Chapter 13 - The Foundation Restored
Two weeks later, the snow began to fall over Boston—soft, thick flakes that muffled the roar of traffic and turned the cobblestones of Hanover Street into a postcard from the past.
Hayes Restoration looked entirely different.
The southern foundation wall had been shored up with solid Irish granite blocks, expertly laid by master masons under Dominic’s direct supervision. The front windows, shattered months ago by anonymous thugs working for the syndicate, had been replaced with thick, hand-beveled glass that caught the amber glow of the gas lamps outside.
Inside the workshop, the smell of beeswax, boiled linseed oil, and old oak filled the air.
Arthur sat in his rocking chair by the cast-iron stove, humming an old tune as he fitted a hand-carved mahogany drawer pull into a restored 19th-century secretary desk.
Nora stood at the workbench, smoothing a fine sheet of sandpaper across the leg of a cherrywood side table.
The bell above the front door chimed.
Nora looked up, expecting a delivery driver or an old neighbor from the bakery down the street.
Instead, the heavy oak door swung open, and Dominic stepped inside.
He wasn’t wearing his usual charcoal suit or his expensive leather coat. He wore a simple dark wool sweater, his sleeves rolled up to his forearms, carrying a heavy cardboard box marked Archives – 1954.
Arthur didn't even look up from his desk. “You’re late, boy. The glue’s already setting on the bracket.”
Dominic set the box down on the center table with a dull thud. “Traffic on the bridge was backed up, Mr. Hayes. A delivery truck dropped a load of lumber.”
“Always an excuse,” Arthur grumbled, though a faint, rare smile tugged at the corner of his wrinkled mouth. “Nora, get him an apron. If he’s going to help sand that mahogany bureau, he’s not doing it in wool.”
Nora laughed—a bright, clear sound that filled the dusty workshop from floor to ceiling. She walked over to the peg by the door, grabbed a spare leather carpenter’s apron, and held it out.
Dominic didn’t take the apron immediately.
Instead, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a small velvet box, and opened it.
Inside sat a ring—not a cold, heavy platinum band meant to secure a corporate merger, but a delicate, antique gold ring set with a single, warm-toned amber stone that looked like crystallized sunlight.
“You didn’t answer me three years ago when I told you to leave,” Dominic said quietly, his dark eyes holding hers with absolute, unshakable certainty.
Nora looked down at the ring, then up at his face. The workshop around them—with its scarred wooden floors, its ticking clocks, and its shelves of broken history—seemed to fade away into nothingness.
May you like
“I’m terrible at taking orders, Dominic,” she whispered.
“I know,” he replied, a slow, devastating smile finally breaking across his face as he lifted the ring from the velvet and slid it onto her left hand. “That’s why I brought you a hammer.”
