“May I come in?” he asked.

“You’re already in,” I said, but my voice wasn’t cold.

He walked slowly toward the counter, placing the bakery bag on the wood.

“I brought some lemon shortbread,” he said. “The man at the counter said they were fresh.”

“Lucia likes those,” I said.

We stood in silence for a moment, the quiet hum of Manhattan traffic filtering through the glass.

“It’s over,” Dominic said. “The dissolution of the firm was finalized this morning.”

“And your mother?” I asked.

“She accepted the plea bargain,” he said, his face tightening slightly. “She will spend the next eight years in a federal facility. She won’t be coming back here.”

I nodded, feeling a strange lack of triumph.

There was only a quiet, hollow peace.

“And you?” I asked. “What will you do now?”

“I bought a small house in upstate New York,” he said. “Near the lake. It has a garden.”

He looked down at his hands, then back up at me.

“I don’t want the empire, Elena. I never really did. I just thought it was my duty.”