Chapter 6 - The Ghost of Lake Michigan
Three days passed in a tense, unnatural equilibrium.
Lorenzo was largely absent from the estate, leading a series of swift, brutal operations across the city that left rival syndicates reeling. By Friday morning, Tony Marcone had fled to Canada, his armory in Indiana was smoking rubble in a police report that blamed an "electrical fire," and Vito Russo was back at his desk, nursing a bruised jaw and a renewed, fanatical loyalty to his boss.
Inside the mansion, Sophia felt the shift in the atmosphere. The guards were less tense. Mrs. Higgins offered her a rare, tight-lipped nod when they crossed paths in the hallway.
And Emma had not forgotten the hairbrush.
On Saturday afternoon, while Sophia was folding laundry in the west wing sitting room, Emma slipped away.
She had learned the layout of the house with the silent, stealthy efficiency of a kitten. She knew which floorboards creaked, which doors were left unlocked, and most importantly, where the man who had struggled with her pink hairbrush lived.
The double oak doors to Lorenzo’s study were cracked open just an inch.
Emma pushed them wide with her small hand.
Lorenzo was sitting at his desk, going through a stack of legal documents sent over by his Cincinnati contacts. He looked up when he heard the soft padding of small shoes on the Persian rug.
Emma stood in the center of the room, wearing a yellow sundress with little daisies embroidered along the hem. In her hand, she held a large, crumpled sheet of white construction paper and a box of Crayola crayons.
“Mr. Lorenzo?” she announced cheerfully.
Lorenzo stared at her. His hand froze over his fountain pen.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” he said, though his voice lacked any real authority.
“I made you a picture.”
She marched right up to the side of his mahogany desk, hoisted herself up onto the heavy leather armchair beside him, and slid the paper across the polished wood.
Lorenzo looked down.
It was a drawing of a stick figure with an enormous round head, scribbled entirely in black crayon, standing next to a smaller stick figure with bright yellow hair. In the corner, a lopsided red rectangle represented the conservatory.
“That’s you,” Emma pointed a sticky finger at the largest black scribble. “And that’s me.”
“Why am I black?” Lorenzo asked, his tone deadpan.
“Because you don’t have any colors.”
The words struck Lorenzo harder than a bullet. He looked at the drawing, then down at the child.
Before he could answer, rapid footsteps echoed in the hallway outside.
Sophia burst through the double doors, breathless and pale, her eyes wide with panic.
“Emma! I told you—oh God, Mr. Moretti, I am so sorry, I turned my back for two seconds—”
She grabbed Emma by the hand, trying to pull her away from the desk, but the little girl dug her heels into the rug.
“I was showing him my art!” Emma protested.
“Sophia,” Lorenzo said, his voice cutting through her panic like a knife.
Sophia froze, looking at him in sheer terror, expecting the order for them to be thrown out into the streets.
Lorenzo reached out. His large, calloused fingers—hands that had signed death warrants and held the triggers of guns—gently picked up the crumpled sheet of construction paper.
He looked at it for a long, quiet moment.
Then, for the first time in three years, the corners of Lorenzo Moretti’s mouth twitched upward into a genuine, albeit rusty, smile.
“It’s a masterpiece,” Lorenzo said.
Sophia’s jaw dropped.
May you like
Lorenzo opened the top drawer of his desk—the one containing the handgun and the photograph of Isabella—and carefully slid Emma’s drawing inside, resting it right beside the ultrasound image.
“You may stay, Miss Carter,” Lorenzo said, looking up at the stunned mother. “For now.”
