Chapter 5 - The Work Begins
Back in Shelburne Falls, the late afternoon sun was beginning to dip behind the wooded hills, casting long orange rays through the dusty windows of the paper mill.
Luca had taken off his bespoke suit jacket, rolled up his crisp white shirt sleeves, and picked up a heavy wooden pry bar. For three hours, he had worked alongside Claire, helping her clear out rot-damaged floorboards near the rear river wall.
Neither of them had spoken about the wedding, the ring, or the Ferraro family since their argument. They had worked in a strange, intense rhythm—sanding, lifting, measuring, clearing.
Luca’s hands, usually accustomed to signing multi-million-dollar contracts and steering high-end sports cars, were covered in dark grime and fresh splinters. A small cut bled on his left thumb, but he hadn't complained once.
Claire stopped her circular saw and wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. She watched him lift a heavy fifty-pound oak beam without hesitation, tossing it onto the scrap pile.
"You're going to ruin those eight-hundred-dollar shoes," Claire said softly, break the long silence.
Luca looked down at his ruined Italian leather loafers, now coated in grey plaster dust and sawdust. A small, dry smile touched his lips.
"They were twelve hundred," Luca corrected mildly, tossing another piece of scrap wood aside. "And they deserve to be ruined."
Claire sat down on an overturned wooden crate, pulling a bottle of water from her canvas bag. She took a long drink, then held the bottle out toward him.
Luca walked over, took the bottle, and drank deeply. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sitting down on a nearby pile of clean timber.
"Why this building, Claire?" Luca asked quietly, looking around at the soaring brick arches and the roaring river visible through the lower windows.
Claire looked at the exposed brick walls with a gentle warmth in her eyes. "Because it was built in 1884 by a group of local carpenters who didn't have corporate backers. It survived three major floods, two fires, and fifty years of neglect. The foundation is four feet of solid granite anchored right into the riverbed."
She looked at him.
"It doesn't pretend to be something it isn't, Luca. It's rough, it's old, but if you treat it with respect and fix the broken parts, it will stand for another hundred years."
Luca looked down at his hands, feeling the sting of the fresh splinters.
"My family's foundation is rotten, isn't it?" he asked softly.
"It's not rotten," Claire said gently. "It's just built on fear. Your mother is afraid of losing her social standing. Your uncle is afraid of losing his money. And you were afraid of losing their approval."
Luca let out a long, heavy breath, leaning his head back against the brick wall behind him. "I thought if I kept everyone happy, I could build something lasting. I thought if I played the game better than my father did, I could protect the people I cared about."
"You can't protect people by hiding them in the dark, Luca," Claire said. "You can't ask someone to share your life if you're embarrassed to stand beside them when your friends are watching."
Luca reached into his pocket and pulled out the velvet box again. He opened it, revealing the deep green emerald gleaming in the afternoon light.
"I didn't bring this here to pressure you," Luca said, staring at the stone. "I brought it because I realized something on the drive up here."
Claire watched him carefully. "What?"
"This ring doesn't belong to the Ferraro empire," Luca said, meeting her eyes. "It was bought by my great-grandfather in 1912 when he was still working as a stone mason in Boston. He gave it to my great-grandmother before they had a single dollar to their name. It was meant to be a symbol of courage—a promise that two people would build a life from scratch, no matter how hard the ground was."
He reached out, setting the velvet box gently on the timber between them.
"My family turned it into a trophy," Luca said. "A symbol of status and political dominance. But that's not what it was born to be."
Claire looked at the sparkling stone, then up at Luca's dirt-streaked face. For the first time all day, the cold distance in her eyes began to thaw.
Suddenly, the heavy oak front doors burst open with a loud bang.
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Marcus Vance stepped inside, his expression urgent, holding a satellite phone in his hand.
"Boss," Marcus called out, his voice sharp. "We have a problem. Antonio just leaked a statement to the New York Times. He's claiming you've been kidnapped or mentally compromised, and he's petitioning an emergency court judge in Providence to seize executive control of Ferraro Logistics by midnight."
