Chapter 16
A year after the sabotage, the Moreau garage looked almost the same.
That was deliberate.
No memorial plaque.
No dramatic reconstruction.
Parts cage.
Tool carts.
Tires.
Cars.
The cage latch was changed.
Ruth insisted.
“Bad design.”
Sure.
The old latch could trap someone from outside too easily.
Practical fix.
Better.
Damien worked again.
Not for Moreau.
At an independent restoration shop across town.
He started at the bottom.
Hated it.
Then became good.
Ruth visited once.
Pretended not to be proud.
Failed.
Sloane disappeared from our circle completely.
She sent one letter to Damien.
He never showed me.
Good.
Not mine.
Marcus remained outside the organization.
Sebastian stayed retired.
Real retirement is apparently boring.
Excellent.
One evening Ruth brought me Henri’s brass key.
“Keep it.”
I shook my head.
“It was yours.”
“It opened what it needed to.”
I looked at the small piece of metal.
Then handed it back.
“So did you.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Speech.”
Fair.
We put the key in the archive with Henri’s cassette.
Not as sacred objects.
Context.
Evidence of the kind of family we had been.
And the kind I did not want to repeat.
Ruth asked:
“What happens when your son takes over?”
I laughed.
“He’s twelve.”
“Exactly. Planning age.”
“No.”
She smiled.
“Good.”
No automatic chair.
No inherited garage.
No child promised an organization simply because adults like continuity.
Sebastian had built half his worldview around preserving what fathers supposedly owed sons.
Damien nearly destroyed himself trying to claim that inheritance.
I would not repeat it.
My son could become Moreau someday.
Or not.
Choice first.
Name second.
Ruth approved.
May you like
Then demanded I help move tires.
Apparently Mafia reform does not exempt anyone from garage labor.
