He Chose My Copy I Became The Law Chapter 16
Three years vanished almost without notice. I rose to become the Family Commission’s youngest member and the first and only woman to serve as Chief Consigliere in the history of the Six Houses.
During the formal annual summit, Cesare lowered his head to me before every Capo present.
Deafening applause rolled along both sides of the long table, and each mob boss lifted his glass in acknowledgment of my authority.
Evening had already arrived when the summit finally adjourned.
Outside, a persistent fine rain veiled the ancient city’s cobblestone lanes.
I drove by myself to the Family cemetery beyond the city limits, the platinum laurel pin on my lapel catching a dim gleam from the rain-darkened sky.
At my parents’ grave, I placed a bouquet of white roses.
“Papa, Mamma.” I sank to my knees and spoke softly. “I restored the Family’s honor and its rules.”
“I will protect the laws of this coast in your place from this day on.”
Chilly rain floated downward as wind whispered through the ivy along the walls, almost like a wordless answer.
I opened my black umbrella and began to turn away when a figure standing in the distant rain entered the edge of my vision.
It was Adrian.
His old suit was rumpled and drooped at the shoulders, while his temples showed far more gray than they had three years earlier.
Rumor said that after a series of devastating losses within his own Family, he had been stripped of his position as Capo. More recently, he had been reduced to an ordinary street collector.
He remained at a distance, watching me but making no move to come closer or speak.
Water trickled from the ends of his hair.
I spared him one look. In our younger days, those eyes had seemed to hold my entire world; now, through the rain, they appeared drained and foreign.
Nothing stirred inside me.
Rain blurred the night around me. Power at its highest point brought solitude, but it also brought safety.
It was as unshakable as the road my father had laid down at the cost of his life.
A convoy of armored Range Rovers swept along the rain-slick highway toward the vast business empire I had built.
I lifted one hand and lightly traced the cold platinum laurel pin on my lapel with my fingertips.
I was neither another person’s wife nor another person’s vulnerability anymore.
I was the rule.Â