Chapter 5 - The Mother’s Ultimatum
Before Luca could grab Claire’s hand, the heavy timber door on the ground floor slammed open against the brick entryway.
Heavy, expensive leather shoes clicked sharply against the concrete subfloor below.
“I told you he would be here,” a woman’s smooth, crystalline voice drifted up the stairwell.
Luca turned around, his entire body tensing with murderous fury.
Vivienne Russo was ascending the wooden staircase.
She was dressed impeccably in a tailored cream cashmere coat with a silk scarf tied around her neck, completely oblivious to the industrial dust floating through the air.
Behind her walked Teresa Ferraro, clutching a designer leather handbag as if it were a shield against the filth of the construction site.
Claire did not look surprised; she simply picked up her mortar trowel and placed it on a wooden sawhorse.
“Look at this pathetic spectacle,” Teresa said, reaching the top of the stairs and surveying the damp warehouse with open disgust.
“The heir to Ferraro Logistics standing in sawdust, begging an ungrateful tradeswoman to return to her own wedding.”
“Get out of here, Mother,” Luca warned, his voice dropping into a register that had made seasoned corporate executives shake in boardrooms.
“I am not leaving until you get into the car, Luca,” Teresa said, refusing to back down.
“Do you have any idea what is happening at the estate right now?”
“Reporters from the Boston Globe are already parked at the main gate.”
“Arthur Russo called me twenty minutes ago demanding to know why his daughter was humiliated by rumors that you ran off after a runaway bride.”
Claire let out a soft, dry chuckle from behind the sawhorse.
“See, Luca? The alliance is already calling to collect its debts.”
Vivienne stepped forward, her pale blue eyes scanning Claire from head to toe with deliberate condescension.
“You really have no shame, do you, Claire?” Vivienne said smoothly.
“You take a man like Luca, who gave you access to a world you couldn't even dream of, and you humiliate him in front of every business partner on the East Coast.”
“You could have talked to him privately after the ceremony.”
“Instead, you chose to throw a dramatic, low-class tantrum to manipulate him into choosing between his empire and your fragile pride.”
Luca stepped between Vivienne and Claire, his tall frame casting a dark shadow over both women.
“Vivienne, shut your mouth before I forget who your father is,” Luca snarled.
Vivienne blinked in surprise, but Teresa stepped up beside her niece-figure immediately.
“Do not speak to her like that!” Teresa commanded.
“Vivienne had the decency to stay and help me handle the caterers and dismiss the guests with some semblance of dignity!”
“This woman,” Teresa pointed a manicured finger toward Claire, “left you a coward’s note and ran back to her sandbox.”
Claire didn't flinch.
She didn't raise her voice.
She walked calmly to the edge of the sawhorse, picked up a clean rag, and began wiping the brick dust from her fingers.
“Mrs. Ferraro,” Claire said, her voice chillingly polite.
“You didn't come here to bring me back to Rhode Island.”
Teresa’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“You came here to make sure Luca saw me in my natural environment,” Claire continued, tossing the dirty rag onto the sawhorse.
“You brought Vivienne so Luca would see the contrast between a woman who lives for your pedigree and a woman who refuses to kiss your ring.”
“You think this embarrasses me?”
Claire gestured around the vast, echoing brick warehouse.
“My crew restored the timber joists that are holding this roof up.”
“My hands built the structural support that keeps this landmark from collapsing into Boston Harbor.”
“I don't need your four-hundred-million-dollar European ports to know what I am worth.”
Claire turned her eyes directly back onto Luca.
“Your mother brought your real world to my doorstep, Luca.”
“Take a very good look at it.”
Teresa turned toward Luca, her expression hardening into an icy command.
“Enough of this insanity, Luca. Arthur Russo is landing his private helicopter at our estate in two hours.”
“He has agreed to overlook the embarrassment of last night on one condition.”
Luca didn't move.
“What condition, Mother?”
“You announce the formal merger of Ferraro Logistics and Russo Maritime by the end of the week.”
“And you announce your engagement to Vivienne before the quarterly press conference on Friday.”
The warehouse went dead silent.
The only sound was the cold Boston rain drumming against the skylights above.
Vivienne stood in her cream cashmere coat, her chin lifted, watching Luca with hungry anticipation.
Claire stood beside her tools, her amber eyes watching Luca without a single trace of emotion left.
She was waiting to see what he would do when the ultimatum was laid bare in front of him.
Luca slowly turned his head to look at Claire.
Then he looked at his mother.
Then he looked at Vivienne.
The velvet box containing the ancestral emerald felt like lead in his hand.
“You brought Arthur Russo to my home to sell me?” Luca whispered to his mother.
“I brought him to save our family from your reckless stupidity!” Teresa snapped.
Luca looked back at Claire one last time.
Her face was an impenetrable fortress.
“Claire,” Luca said, his voice pleading one final time.
“Tell me to walk away from both of them right now, and I swear to you on everything I own, I will never speak to my family again.”
Claire looked at him for five long seconds.
Then she shook her head slowly.
“If you need me to tell you to be an honorable man, Luca, then you were never one to begin with.”
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Claire picked up her leather tool belt, strapped it around her waist, and turned her back on all three of them.
“Get out of my building,” she said toward the brick wall.
