Chapter 7 - Healing Scars
Three months passed.
The brutal Chicago winter arrived with a vengeance, burying the DeLuca estate beneath two feet of pristine white snow. But inside the mansion, the coldness that had gripped the halls for four long years was finally beginning to thaw.
The catering uniform was long gone. In its place, I wore comfortable wool sweaters and jeans, my days filled with lesson plans, speech therapy sessions, and sign language exercises in the newly renovated sunroom overlooking the frozen rose gardens.
Sophie had transformed.
The quiet, shrinking shadow who used to hide behind heavy velvet curtains had been replaced by a girl whose laughter echoed down the hallways. Her butterfly hearing aids were now accompanied by a collection of colorful hair ribbons, and her hands moved with an expressive, joyful speed that kept me on my toes.
My mother had been discharged from St. Jude’s two weeks ago. Gabriel had fulfilled his promise beyond my wildest dreams: he had renovated the charming carriage house on the eastern edge of the estate into a fully accessible, single-story guest cottage, complete with heated floors and a private physical therapy suite. My mother now spent her mornings drinking herbal tea with the estate’s head gardener, her health restored and her future secured.
One snowy Tuesday evening, I sat at the long mahogany table in the library, grading Sophie’s fifth-grade history assignment.
The double doors clicked open, and Gabriel walked in.
He had shed his overcoat, wearing a simple gray henley shirt and dark trousers. He looked younger lately. The harsh lines around his eyes had softened, though the small scar on his cheekbone remained—a permanent silver reminder of the night everything changed.
He held two mugs of hot chocolate topped with miniature marshmallows.
“Where’s the menace?” he asked, setting one mug down in front of me with a faint smile.
“Asleep,” I replied, leaning back in the leather armchair. “She finished her reading comprehension chapter in forty minutes, spent an hour teaching Daniel how to sign *‘You are an old bulldog,’* and passed out with her sketchbook.”
Gabriel chuckled—a low, warm rumble that sent an unexpected shiver through my chest. He sat down in the chair opposite mine, pulling a small notebook from his pocket.
“Test me,” he said.
I smiled. “Again? Gabriel, you spent three hours working on business acquisitions today.”
“And none of those acquisitions matter if I can’t tell my daughter a bedtime story without an interpreter,” he replied, his eyes steady on mine. “Come on, teacher. Test me.”
I raised my hands, forming a series of signs: *“The dog ran across the bridge to catch the red ball.”*
Gabriel watched my fingers with intense concentration. His brow furrowed. He raised his large hands, slowly, methodically forming the responses:
*“Dog. Run. Bridge. Catch...”* He paused, his fingers stumbling over the shape for *red*.
“Close,” I murmured, leaning forward across the table. Without thinking, I reached out and took his hands, adjusting his index finger against his chin. “Touch your lower lip and pull down. That’s *red*. If you do it at the nose, that’s *mouse*.”
Gabriel didn't pull away.
His skin was warm, his fingers rough against mine. I suddenly realized how close we were—our faces barely a foot apart across the polished mahogany, the fire crackling in the hearth behind us, casting golden flickering light over his sharp features.
He looked down at our joined hands, then slowly raised his dark eyes to meet mine.
“Hannah,” he whispered.
My breath caught. “Yes?”
“You never asked for anything,” he said softly, his thumb gently brushing across the back of my knuckles. “Not when Isabella threatened your family. Not when the bullets were flying in the kitchen. Not when the Commission offered you half a million dollars in restitution as a witness.”
“I told you,” I whispered, unable to look away from his gaze. “I don't do this for money.”
“I know,” Gabriel said. He leaned an inch closer. “And that terrifies me.”
“Why?”
“Because in my world, money is easy,” he replied, his voice thick with raw vulnerability. “You can pay for loyalty. You can buy silence. You can purchase alliances. But what you give Sophie... what you’ve brought into this house... I don’t have a currency to pay for that.”
“You don't have to pay for it, Gabriel,” I said, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird. “It’s a gift.”
He stared at my lips, his breathing shallow. For a terrifying, exhilarating second, I thought he was going to lean across the table and kiss me.
Then, the sudden buzz of his encrypted phone on the desk broke the spell.
Gabriel blinked, pulling back slightly, the mask of the boss snapping back into place as he checked the screen.
His expression darkened.
“What is it?” I asked, the cold air rushing into the space between us.
“Moretti,” Gabriel said, his voice flat. “Salvatore Moretti just had a stroke. His son, Lorenzo, has taken control of the family.”
He looked up at me, the shadows returning to his eyes.
May you like
“Lorenzo was Marco Marconi’s primary creditor. And he’s claiming that the Commission’s ruling died with his father.”
***
