Chapter 18 - The Victory That Wasn’t Enough
Dominic was charged.
Dr. Pike cooperated.
Dr. Vale surrendered his medical license and agreed to testify.
Several board members resigned.
Within seventy-two hours, Luca regained temporary control of the companies.
Everyone called it victory.
Luca did not.
Victory would have been twelve years returned.
Victory would have been Elena never wondering why he disappeared.
Victory would have been Maya growing up knowing her father.
Victory would have been his mother telling him the truth while she was still alive.
None of those things could be restored.
Luca returned to physical therapy.
He learned to stand for ten seconds.
Then twenty.
Then thirty.
He hated the walker.
Maya decorated it with a baseball sticker.
He hated that too.
He kept the sticker.
Elena began spending evenings on the porch.
Sometimes they talked about the past.
Sometimes they did not.
Luca never asked her to forgive him for an absence he had not chosen.
Elena never pretended the twelve missing years could disappear because they had discovered the reason.
One evening Luca asked, “What do you want?”
“For Maya?”
“For you.”
Elena looked surprised.
No one had asked her that in years.
“I want a life that isn’t built around surviving.”
Luca nodded.
“And you?”
He looked toward the baseball diamond.
“I want to learn what remains when people stop being afraid of me.”
“That could be uncomfortable.”
“I’m beginning to notice.”
She smiled.
Then Rebecca arrived.
Dominic had made one final move before investigators froze his accounts.
He transferred ownership documents for several Costello properties to offshore entities.
Among them was the Reyes estate.
The home.
The baseball field.
The hedge Maya came through.
“He can’t keep it,” Rebecca said.
“But litigation could take years.”
Luca looked outside.
Workers were measuring the property line.
Dominic had not managed to take his freedom again.
So he had tried to take the place where Luca first discovered he might still have a future.
Maya stood beside the hedge.
“What happens to the field?”
Luca looked at Rebecca.
Then at Elena.
Then at his daughter.
For once, the answer came easily.
May you like
“We build another one.”
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