed empire to feel safe.
His brother-in-law was alive.
His daughter slept peacefully between them.
The woman he'd once paid to stay was beside him because she chose to be.
And when morning finally poured through the windows, Helena woke to find Adrien still holding her hand.
This time, there was no contract.
No payment.
No fear that one of them would disappear when the sun came up.
Adrien opened his eyes and smiled.
“You stayed.”
Helena leaned over and kissed him.
“You finally figured it out.”
“What?”
She looked at the man who had once possessed everything except peace.
“You never had to pay me to love you.”
May you like
And for the first time in his life, Adrien Russo had nothing left to buy.
Because everything that mattered had chosen to stay.
