Chapter 8 - The Aftermath of Winter
Three days later, the story broke in the Chicago Tribune—not as a scandalous society wedding, but as a financial corruption probe involving the Sloane syndicate and a series of shell companies operating out of the Indiana rail yards.
Patrick Sloane’s name was mentioned in three paragraphs on page four, buried beneath an article about real estate zoning in the Loop. By Friday, the federal indictments were signed, sealed, and filed away in drawers that would never be opened by anyone who cared about high society.
Inside the penthouse, the silence was no longer heavy. It smelled of vanilla extract, damp wool from wet mittens, and the faint, sweet scent of cedar shavings from Jack’s new woodworking kit.
On Saturday morning—the day that was supposed to have been the wedding—Roman stood in the kitchen in his shirtsleeves, an old cotton apron tied around his waist with a knot that was slipping on the left side.
“Daddy,” Rosie called from the living room, her voice clear and bright like a small silver bell. “Jack says the boat is sinking!”
“It’s not sinking, it’s listing to port because you put too many cargo boxes in the stern!” Jack yelled back, his feet pounding across the parquet floor in a frantic race of eight-year-old energy.
Roman turned down the burner under the small copper saucepan. He looked down at his right wrist. The French cuff was clean, starched, and buttoned properly. There was no blood on it—only the faint, pale line of an old scar from a dockside hook he’d forgotten he even had.
He picked up the timer, watched the red hand tick down to zero, and lifted the eggs off the stove.
Four minutes.
Exact to the second.
As he walked into the sunny dining room carrying the wooden tray with three soft-boiled eggs, two pieces of toasted brioche, and a glass of cold milk, both children stopped their argument and looked up.
For a fraction of a second, Jack’s shoulders twitched upward in that old, involuntary defense mechanism, as if waiting for a rule he’d broken. Then he saw his father’s face—unsmiling, steady, but entirely warm—and the tension in the boy’s spine dissolved like sugar in hot water.
“Eat your breakfast,” Roman said, setting the tray down in the center of the table and pulling out his own chair. “We have to go to the park before the wind shifts off the lake.”
Rosie grabbed her spoon, scooped up a piece of golden yolk, and smiled with egg all over her chin.
“Can we bring Mr. Hop?” she asked.
“Only if he wears a coat,” Roman said, sitting down at the head of the table in his own home for the first time in five years. “It’s cold out there today.”
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And for the first time since the glass walls had been built above Lake Shore Drive, the penthouse didn't feel like a fortress waiting for a siege.
It felt like a home.
