Chapter 9 - THIRTY MONTHS
Prison made Dominic good at letters.
This surprised Naomi more than anything else.
He had always communicated like words were expensive.
Inside, he wrote six pages about weather.
Four about a book Roman had recommended.
Two entire paragraphs about a man in his unit who snored like “a chainsaw negotiating with God.”
Naomi read that sentence three times.
Then called Leo.
“Dominic made a joke.”
“Are you safe?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She hung up.
Her consultancy began with one client.
Then three.
Then twelve.
She named it Callahan Forensic Advisory because every cleverer name sounded like a law firm or a soap company.
The work was legitimate.
Mostly.
Meaning the clients were legitimate.
The numbers, as always, were liars.
Naomi investigated procurement fraud, executive theft, nonprofit embezzlement, and one spectacular case involving a dentist who billed insurance for procedures on patients who had been dead for years.
“See?” she told Dominic during a prison visit. “Normal crime.”
He sat across the table in plain clothes provided by the facility.
“You seem happier.”
“I sleep.”
“That’s good.”
“I also bought a new car.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Which one?”
“A Honda.”
He looked offended.
“It has a working alternator.”
“That was my only standard?”
“You had many standards. I ignored them.”
“Good.”
They smiled.
Visits were strange.
Intimacy under fluorescent lights.
No touching beyond brief permitted contact.
No harbor windows.
No armed men waiting outside.
Nothing for Dominic to control.
It stripped them down to conversation.
That turned out to be useful.
He told her about his father.
Not the legend.
The man.
A father who taught chess at seven and violence at fourteen.
A father who never hugged him after Dominic’s mother died because grief, in the Valente house, was apparently contagious weakness.
Dominic admitted he had wanted his father’s approval long after he hated him.
Naomi admitted she had built an identity around being needed.
“If nobody needs me,” she said during one visit, “I start thinking they’ll leave.”
Dominic looked at her.
“I need you less now.”
Her chest tightened.
He continued.
“And want you more.”
She stared.
“That was annoyingly good.”
“I wrote it down first.”
She laughed so loudly a guard looked over.
Leo improved too.
He and Maya returned to Seattle after four months.
He repaid Naomi the ninety thousand dollars.
She refused it.
He sent it anyway.
She sent it back.
He sent it again labeled CONSULTING RETAINER.
She called him.
“You cannot retain me to be your sister.”
“Tax deductible?”
“No.”
“Worth asking.”
Eventually they agreed he would put the money into a fund for their future children’s education.
Maya was not pregnant.
Leo said planning ahead was maturity.
Naomi said it was terrifying.
Celeste began working for a legal-aid nonprofit after her recovery, not as an attorney but as an investigator.
Her knowledge remained useful.
She and Naomi became something like friends.
The kind who occasionally went three months without speaking because every conversation reopened complicated history.
Roman received twenty-two months.
He and Dominic were placed in different facilities.
Probably wise.
Varga’s case dragged.
Adrian was convicted on kidnapping, assault, weapons, and conspiracy charges.
During trial, evidence showed he had orchestrated the attack on Leo, impersonated Daniel Ross, killed Salvatore Greco, and manipulated Celeste’s revenge campaign to gather everyone into conflict.
The press tried to turn him into a tragic avenger.
Naomi refused every interview.
“Tragedy explains people,” she told one reporter. “It doesn’t absolve them.”
That quote still ended up in print.
She hated that too.
A year into Dominic’s sentence, Naomi visited Pier Fourteen.
The city had seized the property.
A public redevelopment board planned to turn part of the terminal into a workforce training center and archive related to municipal corruption.
Naomi stood at the edge of the pier.
Her brother Daniel had once stood there.
Maybe frightened.
Maybe hopeful.
He had believed numbers could testify.
She finally understood.
Numbers could not make moral choices.
People did.
That was what she had spent years avoiding.
She had told herself she was only the accountant.
Only the person who moved figures.
Only the person who made chaos cleaner.
But cleanliness could hide blood just as effectively as dirt.
She had testified before a federal grand jury.
Returned fees she believed were linked to criminal proceeds.
Paid taxes and penalties her attorneys said were prudent.
She did not escape untouched.
She should not have.
Dominic wrote when he learned about the restitution.
YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO RETURN ALL OF IT.
Naomi replied:
YES, I DID.
His next letter contained only:
I KNOW.
Six months before his release date, Naomi met Dominic’s mother for the first time.
Evelyn Valente lived in Connecticut in a house too large for one woman and too quiet for its history.
She had left Dominic’s father when Dominic was nineteen.
She and Dominic had spoken only occasionally afterward.
Naomi expected ice.
Instead, Evelyn opened the door wearing jeans and holding pruning shears.
“You’re shorter than I expected.”
Naomi blinked.
“Dominic said that?”
“No. Newspapers use aggressive angles.”
Naomi almost liked her immediately.
Over tea, Evelyn asked no intrusive romantic questions.
Instead, she said, “Does he listen?”
Naomi considered.
“Eventually.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Progress.”
They spoke about Dominic’s childhood.
His father.
Control.
Fear disguised as protection.
Before Naomi left, Evelyn gave her a photograph.
Dominic at twelve.
Skinny.
Awkward.
Holding a fishing rod and smiling openly.
Naomi had never seen that face on him.
“He was gentle,” Evelyn said.
“He still is.”
Evelyn looked surprised.
Naomi was too.
She added, “Sometimes.”
“Good.”
Two weeks before his release, Naomi made one final visit.
Dominic sat across from her with a legal pad full of notes.
She pointed at it.
“What is that?”
“Questions.”
“For me?”
“For reentry.”
Naomi stared.
“You made an agenda for leaving prison?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you did.”
He looked mildly defensive.
“I’ve been told planning reduces anxiety.”
“By whom?”
“Therapist.”
She went still.
“You have a therapist?”
“Yes.”
“And you waited how long to tell me?”
“Six months.”
“Why?”
“I thought you’d be smug.”
“I am smug.”
“I was right.”
She smiled.
“Continue.”
Dominic looked at the page.
“Housing.”
“Your own apartment.”
“Yes.”
“Employment.”
“I have interviews with two logistics firms.”
“Legitimate?”
He looked offended.
“Painfully.”
“Good.”
“Transportation.”
“You can take the subway.”
“No.”
“You lived in federal prison but the R train frightens you?”
“The R train frightens everyone.”
Naomi laughed.
He looked down at the page again.
“Us.”
The laughter stopped.
“What about us?”
“I don’t know what the rules are.”
“There aren’t rules.”
“That seems irresponsible.”
She leaned closer.
“We date.”
“You said that before.”
“I still mean it.”
“Exclusively?”
Naomi raised an eyebrow.
Dominic’s mouth tightened.
“Bad question?”
“No. Good question.”
She considered deliberately.
“Yes.”
His shoulders loosened.
She noticed.
“You’re jealous of hypothetical men already.”
“No.”
“Dominic.”
“Yes.”
She laughed.
He did too.
Then his expression became serious.
“I don’t want to move from one controlled environment into another one I build myself.”
Naomi stared.
“That is annoyingly healthy.”
“I hate it.”
“I’m proud of you.”
He went quiet.
Praise still landed strangely on him.
She reached across the table as far as regulations allowed.
Their fingers touched.
“Come out and be confused.”
His eyes lifted.
“I can do that.”
“Good.”
“And if I mess it up?”
“You will.”
“Again with the comfort.”
“You call me.”
“What if you’re angry?”
“Especially then.”
Dominic nodded.
He wrote something on the legal pad.
Naomi tried to read it.
“Did you just write call Naomi?”
“Yes.”
“You are impossible.”
“I like documentation.”
She smiled all the way back to the train.
On the day Dominic was released, Naomi did not go to the prison.
He had expected that.
They had discussed it.
He did not want photographs of her waiting at the gate.
She did not want their reunion turned into public evidence of a romance everyone had already mythologized.
Instead, he took a train.
No driver.
No security.
No suit.
At four twenty in the afternoon, he walked into Naomi’s office carrying one small duffel bag.
Her receptionist stood.
“Can I help you?”
Dominic looked toward the glass wall of Naomi’s office.
She saw him.
He saw her.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then Naomi walked out.
Her staff had all gone very quiet.
Dominic stopped three feet away.
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“You cut your hair.”
“Eight months ago.”
“I noticed in photos.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Stalker.”
“Public website.”
“Legal stalker.”
He smiled.
God.
She had missed that.
“What now?” he asked.
Naomi looked around.
At employees.
Clients.
Her name on the wall.
Her life.
Then back at him.
“Now you get your own apartment.”
He laughed.
“Romantic.”
“Now you find legitimate work.”
“I have some ideas.”
“Nothing with cash bags.”
“Restrictive.”
“And we date.”
His expression changed.
“Date.”
“Yes.”
“As in dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Movies?”
“If you behave.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Learn.”
He stepped closer.
“Can I kiss you?”
Naomi’s throat tightened.
He asked.
Such a small thing.
Such a long road.
“Yes.”
He kissed her in the middle of the office.
No one clapped.
Naomi would have fired them.
When they separated, Dominic whispered, “I was jealous of your receptionist.”
She stared.
“He’s seventy.”
“He has excellent posture.”
Naomi laughed into his shoulder.
For the first time, Dominic Valente entered her life without leverage, debt, threat, or command.
May you like
He arrived carrying one bag.
And asked if he could stay for dinner.
