Chapter 15 - THE LIFE SHE CHOSE
Eighteen months later, Janevra stood in the same chapel where she had once felt like a prisoner.
This time there were no two hundred guests.
No political alliances.
No business negotiations.
No men discussing territory over champagne.
Only twenty people.
Friends.
Family.
People Janevra had chosen.
Elio waited at the altar holding their nine-month-old daughter, Lucia.
The baby had Janevra's dark eyes and Elio's permanently serious expression, though she ruined the effect by chewing on the ribbon attached to her dress.
Bruno stood beside Elio as godfather.
Lena sat in the front row with her mother.
Victoriao sat several seats behind them.
Janevra had forgiven him enough to let him remain in her life.
She had not forgotten.
Forgiveness, she had learned, did not require pretending the past never happened.
The Moretti ports now operated under Janevra's authority.
Elio had spent the previous year separating Vieira businesses from the criminal networks inherited from older generations.
It wasn't simple.
It wasn't clean.
But for the first time, they were building something rather than merely surviving what other people had built for them.
Janevra reached Elio.
He handed baby Lucia to Bruno.
Then he took Janevra's hands.
"No alliances this time," he whispered.
"No contracts."
"No obligations."
Janevra smiled.
"Good."
The priest renewed their vows.
When Elio kissed her, applause filled the little chapel.
Hours later, after everyone had gone, Janevra found a blue envelope waiting on her pillow.
"What's this?"
Elio leaned against the doorway.
"Open it."
Inside were two tickets to Florence.
And an acceptance letter.
Janevra stared at the page.
The art-history program she had dreamed about since she was eighteen had accepted her.
Her eyes filled.
"How did you—"
"I didn't."
Elio smiled.
"You applied six months ago. I just intercepted the mail before you saw it."
She laughed through her tears.
"You opened my mail?"
"I married a dangerous woman. I take precautions."
Janevra crossed the room and wrapped her arms around him.
For most of her life, other people had decided what she would become.
A daughter.
An alliance.
A wife.
An heir-maker.
A bargaining chip.
But that woman no longer existed.
She was a mother.
A business owner.
A student.
A wife by choice.
And deeply, unexpectedly loved.
Elio touched his forehead to hers.
"Ready for Florence, Mrs. Vieira?"
Janevra looked toward the nursery where their daughter slept peacefully.
Then back at the man who had once claimed he didn't want her.
"Only if you're coming with me."
His answer was immediate.
May you like
"Anywhere."
And for the first time in Janevra's life, the future waiting beyond the door belonged entirely to her.
