Chapter 10 - Dawn Over the Hudson
Two years later, the eighty-first floor of 111 Murray Street smelled of salt water, sweet yeast, and cedar shavings.
It was a Saturday morning in late May. The sky over Manhattan was not the grey lead of winter, but an enormous, brilliant vault of robin’s-egg blue, scrubbed clean by a midnight thunderstorm that had left the air smelling of ozone and fresh blossoms from Central Park.
Cameron stood in the kitchen—which had been remodeled to include a massive, open butcher-block island of dark cherry wood that was already covered in flour, eggshells, and sticky pools of honey.
She was twenty-five now.
Her hair was longer, pinned up loosely with a silver comb, and she wore a soft cream-colored linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows. Around her neck was a delicate gold chain holding a single, flawless pear-cut diamond that had belonged to Matteo’s grandmother in Palermo.
On the other side of the island, standing on a sturdy wooden stepstool built by Franco in his spare time, was Leo.
He was five years old now.
His legs were long, his face had lost its babyish roundness, revealing the sharp, aristocratic jawline of his father, but his hazel eyes were bright, clear, and constantly dancing with laughter. He was covered in flour from his forehead down to his dinosaur-printed sneakers.
"The fence is too tall, Cam," Leo announced, waving a wooden spoon with authoritative precision. "The sugar is going to fall into the butter."
"Then build the wall thicker," a voice said from the doorway.
Matteo walked into the kitchen.
He was not wearing a suit. He wore a simple black cashmere polo shirt, dark jeans, and bare feet. His face was relaxed—the severe, carved lines around his mouth softened by two years of unbroken sleep and the steady, miraculous absence of gunfire.
He had retired from the commission fourteen months ago.
It had not been an easy transit, but a man who controls the concrete distribution and the maritime terminals can negotiate a very quiet exit when he leaves his territories to men who are too terrified of his shadow to ever test his borders. The docks were managed now by a corporate logistics firm that filed its taxes with the federal government; the union locals were overseen by an independent oversight board; and the private ledger of Salvatore Duca had been burned in the fireplace of the study on the night Cameron’s mother had taken her first unassisted breath with her new lungs.
Clara Jenkins lived in a cedar cottage in Lake Placid now. She spent her mornings tending to heirloom tomatoes and her afternoons sending angry emails to the editor of the local newspaper about the condition of the municipal hiking trails. She visited New York once a month, arriving with three suitcases full of homemade apple preserves and spending four hours telling Matteo that his posture was terrible for a man who claimed to run an empire.
Matteo walked behind Cameron, his arms slipping around her waist, pulling her back against his chest with a familiarity that was as natural as breathing.
He kissed the curve of her neck, right where the pulse point had once hammered in the smoke of the lobby.
"The boat is ready at North Cove," Matteo murmured into her ear, his voice a low, gravelly hum that still sent a shiver of heat straight down her spine. "Franco says the tide turns at noon. We can be in Montauk by five."
"Leo wants to finish the bread," Cameron said, leaning her head back against his shoulder, letting her eyes close for a second as she absorbed his heat. "He says the gulls in the harbor get hungry if we don't bring the crusts."
"The gulls can eat sardines," Matteo said, though he reached over her shoulder and dipped his finger into the bowl of honey, touching the tip of Leo’s nose with the sticky sweetness.
"Dada!" Leo laughed, wrinkling his nose and swiping at his father’s hand with his flour-dusted spoon. "You're ruining the architecture!"
Matteo laughed—a rich, full baritone that filled the kitchen, completely free of the ghosts that had once haunted the corners of the penthouse.
He scooped the boy off the stepstool with one arm, swinging him high into the air until Leo’s sneakers brushed the ceiling, the boy’s shrieks of pure, uncomplicated joy echoing off the marble tiles.
Cameron watched them.
She looked out through the enormous, floor-to-ceiling glass at the city below.
The Hudson River sparkled in the morning sun, a ribbon of bright, polished silver winding its way past the piers where men had once fought for scraps of an empire. The streets of Tribeca were busy with morning strollers, dogs on leashes, and children on yellow scooters.
It was not a cage anymore.
The glass was no longer a shield against an executioner’s bullet; it was just a window onto a world that they had reclaimed with their own bare hands.
Matteo lowered Leo to the floor, the boy immediately darting off toward the terrace to find his model sailboat, his dinosaur sneakers squeaking merrily against the parquet.
Matteo turned back to Cameron.
He didn't speak. He reached out, his long, scarred fingers gently brushing a smudge of white flour from her cheekbone.
His hand stayed there—cupping her face, his thumb resting against her lower lip with a tenderness that still made her throat tight with wonder.
"No red," Matteo whispered.
Cameron smiled, her grey eyes luminous in the morning light as she leaned into his palm.
"No red, my love," she replied, her hand coming up to cover his, her fingers locking with his with that old, unbreakable strength that had once refused to run from a broken child. "Only blue. Only the water."
May you like
Matteo leaned down and kissed her.
Outside, the bells of St. Peter’s began to ring across the lower borough—twelve clear, golden strokes that drifted over the rooftops and the river, sounding for all the world like a celebration of a debt that had finally, gloriously, been paid in full.
