Chapter 7 - The Trial of Marco DeSantis
Marco’s trial began eight months later.
By then, Elena and Mia had returned to Chicago.
Not to the Romano estate.
To their own apartment.
Elena had resigned as housekeeper.
Luca accepted the letter without argument.
Then offered severance.
She refused.
He sent the legally required amount only.
She noticed.
Boundaries.
Good.
Elena took a management job at a boutique hotel.
Better pay.
Normal hours.
Mia started first grade.
Luca saw them sometimes.
Coffee.
Park.
Dinner.
No security men hovering close.
No grand gifts.
He had to learn ordinary courtship at forty-one.
He was terrible at it.
On their third dinner, he asked Elena:
“Do people normally discuss federal investigations on dates?”
“No.”
“What do they discuss?”
“Movies.”
“I don’t watch movies.”
“Food.”
“We already ordered.”
“Childhood.”
Luca stared.
“That sounds worse than federal investigations.”
Elena laughed.
He liked that sound.
Marco’s trial forced seriousness back.
Elena testified.
Thomas’s laptop.
The audit.
The threats.
She stood in court across from the man accused of killing her husband.
Marco watched without expression.
When defense counsel suggested Thomas may have accepted money, Elena said:
“No.”
“You cannot know every private action your husband took.”
“No.”
“Then how can you say that?”
“Because the account was not his.”
The prosecution had proved it.
Marco controlled it.
The jury saw transfers.
Phone records.
Brake-shop payment.
The florist scheme.
Celeste testified too.
She admitted everything.
The room hated her.
Elena did not.
Not exactly.
Celeste looked smaller without designer clothing and engagement photographs.
A woman who made terrible choices under pressure.
Still choices.
Luca testified last.
His attorney warned him.
“Do not volunteer.”
He volunteered anyway.
He admitted the Romano family’s history.
His father’s cover-ups.
His own illegal conduct.
The judge stopped him twice.
The jury listened.
Marco stared.
Then Luca said:
“My family taught us that protecting blood came before protecting truth. That rule is why people got hurt.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Thomas would have understood.
Marco was convicted of murder, conspiracy, fraud, and multiple related counts.
The sentencing came later.
Decades.
Luca did not celebrate.
Elena did not either.
They went to a diner afterward.
Mia ordered pancakes.
“Did the bad man go to jail?”
“Yes,” Elena said.
“Forever?”
“Long time.”
Mia thought.
“Does Daddy come back?”
Elena’s fork stopped.
No.
That was the terrible arithmetic children eventually reached.
Justice did not return Thomas.
“No, sweetheart.”
Mia looked at Luca.
“Then why do court?”
Luca answered.
“So he cannot hurt another family.”
Mia considered.
“That’s not enough.”
“No.”
He did not lie.
“But it matters.”
She nodded slowly.
Then poured too much syrup.
Life continued.
Luca’s own legal consequences arrived too.
Financial conspiracy.
Illegal business operations.
Tax violations.
No violent conviction.
Cooperation mattered.
So did responsibility.
He accepted a plea.
Twelve months in federal custody.
Elena found out before he told Mia.
“You’re going away.”
“Yes.”
“She will think you left.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Tell her before.”
“Not enough.”
Luca looked at her.
“What is enough?”
“Consistency.”
He remembered Mia’s father.
The man who recorded evidence because he expected the Romanos to protect blood.
Luca answered:
“I’ll write every week.”
“Call when allowed.”
“Yes.”
“Do not promise dates you cannot control.”
“Yes.”
“Do not say you are doing this for us.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Because this is for what you did.”
Luca nodded.
She was right.
The next evening he sat with Mia.
“I have to go somewhere for a year.”
“Work?”
“No.”
“Jail?”
Luca blinked.
“How do you know that word?”
“I go to school.”
Fair.
“Yes.”
“Because you were bad?”
“Because I broke laws.”
“Now?”
“Before.”
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
Mia thought.
Then:
“Will you come back?”
Luca answered carefully.
“I will do everything I am legally allowed to do to come back when my sentence is finished.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“That sounds like lawyer talk.”
“It is.”
“I hate it.”
“So do I.”
Then Mia hugged him.
That nearly destroyed him.
Before Luca surrendered for his own sentence, he visited Thomas Ward’s grave alone.
Not as family.
Not as replacement.
As a man who inherited the system that failed him.
The headstone was modest.
Luca stood in rain.
“I’m sorry.”
Nothing answered.
Good.
He continued anyway.
“You called me.”
His throat tightened.
“I didn’t know.”
That was true.
Not enough.
“I built my life assuming the people under me filtered problems correctly.”
Wind moved across the cemetery.
“I was wrong.”
He placed no flowers.
Flowers felt too easy.
Instead, he left a copy of the new whistleblower policy inside a waterproof envelope beneath the stone’s edge.
Symbolic.
Maybe stupid.
Still meaningful to him.
Elena learned later.
She did not mock him.
At Marco’s sentencing, the judge described Thomas’s murder as “a foreseeable escalation of a culture of coercion.”
Luca wrote the phrase down.
Culture of coercion.
Not one bad man.
A culture.
Marco received a long sentence.
He looked at Luca before deputies led him away.
“You killed the family.”
Luca answered:
“No.”
Marco waited.
Luca finished:
“We did.”
Plural.
That was the truth.
The family had created rules that rewarded silence, leverage, loyalty over law.
Marco exploited them.
Luca benefited from them.
His father protected them.
Everyone owned part.
Elena heard.
Later she said:
“That was the first honest thing anyone in your family has said about itself.”
Luca looked at her.
“Romantic.”
“Do not ruin it.”
Then came his plea.
His attorneys negotiated hard.
Luca insisted on no special immunity.
Financial conspiracy.
Illegal gambling.
Tax violations.
Obstruction tied to older business practices.
No charge tied to Thomas’s death.
He accepted.
Before sentencing, victim statements arrived.
Business owners.
Former employees.
People who paid protection.
Luca read every one.
One man wrote:
You never threatened me personally. Your name did.
That line echoed Celeste.
Reputation as weapon.
At sentencing, Luca repeated it.
“My name did things for me I pretended I had not ordered.”
The judge looked at him for a long moment.
Then imposed twelve months.
Less than prosecutors once considered.
More than Luca wanted.
Fair.
That evening he told Mia.
Her question about jail came quickly.
Then another.
“Will people be mean to you?”
“Maybe.”
“Can Gabriel come?”
“No.”
“That seems unsafe.”
Luca almost laughed.
“It is controlled.”
“Do you get your phone?”
“No.”
Mia looked horrified.
“Jail is terrible.”
“Yes.”
Elena covered a smile.
Then Mia asked:
“Can I send drawings?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“As many as rules allow.”
“Good.”
She was planning logistics.
Children adapted.
Before leaving, Luca gave Elena a sealed envelope.
“What is this?”
“Power of attorney for estate emergencies.”
She pushed it back.
“No.”
“Not control. Just emergency authority if Mia’s belongings or anything—”
“No.”
He stopped.
Old habit.
Offering power without being asked.
“Okay.”
Elena looked surprised.
“You’re not arguing?”
“No.”
She softened.
“Good.”
He tore the envelope in half.
No dramatic gesture.
Just correction.
The next morning he surrendered.
Not for Elena.
Not for Mia.
May you like
For what he had done.
That distinction mattered.
