Chapter 14 - The Quiet Years
Years don’t pass quietly in a normal life, but ours became a masterclass in stillness.
In the cabin by the lake, the violent ghost of Vincent Moretti slowly dissolved into a myth told by underworld survivors in New York and London—a phantom king who simply vanished into the northern mist.
Willa grew from a fragile, crying newborn into a fierce, wild-haired toddler with my dark eyes and Sloan’s stubborn spirit. She learned to run before she could walk, chasing golden retrievers through the pine forests and throwing rocks into the freezing waters of the Laurentian lake.
And Sloan and I?
We rebuilt. Not with diamond rings and Manhattan penthouses, but with burnt pancakes on Sunday mornings, shared firewood stacking in the crisp autumn air, and long, quiet conversations on the porch after Willa finally drifted off to sleep.
One evening, shortly after Willa’s third birthday, I was sitting on the wooden deck fixing the broken spoke of a bicycle when Sloan walked out carrying a small, weathered cardboard box.
She sat down on the step beside me, placing the box between us.
I paused, looking down at it. “What’s that?”
“Things I found in the bottom of the duffel bag we packed the night we left Newport,” she said quietly, lifting the lid.
Inside sat the remnants of our past life: my old platinum wedding band, a few encrypted flash drives from Moretti Holdings, and the original, water-stained divorce papers we had signed six agonizing years ago.
Sloan pulled out the divorce decree, holding it in her hands. She looked at it for a long, silent moment.
“You never filed the final court stamp, did you?” she asked softly.
I looked down at my hands, covered in a light dusting of sawdust. “No. I couldn't bring myself to let the last legal thread snap.”
She let out a soft sigh, a gentle smile touching her lips. She didn't put the papers back in the box. Instead, she tore them slowly, deliberately, down the middle, letting the pieces flutter away in the evening breeze like autumn leaves.
“Good,” she whispered. “Because I was never very good at being your ex-wife anyway.”
My heart skipped a beat, a rush of warmth flooding through my chest that no boardroom victory or mafia war had ever been able to touch.
“Sloan...” I started, but she cut me off, holding up her hand.
“Don't talk. Just listen.” She leaned forward, pressing her forehead against mine. “Tomorrow, we’re driving into town. We’re going to the local courthouse, and we’re doing it right this time. No bodyguards, no syndicates, no secrets.”
May you like
A slow, profound smile broke across my face.
“Consider it done, Mrs. Moretti.”
