Chapter 10 - No More CurfewsOne year later, Leo woke at seven-thirty in the morning.
He immediately assumed something was wrong.
He sat upright.
Sunlight filled the bedroom.
Mave slept beside him.
Brutus occupied approximately seventy percent of the bed despite being repeatedly forbidden from sleeping upstairs.
Leo checked the clock.
7:31.
He stared.
He had slept nine hours.
Nine.
Mave opened one eye.
“Why are you sitting like someone declared war?”
“I overslept.”
“You don't have a job until ten.”
“I have a meeting at ten.”
“Yes.”
“It takes forty minutes to drive.”
“You have two hours.”
Leo looked uncomfortable.
Mave rolled toward him.
“This is called normal life.”
“I remain suspicious.”
“Lie down.”
“I should make coffee.”
“You make terrible coffee.”
“I improved.”
“You improved from criminal to merely offensive.”
Leo sighed and lay down.
Mave curled against him.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
“You're getting good at this.”
“At what?”
“Being boring.”
Leo looked offended.
“I am not boring.”
“You spent last Saturday comparing lawn fertilizer.”
“That required research.”
“Very exciting.”
He kissed her.
Their home wasn't the mansion.
The mansion had been converted into the Castiglion Foundation headquarters.
Mave's idea.
Half the building now supported legal aid, medical debt assistance, and job training for families in the Narrows.
The basement meeting room where Mave once cleaned blood had become a classroom.
Leo refused to discuss how emotional that made him.
Mave knew anyway.
Castiglion Maritime had transformed too.
Independent management.
Legal operations.
Union contracts.
Employee ownership plan.
Mave retained her inherited shares.
Not because she wanted wealth.
Because she realized ownership could become responsibility.
She launched Quinn House Services, a company employing housekeepers, caregivers, cleaners, and domestic workers with benefits and fair wages.
Her first rule:
No employee should ever have to clean blood without asking questions.
Carmine became head of corporate security.
He hated the title.
He secretly loved having business cards.
Giani recovered.
He retired.
Every Sunday, he came to dinner and complained about Leo's cooking.
Nora married the tow-truck driver from the infamous night.
That revelation nearly destroyed Leo.
“You married him?”
Nora shrugged.
“He was funny.”
“He smelled like cheap beer.”
“He quit drinking.”
“You kept my wife out until two in the morning.”
“That was four years ago.”
“I remember.”
Mave laughed until she cried.
Dominic remained in prison.
Carmelo testified.
Alexei Volkov accepted a long sentence.
Sergei did too.
For the first time in Leo's adult life, nobody was actively trying to kill him.
He found the experience strangely unsettling.
That morning, Mave entered the kitchen wearing one of Leo's shirts.
He placed coffee in front of her.
In the chipped hardware-store mug.
The same one.
“You kept this?”
Mave smiled.
“You kept every ugly newspaper article about me.”
“Historical documents.”
“Then this is historical porcelain.”
“It cost three dollars.”
“Exactly.”
Leo sat.
Mave looked at him.
“What?”
“You're smiling.”
“So?”
“You used to look offended by mornings.”
“I still am.”
“No.”
She reached across the table.
“You're happy.”
Leo considered it.
“Yes.”
The word still felt unfamiliar.
But true.
Mave squeezed his hand.
“You know what today is?”
“Tuesday.”
“Our anniversary.”
Leo froze.
She started laughing.
“You forgot?”
“No.”
“You forgot.”
“I knew.”
“What did you plan?”
Leo stared.
Mave laughed harder.
“This is incredible.”
“I have been busy.”
“You compared fertilizer.”
“That was important.”
Mave stood.
“I'm going to work.”
Leo grabbed her hand.
“Dinner tonight.”
“Oh?”
“Seven.”
“Is that an order?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“A request.”
She leaned down.
“Then yes.”
At seven, Mave came home.
Leo waited in the foyer.
Not in darkness.
Lights on.
No Scotch.
No cigarette.
No paranoia.
Mave entered.
He looked at his watch dramatically.
“Seven-oh-three.”
She stared.
“Do not.”
“You said seven.”
“Leo.”
“You're late.”
She threw her purse at him.
He caught it.
Laughing.
“You once made me believe I needed a curfew.”
“You came home at two.”
“I was twenty-nine.”
“It was dangerous.”
“You were jealous.”
“I was concerned.”
“Jealous.”
“Security-conscious.”
“Jealous.”
Leo pulled her closer.
“Fine.”
Mave smiled triumphantly.
“Say it.”
“No.”
“Say it.”
“I was jealous.”
“Thank you.”
“Extremely.”
She laughed.
“How romantic.”
“I hated the idea of you having dinner with another man.”
“It was Nora.”
“I didn't know that.”
“You never asked.”
“I asked who ‘we’ were.”
“After interrogating me for five minutes.”
Leo kissed her.
“Terrible evening.”
“Best thing that ever happened to you.”
“Unfortunately.”
She hit his chest.
Dinner waited in the kitchen.
Leo had cooked.
Actual food.
Not burned.
Mave stared suspiciously.
“Who helped?”
“No one.”
“Carmine?”
“No.”
“Giani?”
“No.”
“Restaurant delivery transferred to plates?”
Leo looked offended.
“I learned.”
They ate together.
Afterward, Leo took her outside.
The garden behind the townhouse glowed beneath hanging lights.
Mave stopped.
“What did you do?”
“Anniversary.”
“You remembered.”
“Obviously.”
“You absolutely forgot this morning.”
“I remembered very quickly afterward.”
She smiled.
A small table stood beneath a tree.
On it was a framed photograph.
Evelyn Quinn.
Young.
Smiling.
Beside another photograph.
Salvatore Castiglion with teenage Leo.
Mave's eyes filled.
Leo stood behind her.
“Our parents made terrible choices.”
“Yes.”
“They also made a few good ones.”
Mave looked at him.
Leo touched Evelyn's photograph.
“Your mother saved my life before you were born.”
“And your father saved hers.”
“Then they spent twenty years making sure we wouldn't meet.”
“They failed.”
“Spectacularly.”
Mave laughed.
Leo took her hand.
“I spent years thinking my father left me a criminal empire.”
“He did.”
“Yes.”
Leo looked toward the house.
“But that wasn't the inheritance that mattered.”
Mave waited.
“He left me a second chance.”
She smiled.
“No.”
“What?”
“You gave yourself that.”
Leo looked at her.
She stepped closer.
“People helped.”
“My mother. Your father. Carmine. Giani.”
She placed a hand over his heart.
“But you chose.”
Leo kissed her forehead.
A car door slammed out front.
Then another.
Mave frowned.
“Are we expecting someone?”
Leo looked guilty.
“What did you do?”
Voices approached.
Carmine entered the garden carrying champagne.
Nora followed.
Giani.
Several Castiglion Maritime employees.
Staff from Quinn House Services.
Neighbors.
Friends.
Mave stared.
“You planned a party?”
Leo shrugged.
“You complained we never celebrate anything.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You remembered before this morning.”
“Yes.”
“You let me think you forgot.”
“Yes.”
“You manipulative—”
Leo kissed her before she finished.
Everyone cheered.
Mave laughed against his mouth.
Later, music played.
People danced.
Brutus stole food from Carmine.
Giani argued with Leo about wine.
Nora told everyone the radiator story for the thousandth time.
Mave stood near the garden wall watching.
Leo came beside her.
“Tired?”
“A little.”
“Want everyone gone?”
“Eventually.”
He smiled.
The old Leo could have emptied a room with one look.
The new Leo waited.
Mave leaned against him.
“Do you miss it?”
“What?”
“The power.”
Leo thought.
“Sometimes.”
She looked up.
“Really?”
“I miss knowing I could solve problems immediately.”
“With threats.”
“Yes.”
“Very healthy.”
“I said I missed it. I didn't say it was healthy.”
Mave smiled.
“What don't you miss?”
He looked toward the people laughing in the garden.
“Everything else.”
The fear.
The sleeplessness.
The silence.
The loneliness.
He didn't need to say the words.
Mave understood.
“You know,” she said, “technically I'm no longer your maid.”
“I noticed.”
“You occasionally leave socks on the floor.”
“You pick them up.”
“Out of love. Not employment.”
“Important distinction.”
“And if I come home at two in the morning?”
Leo looked at her.
Mave raised an eyebrow.
“Well?”
He sighed dramatically.
“You don't have a curfew.”
“Correct answer.”
“But text me.”
She laughed.
“I can do that.”
“And call if the car breaks down.”
“Yes.”
“And avoid Halston Avenue.”
“Leo.”
“And—”
She kissed him.
When she pulled away, he had forgotten the rest.
“Better?”
“Yes.”
The garden lights glowed.
The harbor beyond the city shimmered in the distance.
Years earlier, Leo Castiglion had believed love made powerful men vulnerable.
He had been right.
Love had made him vulnerable.
It had also made him brave enough to walk away from everything that was slowly destroying him.
Mave had once believed survival meant keeping everyone at a safe distance.
She had been wrong too.
Some people became dangerous when you let them close.
Others became home.
Leo wrapped an arm around her.
“Mrs. Castiglion.”
“Don't sound so pleased with yourself.”
“I am extremely pleased.”
“You know I kept Quinn professionally.”
“I know.”
“And I still own twelve percent of your company.”
“Our company.”
“Better.”
He kissed her temple.
Around them, their friends laughed.
No guards watched the rooftops.
No guns waited beneath jackets.
No men whispered about territory.
Nobody was planning revenge.
For one ordinary, beautiful night, there was only food, music, annoying friends, a badly behaved dog, and two people who had survived the lives their parents left them.
Mave looked up.
“Leo?”
“Yes?”
“I'm glad I came home late.”
Leo narrowed his eyes.
“Don't push it.”
She laughed.
He kissed her again.
And somewhere in the house, the old grandfather clock that Leo had insisted on keeping began to chime.
Once.
Twice.
But this time, two o'clock existed only as a memory.
A story they would tell someday.
The night a frightened mafia boss waited in darkness for his housekeeper to come home.
The night he discovered she was the only thing in his empire he could not control.
And the only thing he had ever truly wanted to keep.
Not as property.
Not as leverage.
Not as an obligation.
As a choice.
As an equal.
As the woman he loved.
Mave rested her head against his chest.
Leo held her beneath the garden lights.
And for the first time in either of their lives, neither was waiting for something terrible to happen.
They were simply living.
Together.
Safe.
Free.
May you like
Home.
The End.
