Chapter 7 - EIGHTEEN MONTHS TO BECOME A BETTER MAN
Dominic met federal prosecutors the following morning.
He was not arrested that day.
The investigation took fourteen months.
Gerald Mercer eventually pleaded guilty to multiple federal charges after Daniel’s recovered records and Dominic’s evidence dismantled his defense.
He was sentenced to prison.
Dominic faced consequences too.
Cooperation did not erase what he had done.
He pleaded guilty to financial and conspiracy charges tied to businesses he had inherited and continued operating during his early years in control.
The government acknowledged his cooperation.
So did the court.
He served eighteen months.
Evelyn did not put her life on hold.
That had been the condition.
She became director of cardiac trauma at Lakeview Mercy.
She published two papers.
She bought a townhouse with terrible plumbing and a small rooftop deck.
She visited Dominic twice a month.
Sometimes they talked for three hours.
Sometimes they argued for two.
Once she drove four hours home furious because he suggested hiring private security after someone recognized her outside the hospital.
He called the next morning.
“You were right.”
She nearly dropped the phone.
“Are you sick?”
“I’m learning.”
“Slowly.”
“Yes.”
Daniel graduated from architecture school while Dominic was incarcerated.
Evelyn sat beside Caroline Vale at the ceremony.
When Daniel crossed the stage, he looked directly at Evelyn and touched two fingers over the left side of his chest.
Exactly where her sutures had saved his life.
She cried.
She denied it afterward.
Nobody believed her.
Dominic was released on a cold February morning.
There were no reporters.
No black convoy.
No armed men.
He walked through the gate carrying one duffel bag.
Evelyn waited beside her Subaru.
The same Subaru.
With new brake pads.
Dominic stopped when he saw her.
For several seconds neither moved.
Then he approached.
“You came.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I told you not to wait.”
“And I told you to stop deciding things for me.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
He looked different.
Lean.
A little older.
But lighter somehow.
“So,” Evelyn said, “what happens now?”
“I thought perhaps coffee.”
“That’s your grand plan?”
“I’ve learned not to over-plan your life.”
“Progress.”
They got into the car.
No driver.
No security detail.
No one following.
Evelyn drove.
Dominic looked through the passenger window at a city he had once believed belonged to men powerful enough to control it.
Twenty minutes later they stopped at a neighborhood diner where nobody recognized him.
They sat in a booth beneath a crooked photograph of the Chicago skyline.
A waitress poured coffee.
Dominic took his black.
Evelyn added cream.
He noticed.
“You used to drink it black.”
“Three years changed things.”
“Apparently.”
She looked at him over the rim of her cup.
“You still read medical journals?”
“I stopped.”
“Good.”
“I understand almost none of them.”
“I assumed.”
“I do know what ventricular reconstruction is.”
Evelyn blinked.
“That is deeply disturbing.”
“I had time.”
She laughed.
Dominic watched her.
No urgency.
No ownership.
May you like
No fear that if he looked away she might vanish.
Just a man looking at a woman he had once loved badly and hoped to love better.
