Chapter 7 - The House Full of Stars
One year later, nobody called the conservatory the conservatory anymore.
Elena renamed it.
The Star Room.
Hundreds of paper stars hung from the glass ceiling.
Some were beautiful.
Most were terrible.
I had made many of the terrible ones.
My criminal empire had changed too.
I sold the clubs first.
Then the warehouses connected to operations I could never explain to Elena when she grew older.
It wasn't easy.
Men like me didn't retire simply because they discovered bedtime stories.
But I had spent twenty years building something I believed would protect my family.
Then Lena taught me the difference between power and safety.
By spring, the Moretti organization had become a legitimate logistics and security company.
Marco complained constantly.
Mostly because he now had paperwork.
Elena became unstoppable.
She talked during breakfast.
During car rides.
During movies.
During bedtime.
Sometimes I found myself wondering whether silence had really been so terrible.
Then she would laugh.
And I knew I would listen forever.
Lena stayed.
Not as a maid.
That ended the morning I found her cleaning my office while recovering from seven stitches.
I fired her immediately.
She called me an arrogant bastard.
Then I offered her another job.
Helping run the charitable foundation Isabella had created years earlier for children affected by violence.
She accepted.
Six months after that, I asked her to dinner.
She refused.
I asked again.
She refused again.
The third time, Elena asked for me.
Lena agreed.
“That's cheating,” she told me.
“I built an empire by using available resources.”
Eventually, dinners became weekends.
Weekends became something neither of us could pretend wasn't happening.
Then came a Sunday afternoon beneath the glass ceiling of the Star Room.
Elena was five.
She stood on a chair hanging another paper star.
I held the chair.
“Higher.”
“You're already too high.”
“Daddy.”
“No.”
“Daddy.”
“Absolutely not.”
Lena entered carrying tea.
“You realize you're arguing with a five-year-old.”
“I'm winning.”
“You're definitely not.”
Elena suddenly looked between us.
Then smiled.
“I have something.”
She climbed down.
From behind the chair, she retrieved a gold paper star.
She handed it to Lena.
Written across it in uneven letters were four words.
PLEASE STAY WITH US.
Lena went still.
I hadn't written it.
I hadn't even known Elena could write all four words without help.
Lena looked at me.
Her eyes were wet.
“Did you know about this?”
“No.”
Elena grabbed Lena's hand.
Then mine.
“You stay forever?”
Lena laughed through her tears.
I knelt beside my daughter.
“That's Lena's decision.”
Elena looked up at her.
Lena looked at me.
For years, people had feared Damian Moretti.
Men obeyed when I entered rooms.
Enemies disappeared.
Doors opened.
Fortunes moved because I made phone calls.
But standing beneath hundreds of slowly turning paper stars, I understood how useless all that power really was.
Because the two people in front of me could not be commanded to love me.
Their love had to be earned.
Lena squeezed my hand.
Then she looked at Elena.
“I think forever sounds pretty good.”
Elena screamed with happiness.
She wrapped both arms around Lena.
I wrapped mine around both of them.
Above us, hundreds of paper stars turned beneath the afternoon sunlight.
And inside my jacket pocket was the first blue star Elena had ever made for me.
Bent.
Faded.
Worth more than everything I had spent my life building.
I once believed the cameras in my house existed to protect my daughter from the people who wanted to hurt me.
May you like
Instead, they showed me the woman who would save her.
And eventually, save me too.
