Chapter 17 - WHEN THE EMPIRE FELL APART
The Moretti empire did not collapse in one spectacular moment.
It came apart piece by piece.
Companies were sold.
Boards dissolved.
Executives resigned.
Investigations expanded.
Newspapers printed words like dynasty, corruption, betrayal, and reckoning.
People expected Luca to fight every loss.
He didn’t.
Anything legitimate, he protected.
Anything tied to Crown, he surrendered to investigators.
Anything built on intimidation, he shut down.
“Do you realize how much money you’re losing?” Adrian asked one morning.
“Yes.”
“You’re disturbingly calm.”
“I still have enough.”
“That is the most rich-person sentence I’ve ever heard.”
I walked past carrying coffee.
“He owns thirty-seven watches.”
Luca looked offended.
“Thirty-two.”
“Five disappeared?”
“I donated them.”
Adrian stared at me.
“You changed him.”
“I alphabetized him.”
By spring, the mansion changed too.
Security remained.
But doors opened.
Staff laughed.
Music occasionally came from the kitchen.
The west wing became an archive for investigators, then eventually something else.
Luca decided to convert Marco’s office into a scholarship foundation workspace.
For accounting students who had left school to care for family.
I discovered the paperwork accidentally.
“You did this because of me.”
“No.”
“The qualifications literally describe me.”
“Coincidence.”
“Luca.”
“Fine.”
He looked annoyed at being caught doing something good.
“It seemed useful.”
My mother became the first person besides me capable of bullying him.
She visited in May.
“Too many black curtains,” she announced.
Luca replaced half of them two weeks later.
He claimed coincidence.
Nobody believed him.
Matteo was charged with financial crimes, obstruction, conspiracy, and offenses tied to the reopened Marco investigation.
What happened next belonged to courts.
Not us.
That was important.
Luca didn’t become judge.
He didn’t become executioner.
He let evidence do what rage never could.
One afternoon we stood outside the courthouse after another hearing.
Reporters shouted.
“Mr. Moretti!”
“Did your uncle betray your family?”
“Do you believe your father covered up Marco’s death?”
“Will you testify?”
Luca ignored them.
Then a reporter called:
“Mr. Moretti, was destroying the Moretti organization worth it?”
Luca stopped.
He turned.
Cameras rose.
He said:
“If something requires fear and lies to survive, it probably deserves to end.”
Then he kept walking.
That quote appeared everywhere by evening.
I saved it.
Mostly so I could tease him.
But something else changed after the trial began.
Luca became quieter around me.
Not distant.
Careful.
Too careful.
No late-night conversations.
No accidental moments in the kitchen.
No standing too close.
I understood why.
I was his employee.
He was my employer.
The tension between us had grown impossible to ignore.
So he did what controlled men did.
Controlled it.
Which irritated me.
One Friday I entered his office.
“We need to talk.”
He looked up.
“About?”
“You avoiding me.”
“I’m not.”
“You ate breakfast in the conference room yesterday.”
“I had a meeting.”
“You moved a meeting to avoid breakfast.”
“That’s a serious accusation.”
“Luca.”
He put the pen down.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
His jaw tightened.
“You work for me.”
“I know.”
“You depend on this job.”
“I no longer depend on this job.”
That surprised him.
I had paid off most of my debt with legitimate wages.
Mom’s health situation was stable.
I had savings.
Options.
For the first time in years, I could leave somewhere without falling apart financially.
“I’m here because I choose to be,” I said.
Luca stood.
“That’s exactly the problem.”
“How?”
“Because I want you here.”
My heart stopped.
He continued before courage disappeared.
“Not as an employee.”
Silence.
He looked almost angry at himself.
“I don’t know how to do this correctly.”
“That may be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.”
“I wasn’t being romantic.”
“You’re doing terribly.”
He almost smiled.
Then became serious.
“I will never use your job to influence what happens between us.”
“I know.”
“If you want to leave, I’ll help you find another position.”
“I know.”
“If you stay—”
I stepped closer.
“Luca.”
He stopped.
“You talk too much when you’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
I smiled.
“Your left hand disagrees.”
He looked down.
His fingers had curled against the desk.
I reached for them.
He let me.
For months, Luca had held everything tightly.
His empire.
His anger.
His grief.
His responsibility.
Now his hand relaxed inside mine.
Nothing dramatic happened.
No sweeping declaration.
No impossible promise.
I simply leaned forward and kissed his cheek.
Then stepped back.
He looked stunned.
I smiled.
“That’s all you get until I finish renegotiating my employment agreement.”
He stared at me.
May you like
Then laughed.
And in that laugh, the final piece of the old Moretti mansion seemed to disappear.
