Chapter 9 - The Gallery Opening
A year to the day after the events on the Meridian Queen, a modest, elegant art gallery in SoHo held an unpublicized private exhibition titled The Architecture of Silence.
The gallery walls were lined with stark, brilliant charcoal sketches and watercolor portraits. There were drawings of industrial cargo ships slicing through midnight waves, silver-haired phantoms standing in the shadows of luxury salons, and women with empty, beautiful smiles holding martini glasses.
In the center of the main gallery stood a large, sunlit canvas depicting a little girl with brown curls and a frayed blue ribbon, handing a slice of cake to a towering, shadowed man who was finally learning how to smile.
New York’s elite walked through the rooms in quiet reverence, many of them whispering about the young, anonymous prodigy whose work had been bought out entirely by an unnamed private collector before the doors even opened to the public.
In the back corner, standing beneath a soft track light, Dante Moretti watched Lily—now nine years old, wearing a crisp green dress and brand-new patent leather shoes—explain the perspective lines of a sketch to a bewildered gallery critic twice her age.
Eleanor stood beside Dante, her arms crossed comfortably over her chest, watching her daughter command the room with the same fearless green eyes that had once stopped a mob boss in his tracks.
"She’s going to run this city one day, you know," Dante murmured, his eyes never leaving the little girl.
"Not this city, Dante," Eleanor replied softly, smiling as Lily laughed at something the critic said. "The world."
May you like
Dante nodded, adjusting his lapel, feeling the steady, rhythmic beat of his own heart.
The past was buried. The debt was paid. And the future belonged to the green-eyed girl with the blue ribbon.
