“I am asking you to stay. Not for the money. Not for the nursing degree. For me. Stay and rule this city by my side.”
Sophie looked at the man who had terrified Chicago for a decade. She saw the monster the world feared. But she also saw the man who had wiped champagne off her face. The man who loved his mother. The man who had sat by her bed for 2 days straight.
She thought of her old life: the invisibility, the struggle, the cold.
Then she looked at the man offering her the world.
“I have conditions,” she whispered, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
Lorenzo laughed, the sound rich and genuine.
“Of course you do. Name them.”
“Toby goes to a real high school. No more home tutors. He needs friends.”
“Done. I’ll have a security detail shadow him invisibly.”
“Isabella stays with us. Always. No nursing homes.”
“She is my mother, Sophie. I would burn the world before I sent her away. Granted.”
“And 1 more thing,” Sophie said, pulling him closer by his shirt collar.
“Yes?”
“You have to promise never to wear that shirt again. It’s ruined.”
Lorenzo smirked.
“I’ll burn it.”
He leaned down and kissed her. It was a promise sealed in silence, a vow that from that moment on, they were a united front.
The Architect had found his foundation.
Six months later, the annual winter solstice charity gala returned to the Palmer House Hilton. The ballroom was just as opulent as it had been the year before. The chandeliers sparkled, the champagne flowed, and the elite of Chicago gathered to gossip and posture.
But this year, the atmosphere was different.
There was a nervous energy in the air. Everyone was waiting.
At the top of the grand staircase, the music swelled.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer’s voice boomed, “Mr. Lorenzo Moretti and Mrs. Sophie Moretti.”
A hush fell over the room.
Lorenzo appeared at the top of the stairs in a midnight blue tuxedo.
But no one was looking at him.
All eyes were on Sophie.
She wore a gown of liquid gold that hugged every curve, designed by Versace specifically for her. Her hair, once messy and pulled back, cascaded in polished waves around her shoulders. Around her neck sat a necklace of diamonds and emeralds worth more than the hotel itself.
But it was not the clothes that made the room stop.
It was the way she carried herself.
Gone was the hunched, tired girl with the heavy tray. In her place stood a woman who radiated power. She held her head high, her eyes scanning the crowd with a cool, calculating intelligence she had learned from her husband.
She descended the stairs with Lorenzo, her hand resting lightly on his arm. They moved as 1 entity.
As they reached the floor, the crowd parted instantly. Respect and fear cleared a path.
Near the chocolate fountain, exactly where the incident had happened 1 year earlier, stood a familiar figure.
Beatrice Vane.
The senator’s wife had managed to claw her way back into a few social circles, though her reputation remained tattered. When she saw Sophie, she froze. Her glass of wine trembled in her hand.
Lorenzo stopped. He looked at Beatrice, then down at his wife.
“Do you want me to have her removed?” he murmured.
Sophie looked at Beatrice. She saw the fear in the older woman’s eyes. She saw the way Beatrice’s friends were slowly inching away from her, not wanting to be caught in the blast radius.
Sophie smiled. It was not a malicious smile. It was a smile of absolute pity.
“No,” Sophie said, loud enough for the nearby guests to hear. “Let her stay. Everyone needs to see what the past looks like. I’m only interested in the future.”
She turned her back on Beatrice Vane.
“Champagne, my love?” Lorenzo asked, signaling a waiter.
“Please,” Sophie said.
