Chapter 10 - THE MARRIAGE I CHOSE
Three weeks after Luca Vescari’s arrest, New York became obsessed with the scandal.
Seven officials resigned.
Two judges were suspended.
Three executives were indicted.
Domenic Santoro faced charges ranging from conspiracy to murder.
News channels replayed photographs of my mother and Lucia almost every night.
For the first time, their deaths were described publicly as murders.
Not accidents.
Not heart failure.
Murders.
Arthur Shaw resigned from office before prosecutors asked him to.
His cooperation agreement protected him from the most serious charges, but not everything.
He would testify.
He would face consequences.
And for once, he didn’t try to hide from them.
My father and I spoke almost every day.
Some conversations lasted five minutes.
Some ended in arguments.
Healing, I discovered, was much less elegant than people made it sound.
Niko moved into a guest bedroom after the night of the airfield.
Not because we were angry.
Because he meant what he said.
Choice.
Every morning, we ate breakfast together.
Every afternoon, I returned to Columbia.
Yes, Columbia.
I had missed the constitutional law exam.
Professor Adler gave me a makeup after my explanation became national news.
His only comment was:
“Ms. Shaw, most students ask for extensions because of the flu.”
I passed.
Barely.
Stella returned to class too.
Discovering that her biological mother had helped expose Luca Vescari changed her, but not as much as she feared.
“You know what’s weird?” she asked one afternoon.
“What?”
“I always wondered why I hate rich criminals.”
I laughed so loudly everyone in the library looked at us.
Gia Santoro became another unexpected part of my life.
She sent me messages almost every day.
Most contained photographs of dresses.
Some contained insults aimed at her brother.
Niko is emotionally constipated. Please fix.
I showed him one at breakfast.
He stared at it.
“I’m changing her phone number.”
“You can’t change another adult’s phone number.”
“I know people.”
“That sentence is why she sends me these.”
Something in the penthouse had changed.
Maybe me.
The boarded windows had been replaced.
The damaged walls repaired.
But I no longer looked at the doors and saw a prison.
I saw a place where someone had given me a key.
That difference mattered.
One Friday night, exactly one month after our wedding, I found Niko standing on the balcony.
The city glowed below him.
He wore no suit.
Just dark pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
I had discovered that was my favorite version of him.
Less Santoro.
More Niko.
“You missed dinner,” I said.
“Meeting.”
“With legitimate businessmen?”
“Some.”
I smiled.
He looked at me.
“How was class?”
“I humiliated a third-year student during moot court.”
“Violently?”
“Legally.”
“Less satisfying.”
“For you.”
Silence settled comfortably.
Then I noticed an envelope on the table.
Cream paper.
My name.
“What is that?”
Niko followed my gaze.
“Your freedom.”
My chest tightened.
I opened it.
Annulment papers.
Signed by him.
Everything had already been arranged.
No financial claim.
No restrictions.
No conditions.
If I signed, Sloane Shaw would stop being Sloane Santoro.
The marriage created in forty-eight hours could disappear.
“You signed.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
I looked at him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did.”
“Niko.”
He slipped both hands into his pockets.
A defensive gesture I had learned to recognize.
“I made a promise.”
“What promise?”
“That nobody in this house would touch you without permission.”
“I remember.”
“That includes your life.”
My throat tightened.
He continued.
“This marriage touched every part of it without your permission.”
“So you’re ending it.”
“I’m giving you the ability to.”
“And if I sign?”
His face remained controlled.
But I knew him now.
I saw the tension in his jaw.
The way his right hand closed inside his pocket.
“I’ll make sure you remain protected until every Vescari trial is complete.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
His eyes held mine.
“What happens to us?”
Niko looked toward the city.
“Whatever you want.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“Yes.”
I almost laughed.
“At least you admit it.”
“Sloane.”
“What do you want?”
Silence.
“Niko Santoro, feared man of New York, cannot answer one question?”
He looked at me.
And there was nothing cold in his expression now.
Nothing controlled.
“I want my wife.”
My heart stopped.
He continued before I could speak.
“I want breakfast arguments.”
My eyes burned.
“I want you stealing my coffee even though yours is sitting beside you.”
“I don’t steal it.”
“You do.”
“It tastes better.”
“It’s the same coffee.”
“Continue.”
His mouth curved.
“I want to complain when your books cover the dining table.”
“You said I could finish school.”
“I didn’t realize law required ownership of every piece of paper in Manhattan.”
“Still waiting.”
His smile disappeared.
“I want to come home and know you’re here.”
The vulnerability in his voice silenced me.
“I want to hear you arguing with Gia in the kitchen.”
He stepped closer.
“I want you beside me when this family becomes something different from what it was.”
“How different?”
“No trafficking. No narcotics. No protection rackets.”
I stared.
“What?”
“I’ve been dismantling them.”
“Niko.”
“Salvatore wanted legitimacy eventually.”
“That’s not the same as legality.”
“No.”
“So?”
“So I’m choosing legality.”
I almost smiled.
“You’re letting a law student ruin the mafia.”
“You’re extremely irritating.”
“You married me.”
“Yes.”
His expression softened.
“And I would do it again.”
My eyes filled.
He continued.
“But not the way it happened.”
I looked down at the annulment papers.
“If you could do it again, what would you do?”
“I’d ask.”
“How?”
Niko stared.
Then, to my complete shock, he lowered himself onto one knee.
My mouth opened.
“Niko.”
“No photographers.”
“What are you doing?”
“No cathedral.”
“Niko.”
“No fathers negotiating.”
He took my wedding ring gently between two fingers.
“I know technically this is backwards.”
I laughed through tears.
“Extremely.”
“But I’m working with unusual circumstances.”
“Apparently.”
He looked up at me.
The man I had once feared.
The man who had once mistaken headlines for character.
The man who covered my body with his when bullets came through glass.
The man who asked before touching my cheek.
“Sloane Catherine Shaw,” he said, “I cannot promise you an ordinary life.”
“That would be suspicious at this point.”
“I can promise I’ll never make your decisions for you because I’m afraid of losing you.”
That sentence reached somewhere deep.
My father had done exactly that.
Niko had learned not to.
“I can promise no lies.”
“Even uncomfortable ones?”
“Especially those.”
“What else?”
“I’ll respect your work.”
“Good.”
“I’ll try not to threaten opposing counsel.”
“Try?”
“I’m negotiating.”
I laughed.
He smiled.
Then became serious again.
“And if one day you decide this life isn’t what you want, I’ll open the door myself.”
Tears slid down my cheeks.
Niko held my ring.
“So I’m asking now.”
His voice dropped.
“Will you marry me?”
I looked at the annulment papers.
Then at him.
“No.”
Niko’s face went blank.
I waited exactly two seconds.
Then added, “Not tonight.”
His brow furrowed.
I crouched in front of him.
His confusion was almost adorable.
“We’re already married.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not signing those papers.”
He stared.
“But you just said—”
“I said I’m not marrying you tonight.”
I took the annulment papers.
Tore them in half.
Then again.
Niko watched the pieces fall onto the balcony.
“You could have simply declined to sign.”
“This was more dramatic.”
“You enjoy drama.”
“I’m Arthur Shaw’s daughter.”
“That explains many things.”
I smiled.
“If you want a real wedding, you can ask again after I graduate.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Two years?”
“You survived thirty-three years without me.”
“Debatable.”
My heart fluttered.
I leaned closer.
“But I choose the marriage now.”
Something moved through his expression.
Relief.
Love.
Maybe both.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Sloane.”
“I’m sure.”
He lifted his hand.
Stopped inches from my face.
That question still existed between us even without words.
I answered by leaning into his palm.
Then I kissed him.
This time there was no fear.
No cathedral.
No bargain.
Only choice.
Later that night, we sat on the kitchen floor eating expensive wedding cake Gia had somehow preserved in a freezer.
Niko hated frosting.
I discovered this because he kept scraping it onto my plate.
“You could simply not eat it.”
“That seems wasteful.”
“So instead you give it to me?”
“You like frosting.”
“Marriage is beautiful.”
His phone buzzed.
He checked the message.
His expression changed.
I immediately noticed.
“What?”
“Domenic agreed to cooperate.”
I sat straighter.
“Against Vescari?”
“Yes.”
“What does he want?”
“Reduced sentence.”
“Will he get it?”
“Not enough.”
Something dark appeared in Niko’s eyes.
Then faded.
He placed the phone face down.
That was progress.
I leaned against his shoulder.
“What happens now?”
“Trials.”
“School.”
“Yes.”
“Scandals.”
“Definitely.”
“Gia bothering us.”
“Constantly.”
I smiled.
“And after that?”
He looked at me.
“Whatever we choose.”
Six months later, Luca Vescari entered a federal courtroom.
I sat behind the prosecution table as a legal intern—not because I was allowed to work on the case, but because one of my professors had helped arrange observation hours.
My father testified for seven hours.
He admitted taking money.
Admitted lying.
Admitted covering up information after my mother’s death.
Then he described fourteen years of secretly cooperating against the organization that killed her.
When he left the witness stand, our eyes met.
I didn’t smile.
Neither did he.
But I nodded.
He nodded back.
For now, that was enough.
Domenic testified two days later.
His evidence connected Vescari directly to Catherine and Lucia’s murders.
A jury returned guilty verdicts on nearly every major charge.
Outside the courthouse, reporters surrounded Niko and me.
“Mrs. Santoro!”
“Are you staying married?”
“Is your husband leaving organized crime?”
“Are you changing your name?”
“Are you planning children?”
I stopped walking.
Niko looked at me.
“You don’t have to answer.”
“I know.”
I stepped toward the microphones.
One reporter shouted, “Mrs. Santoro, do you regret marrying Nicholas Santoro?”
I thought about Thursday morning.
My father’s shaking hands.
The red wax envelope.
The cathedral.
The contempt in Niko’s eyes.
The bedroom door locking.
The bullets.
My mother’s voice on an old cassette.
Stella tied on a pier.
Salvatore dying.
My father bleeding on an airfield.
And Niko kneeling on our balcony, offering freedom before asking for love.
“Yes,” I said.
The crowd became silent.
Niko looked at me.
I continued.
“I regret the way I married him.”
Reporters leaned closer.
“I regret that fear made the decision before I could.”
I turned toward Niko.
“But I don’t regret choosing him afterward.”
Something softened in his eyes.
A reporter shouted, “So you’re staying together?”
I looked down at my ring.
“Yes.”
Another question came.
“Why?”
I smiled.
“Because the first time, everyone else decided my future.”
I reached for Niko’s hand.
“This time I decided it myself.”
We walked through the crowd together.
No guards pulling me.
No father guiding me.
No arrangement pushing me forward.
Just my hand inside Niko’s.
That evening, I returned home to find a red envelope on the kitchen counter.
For one terrifying second, my body went cold.
Then I saw the handwriting.
Gia.
I opened it.
Inside was an invitation.
SANTORO FAMILY FOUNDATION
INAUGURAL JUSTICE SCHOLARSHIP DINNER
Beneath it Gia had written:
Before you complain, YOU are giving the speech.
I laughed.
Niko entered from the hallway.
“What?”
“Your sister.”
“That explains nothing.”
“She volunteered me to speak.”
“Then decline.”
I looked at him.
“Absolutely not.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You want to?”
“I have opinions.”
“I’m aware.”
I walked toward him.
Niko wrapped one arm around my waist, then paused.
Even after everything.
Even now.
I smiled.
“Yes.”
His arm settled around me.
“What is the speech about?” he asked.
I looked at the invitation.
At the Santoro name.
Once it had represented everything I feared.
Now it belonged to people trying, imperfectly, to become something else.
“Second chances,” I said.
Niko looked at me.
“For whom?”
I smiled.
“Everyone who earns one.”
Outside our windows, Manhattan glittered beneath a clear night sky.
The same city where powerful men once believed they could decide everything.
Who lived.
Who died.
Who stayed silent.
Who married whom.
They had been wrong.
My mother had left me more than evidence.
She had left me a choice.
And in the end, that became the one thing no powerful family, politician, criminal, or frightened father could take from me again.
My name was Sloane Shaw Santoro.
I had been handed over like a bargaining chip.
I had walked into a marriage believing I was losing my life.
Instead, I uncovered the truth about my mother, destroyed the empire that killed her, forced my father to face his own sins, and discovered that the man I had been taught to fear understood something everyone else had forgotten.
Love without choice was possession.
Protection without truth was another kind of cage.
And marriage without freedom was only a contract.
But when the doors were finally open—
when I could have walked away—
I stayed.
Not because Arthur Shaw told me to.
Not because Salvatore Santoro arranged it.
Not because New York feared the name I now carried.
I stayed because Niko looked at me one final time and asked,
“Ready?”
And for the first time since Thursday morning, the answer belonged completely to me.
May you like
“Yes.”
THE END
