Chapter 10 - THE ONLY WOMAN HE CALLED HIS WIFE
Nine months later, Emma Brooks stood inside the bakery at one thirty-seven in the morning.
Exactly one year after Sophie had first sat beside the rain-streaked window.
The same table stood there.
The same city lights glowed outside.
But almost everything else had changed.
The bakery manager had retired.
Emma had bought the business.
Roman had insisted on helping.
Emma had refused his money.
They compromised.
He bought the building and charged her one dollar a year in rent.
Emma called it financial manipulation.
Roman called it romance.
The bakery now employed four deaf workers.
Every employee learned basic ASL.
A sign near the register read:
EVERY LANGUAGE DESERVES TO BE HEARD.
Sophie had designed it.
Tonight, the bakery was closed.
Except for family.
Diane decorated cookies with Rosa.
Antonio argued with Marco about espresso.
Biscotti slept inside a basket he was absolutely forbidden to occupy.
Sophie sat at the same table where Emma had met her.
Roman stood beside the window.
He looked different.
Not softer exactly.
But lighter.
The federal case against Vittorio DeLuca had exploded across multiple jurisdictions.
Vittorio received no dramatic ending.
No gunfight.
No revenge execution.
Something worse for a man obsessed with power.
He received a courtroom.
Charges.
Witnesses.
Evidence.
His crimes became public.
His secrets became exhibits.
Bianca accepted a plea agreement after cooperating.
Her father did not.
Thirty-one defendants eventually faced prosecution.
Roman cooperated extensively.
He surrendered control of illegal operations.
Paid massive financial penalties.
Testified against former associates.
His attorneys negotiated a sentence involving house confinement, probation, and continued cooperation because of the trafficking victims rescued through his evidence.
He lost money.
Influence.
Several businesses.
He gained something stranger.
Mornings.
School pickups.
Dinner at home.
A life no longer run entirely through fear.
Emma considered it a good trade.
Sophie tapped the table.
Everyone looked.
She signed.
One year.
Emma nodded.
“One year.”
Roman approached.
Emma narrowed her eyes.
“What are you planning?”
“Nothing.”
“You look suspicious.”
“I always look suspicious.”
“True.”
Sophie slid something across the table.
A folded paper.
Emma opened it.
A drawing.
Three people standing in front of a bakery.
Roman.
Sophie.
Emma.
Biscotti appeared approximately twice normal size.
Above them Sophie had written:
MY FAMILY.
Emma’s eyes filled.
“You’re trying to make me cry.”
Sophie smiled.
Maybe.
Emma hugged her.
Roman watched.
That expression.
The same one he had worn in the hospital.
Love mixed with disbelief.
As if he still could not understand how he had been allowed to keep something good.
Later, when everyone had gone upstairs to the small apartment Roman secretly renovated above the bakery for “emergencies,” Emma stayed behind.
She cleaned the counter.
Roman locked the front door.
“You own the bakery. You know employees can clean.”
“They’re not employees at two in the morning.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Learned from you.”
Roman came behind her.
Wrapped his arms around her waist.
Emma leaned back.
His hand rested carefully over the faint scar beneath her ribs.
“You still hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
His jaw tightened.
Emma turned.
“Stop.”
“What?”
“That face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you mentally murder everyone responsible.”
“I do not have that face.”
“You absolutely have that face.”
Roman kissed her forehead.
“I hate the scar.”
“I don’t.”
He looked at her.
“It reminds me I survived.”
“It reminds me I failed.”
Emma touched his face.
“No.”
Roman tried to look away.
She held him.
“You didn’t fire the gun.”
“I brought you into my life.”
“I walked.”
“You were threatened because of me.”
“I stayed because of Sophie.”
His expression shifted.
“And later because of you.”
Roman smiled faintly.
Emma continued.
“I made choices.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m learning.”
“Good.”
Roman glanced toward the table.
“Sit.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Trust me.”
“That sentence has historically caused problems.”
“Emma.”
She sat.
Roman moved behind the counter.
He returned carrying a plate.
On it sat one enormous cookie.
Emma stared.
“You made that?”
“Yes.”
“It looks dangerous.”
“I had help.”
“From whom?”
“Sophie.”
“That explains why it is shaped like Wyoming.”
Roman looked offended.
“It’s a heart.”
Emma laughed.
He placed it before her.
Written in frosting:
MELTED MUD?
Emma covered her mouth.
Roman sat across from her.
“One year ago, my daughter sat there alone.”
Emma’s laughter faded.
Roman looked toward the rain-streaked window.
“I was thirty minutes away believing I had lost the last person I loved.”
Emma reached for his hand.
“Then I came through that door.”
He looked at her.
“And you were sitting here.”
“Technically I was working.”
“You looked at me like I was an inconvenience.”
“You were blocking the aisle.”
Roman smiled.
“I thought you were reckless.”
“You still do.”
“I thought you were stubborn.”
“Correct.”
“I thought you had no idea what kind of world you had entered.”
“Also correct.”
His expression softened.
“I was wrong about one thing.”
“What?”
“I thought you needed protection from my world.”
Emma waited.
Roman squeezed her hand.
“But you changed it.”
Her eyes stung.
“Roman…”
“No.”
He stood.
Walked around the table.
Then dropped to one knee.
Emma stopped breathing.
“Oh my God.”
Roman removed the velvet box she remembered from the hospital.
His grandmother’s ring.
Sophie suddenly peeked from the kitchen door.
Emma pointed.
“You little spy.”
Sophie grinned.
Diane’s head appeared above hers.
Then Rosa.
Then Marco.
Then Antonio.
Emma stared.
“You are all terrible.”
Roman looked over his shoulder.
“I told them to stay upstairs.”
Diane signed:
You are not the boss of me.
Roman sighed.
Emma laughed until tears came.
Then she looked down at him.
Roman DeLuca.
The man entire rooms feared.
On one knee in a bakery.
His hands slightly shaking.
“Emma Brooks.”
“Yes?”
“I spent most of my life believing strength meant never needing anyone.”
His voice became rough.
“Then Sophie needed you.”
Emma cried.
“And I needed you.”
Roman opened the box.
“You see people other people ignore.”
He looked toward Sophie.
“You listened to my daughter before you knew her name.”
Then back at Emma.
“You stood between her and danger when you owed us nothing.”
Emma wiped her cheek.
“You argued with me constantly.”
“That part continues.”
“I assumed.”
Roman smiled.
“You taught me that protection without trust becomes a prison.”
Emma’s heart broke open.
“You taught my daughter that being different never makes her less.”
Sophie started crying behind him.
Emma cried harder.
Roman continued.
“And somehow, you taught a man who had built his entire life around fear that home could smell like cinnamon bread and coffee.”
Emma laughed through tears.
Roman swallowed.
“I cannot promise an easy life.”
“Good start.”
“I cannot promise I will always get it right.”
“Better.”
“I can promise I will listen.”
Emma raised an eyebrow.
“Dangerous promise.”
Roman smiled.
“I will try.”
“Acceptable.”
He took her hand.
“I can promise Sophie will never question whether she is loved.”
Emma looked toward the child.
Sophie covered her mouth.
Roman continued.
“And I can promise that if you let me, I will spend whatever years I have left proving that the worst things I have done do not have to be the last things that define me.”
Emma could barely see through tears.
Roman inhaled.
“Emma Brooks, will you marry me?”
Sophie’s hands exploded behind him.
SAY YES.
Emma laughed.
Roman looked over his shoulder.
“Sophie.”
She signed harder.
SAY YES NOW.
Diane joined.
Marry him. He is trainable.
Emma nearly fell from the chair.
Roman stared at Diane.
“Trainable?”
Emma wiped her eyes.
“You heard the woman.”
Then she looked down at Roman.
The man who had once frightened an entire bakery by walking through the door.
Now frightened by one answer.
Emma touched his face.
“Yes.”
Roman stopped breathing.
She smiled.
“Yes, Roman.”
He stood so quickly the chair nearly tipped.
He kissed her.
Everyone cheered.
Sophie clapped silently, then wrapped herself around both of them.
Roman slipped the ring onto Emma’s finger.
It fit.
Of course it did.
“You measured my finger?”
Roman looked toward Sophie.
Sophie immediately pointed at Rosa.
Rosa pointed at Diane.
Diane pointed at Biscotti.
Emma laughed.
Three months later, they married in the courtyard beneath the oak tree.
No political families.
No criminal alliances.
No magazine exclusives.
Only people they loved.
Emma wore a simple ivory dress.
Soft fabric.
No attempt to hide her body.
No shrinking.
No apology.
When she entered the courtyard, Roman forgot how to breathe.
Antonio leaned toward him.
“Close your mouth.”
Roman ignored him.
Sophie walked beside Emma.
Not behind.
Not carrying flowers.
Holding her hand.
At the altar, Roman signed before speaking aloud.
Beautiful.
Emma signed back.
Obviously.
He laughed.
Their vows were spoken and signed.
Roman promised Emma partnership instead of control.
Emma promised honesty even when it annoyed him.
Roman said, “That sounds threatening.”
Everyone laughed.
Sophie stood between them for part of the ceremony because she insisted marriage was “family paperwork” and therefore concerned her.
The officiant wisely agreed.
When Roman was told he could kiss the bride, he did not hesitate.
Emma heard applause.
Sophie saw it.
And perhaps that was perfect.
Because their family had never depended on everyone experiencing the world the same way.
Only on understanding one another.
Years later, people would tell different versions of Roman DeLuca’s story.
Some would remember the feared man who ruled Manhattan’s docks.
Some would remember the criminal who turned federal witness against his own father.
Some would remember the raids that dismantled the Red Cardinals.
Others would remember the baker who was shot protecting his daughter.
But Roman remembered something simpler.
A rainy night.
A frightened little girl moving her hands in a crowded bakery.
Dozens of people looked.
Only one woman listened.
Emma Brooks had not known Sophie was the daughter of a powerful man.
She had not known helping her would bring armed enemies to her door.
She had not known she would fall in love with Sophie’s impossible father.
She had simply seen a child asking to be understood.
And answered.
Years after their wedding, Roman still occasionally woke from nightmares.
Sometimes Elena was there.
Sometimes the crash.
Sometimes Emma bleeding in his arms.
On those nights, Emma would wake beside him.
She never told him the past was gone.
It wasn’t.
She simply took his hand.
Roman would breathe.
Then somewhere down the hallway Sophie—older now, louder in every way except sound—would inevitably send a late-night message asking if anyone wanted cookies.
Emma always said yes.
Roman always said no.
Then ate three.
The bakery expanded to five locations.
Every branch hired deaf and hard-of-hearing employees.
Emma created scholarships for interpreters.
Roman funded them anonymously.
Sophie eventually discovered this and publicly exposed him at dinner.
Papa does nice things secretly because he thinks kindness damages his reputation.
Roman signed:
Traitor.
Sophie signed back:
I learned from family.
Emma nearly choked laughing.
And every year, on the anniversary of the night they met, the three of them returned to the original bakery at one thirty-seven in the morning.
They sat beside the rain-streaked window.
They ordered hot chocolate.
Sophie still called it melted mud.
And Roman still pretended to be offended.
One year, when Sophie was sixteen, she looked across the table at Emma.
Her hands moved.
Do you ever regret helping me?
Emma stared at her.
Then answered without hesitation.
Never.
Sophie looked toward Roman.
Even him?
Emma smiled.
Especially him.
Roman pretended not to understand.
Both women knew he did.
Sophie laughed.
Emma reached across the table.
Roman took her hand.
His wedding ring caught the bakery light.
The man who once believed love made people vulnerable had learned the truth far too late.
Love did make people vulnerable.
It gave enemies something to threaten.
It made loss terrifying.
It made courage necessary.
But it also gave people something fear never could.
A reason to become better.
Roman looked at his daughter.
Then his wife.
And for once, he did not think about the empire he had lost.
He thought about the family he had almost never found.
All because one woman noticed a child moving her hands beside a window—
May you like
and decided that being ignored was not the same thing as being silent.
THE END
