Chapter 10 - Don't Touch My Wife
Roman Duca was eighty-four when he returned to the Bellavita ballroom for the final time.
The building had changed owners.
Renovated.
Brighter.
The old tunnels sealed.
The criminal meetings long gone.
Now the ballroom hosted a fundraising gala for the Adrian Vale Recovery Arts Center.
Elena stood beside him.
Eighty.
Still beautiful.
Roman had learned not to say still beautiful around her.
Apparently dangerous.
Lucia gave the keynote speech.
Maya Vale attended.
So did Nico's former recovery counselor.
Sofia Moretti came from Oregon.
Even retired Agent Bennett appeared carrying a cane and insulting the coffee.
History gathered in one room.
Not enemies.
Not exactly friends.
Witnesses.
Roman looked toward the marble pillar where Elena had been pinned decades earlier.
“You remember?”
She smiled.
“You screaming like a lunatic?”
“I was composed.”
“You threatened two men in twelve seconds.”
“They were touching you.”
“Security investigators.”
“Poorly identified.”
She laughed.
The truth about those two men had emerged years earlier.
They were private investigators Adrian hired after realizing he was being followed.
They thought Elena had taken the drive.
They handled her roughly.
Wrongly.
But they were not Victor's assassins.
Another reminder that fear made quick categories.
Enemy.
Friend.
Danger.
Safe.
Reality often took longer.
Elena touched the pillar.
“This is where everything changed.”
Roman shook his head.
“No.”
“What?”
“It started changing before.”
“When?”
He thought.
“Probably the first time you told me no.”
She laughed.
“That was breakfast on day two.”
“You criticized my espresso.”
“It was terrible.”
“Marriage nearly ended.”
They smiled.
Then the lights flickered.
Roman froze.
Elena looked at him.
Half the ballroom laughed because the story was famous enough now that everyone understood.
The lights returned immediately.
Technical glitch.
Roman exhaled.
Elena whispered:
“Still dramatic.”
“Deeply.”
Later, Lucia introduced them.
Applause.
Roman hated applause.
Elena loved watching him hate it.
They stood together.
Behind them, projected on a screen, was a photograph of the cleaned green dress.
Not the bloody version.
The archive preserved the original.
Elena spoke first.
“People often ask whether that night changed my husband.”
Roman looked at her.
She continued.
“It didn't.”
The audience quieted.
“Change isn't a gunshot.”
“It isn't one revelation.”
“It isn't discovering the person you trusted was your enemy.”
She looked at Roman.
“Change is what you do the morning after.”
“And the morning after that.”
“And twenty years later when nobody is watching.”
Roman's throat tightened.
Then he spoke.
“I was raised to believe power meant ensuring nobody could threaten what belonged to me.”
He looked at Elena.
“My wife never belonged to me.”
Applause.
He waited.
“My daughter did not belong to me.”
“People who worked for me did not belong to me.”
“Fear did not make anyone loyal.”
“And love did not give me permission to choose for other adults.”
He paused.
“I learned those things late.”
Sister Teresa had died years earlier.
But Roman could almost hear her:
Late is better than never.
He continued.
“The man who betrayed my father spent decades believing he was the strongest person in every room.”
Roman looked across faces.
“He wasn't.”
“The strongest person in that ballroom fifty years ago was a frightened woman kneeling beside a dying doctor, pressing both hands against his wound because she refused to let another person's life become convenient.”
Elena cried.
Roman did too.
No shame.
After the gala, they stayed behind.
The room emptied.
Staff cleared glasses.
Roman and Elena stood beneath the chandeliers.
“Dance?” he asked.
“No music.”
Roman pulled out his phone.
Elena stared.
“You know how to use Spotify?”
“Lucia taught me.”
“I'm impressed.”
Soft music began.
They danced.
Slowly.
Roman's balance wasn't great.
Elena's knees hurt.
Perfect.
Halfway through, a young employee approached to move a chair near Elena.
Roman reflexively said:
“Careful.”
Elena looked at him.
Roman smiled.
“Improvement.”
They continued.
Then Elena asked:
“If you could go back to that night, what would you change?”
Roman thought.
A lot.
He would believe Teresa.
Question Victor.
Read evidence before ordering retaliation.
Tell Elena the truth earlier.
Leave crime sooner.
But life didn't offer retroactive courage.
“I'd listen faster.”
Elena nodded.
“Good answer.”
“And you?”
“I'd tell you about Adrian before the party.”
Roman raised an eyebrow.
“Very good answer.”
She rested her head against him.
Roman looked at her hands.
Old now.
Fine wrinkles.
Wedding ring.
No blood.
Yet he remembered them red beneath the ballroom lights.
For years, he'd thought blood meant guilt.
That night taught him otherwise.
Blood could mean violence.
Or rescue.
A person could stand beside you for twenty years and betray you.
Another could enter your life with hidden motives and eventually become the most honest relationship you'd ever known.
Nothing was simple.
That was the point.
Elena whispered:
“Roman?”
“Yes?”
“Do you regret marrying me?”
He smiled.
“Which time?”
She slapped his shoulder.
He laughed.
Then held her gently.
“No.”
“Even knowing why I did it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you eventually told me.”
“That easy?”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“But truth gave us something to work with.”
Outside, snow began falling over New York.
Their driver waited.
No convoy.
No armed men.
Just Lucia's son Daniel, who had insisted on driving his grandparents because Roman's license had finally been taken away.
Roman considered this a constitutional violation.
Daniel disagreed.
When Roman and Elena stepped outside, Daniel opened the door.
“Grandpa.”
“Yes?”
“Mom says you're not allowed to complain about my driving.”
“Your mother abuses government authority.”
Elena laughed.
They climbed in.
As the car pulled away, Roman looked back at the Bellavita.
Half a century earlier, he had stood inside and roared:
Don't touch my wife.
He had believed protection meant putting his body between Elena and every threat.
He had done that.
Sometimes it was necessary.
But the harder protection came afterward.
Telling her truths that might make her leave.
Accepting consequences without asking her to share them.
Letting their daughter grow without turning fear into control.
Allowing victims to hate him.
Allowing the past to remain ugly where it was ugly.
And letting Elena choose him every morning without treating yesterday's choice as ownership of tomorrow's.
Daniel stopped at a red light.
Elena took Roman's hand.
“You're staring.”
“At you.”
“Why?”
Roman smiled.
“Checking for blood.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Fifty years and you're still impossible.”
“Fifty years and you're still here.”
Elena's expression softened.
“Because I choose to be.”
Roman squeezed her hand.
Exactly.
No debt.
No arrangement.
No fear.
Choice.
The light turned green.
They drove home.
And the most feared man in New York—once surrounded by guns, secrets, and people who obeyed him because they were afraid not to—ended his life surrounded by something he had once believed was weaker than power.
Trust.
Years later, after Roman died peacefully with Elena beside him, Lucia found a note in his desk.
No hidden account.
No criminal ledger.
No secret instructions.
Just one page.
If anyone tells this story after I'm gone, don't make me the hero.
Adrian told the truth. Elena carried it. Matteo stood beside me. Teresa warned me. Sofia survived what we failed to understand. Bennett followed the evidence. And I finally stopped defending the man I had been.
At the bottom, one final line:
Strength was never making people afraid to leave.
It was becoming someone they could freely choose to stay beside.
Elena read it twice.
Then placed it beside the photograph from their second wedding.
In the photograph, Roman wasn't looking at the camera.
May you like
He was looking at her.
And Elena's hands were clean.
