Chapter 10 - The Vow at Saint Patrick’s
The spring of the following year arrived with an explosion of green across the city.
Saint Patrick’s Church on Adams Street was small, old, and built of heavy grey stone that had survived the Great Chicago Fire. Its stained-glass windows were modest, depicting simple saints holding shovels, hammers, and books.
At ten o'clock on a bright Saturday morning, fifty people sat in the dark oak pews.
There were no politicians in sight. No state senators, no federal judges, no capos with handguns beneath their tailored jackets.
Sitting in the front row was Mary Kelly, wearing a lavender silk dress, her face radiant with a health and peace she hadn't known in twenty years. Beside her sat Arthur Barone, looking crisp and severe in a dark blue suit, his pocket watch chain gleaming in the sunlight that filtered through the rose window.
At the altar stood Nico Vitali.
He wore a dark gray three-piece suit, his shoes polished to a high shine, his hair trimmed short. Beside him stood his chief logistics manager from the Gary docks—a quiet, honest man who had worked for the Vitali family for twenty years and had never spent a single night in a police station.
The organ began to play—a simple, sweet air from the South Side hymnal.
The rear doors of the church opened.
Ellie Kelly walked down the aisle alone.
She wore a simple ivory dress of heavy lace that fell smoothly to the stone floor. She carried a small bouquet of white roses and green fern leaves bound with a simple satin ribbon. There were no diamonds at her throat, no long silk trains held by nervous bridesmaids, no photographers taking pictures for the society pages.
She looked only at Nico.
When she reached the step, Nico took two paces forward to meet her. He did not wait for anyone to give her away. He reached out his hands—his big, powerful hands that had held ledgers, iron keys, and blood-soaked promises—and wrapped his fingers around hers.
The old priest, Father Thomas, who had baptized Dan Kelly sixty years ago, smiled down at them over his reading glasses.
"Nico," Father Thomas said, his voice clear and warm in the quiet church, "do you take Ellie to be your wedded wife? To love her, honor her, and keep her in holy matrimony for as long as you both shall live?"
Nico looked into Ellie’s hazel eyes—eyes that held no fear, no secrets, and no debt.
"I do," Nico said, his voice deep, unhurried, and absolute.
"And Ellie," Father Thomas continued, "do you take Nico to be your wedded husband? To love him, honor him, and stand beside him through every trial and every joy?"
Ellie smiled—a bright, beautiful light that filled the old stone sanctuary.
"I do," she whispered.
As the priest pronounced them husband and wife, Nico leaned down and kissed her—not a cold, formal kiss for a watching crowd of enemies, but a deep, fierce, and possessing kiss that sealed their lives into an unbreakable whole.
When they turned to face the small gathering of friends and family, the sunlight caught the simple gold band on Ellie’s finger—a band forged from the same gold coin her father had carried in his pocket on the day he married Mary Kelly thirty years ago.
Nico tucked her hand securely into the crook of his arm, leading her down the aisle toward the open doors where the bright spring sun was warming the stone steps of Adams Street.
Out on the sidewalk, the city was alive with the sound of traffic, the calls of gulls flying up from the river, and the deep, steady hum of a working morning.
Nico stopped on the top step, looking down into his wife’s radiant face.
"Where do you want to go, Mrs. Vitali?" he asked softly.
May you like
Ellie looked out over the city that had tried to break them both, then looked up into the hazel eyes of the man who had torn down an empire to make her safe.
"Home, Nico," she smiled, wrapping her arms around his waist as he pulled her close against his heart. "Take me home."
