Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary of the Iron Wolf
The private dining room on the fifty-seventh floor of Marconi Tower looked less like a place to eat and more like a museum of quiet power. The mahogany table could seat twenty, though tonight only three places were set. Candles flickered in heavy crystal sconces, casting long, dancing shadows across walls lined with first-edition books and ancestral portraits.
Natalie Foster sat in a velvet-upholstered chair that was far too big for her. Her feet, freshly bandaged and fitted with thick wool socks provided by the estate staff, dangled six inches off the floor. She wore a simple cream-colored cotton dress that Sal’s wife had hastily sourced from an uptown boutique—clean, unwrinkled, and smelling faintly of lavender.
Across from her, Claire sat with her hands folded tightly in her lap. She looked terrified, her eyes darting from the glittering silverware to the heavy mahogany doors where two armed guards stood like stone statues.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” a voice said from the head of the table.
Levi sat down, having changed into a charcoal turtleneck that softened the harsh lines of his shoulders without hiding the coiled power underneath. He picked up his napkin and laid it across his knees.
“I’m not afraid,” Claire lied, her voice trembling slightly. “I just... we don’t belong here, Mr. Marconi. If this is about what Natalie said—she talks too much, she has an active imagination, we can leave right now—”
“She saved my life, Mrs. Foster,” Levi interrupted quietly. He didn’t raise his voice, but the absolute finality in his tone made Claire stop breathing. He looked across the table at Natalie, who was staring at a silver bread plate with intense concentration. “Do you like pasta, Natalie?”
Natalie looked up, her gray-blue eyes meeting his with that same unsettling, adult gravity he had noticed in the alley.
“I like macaroni,” she said carefully. “With cheese. But we usually have the kind from the red box because it’s ninety-nine cents.”
A faint shadow crossed Levi’s face—something resembling regret, though he stamped it down instantly.
“Tonight, you can have whatever you want,” Levi said. He signaled to the steward standing near the sideboard. “Bring the fillet, the tortellini, and everything on the dessert cart.”
As the courses were served, the tension in the room slowly gave way to the simple, undeniable reality of a hungry child. Natalie ate with unfeigned delight, though she kept sneaking glances at Levi as if trying to figure out if he was a king, a monster, or a storybook character come to life.
When the plates were cleared and a rich chocolate torte was placed before Natalie, Levi leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table.
“Natalie,” he said softly. “Tell me about the hospital wall.”
Claire stiffened. “Mr. Marconi, please—”
“Let her speak, Claire,” Levi said, his eyes never leaving the little girl.
Natalie swallowed a bite of cake, wiped her mouth with her napkin the way her mother had taught her, and looked right at him.
“It was dark,” Natalie said, her voice steady. “The wind was blowing real hard from the lake. Mom was looking for bottles by the green dumpster, and I went behind the brick wall because I dropped my pencil. The men in white coats were talking loud, but they thought nobody was there.”
“Did you recognize either of them?”
“Not their faces,” Natalie shook her head. “One of them was tall, and he had a ring with a red stone on his finger. The other one had a squeaky voice, like he needed to clear his throat all the time.”
Levi’s jaw tightened. A ring with a red stone.
Dr. Harold Whitmore wore a heavy gold signet ring with a ruby crest—a gift from the American Medical Association back in the nineties.
“And you remembered what they called the medicine?” Levi asked.
“Dig-tox-in,” Natalie pronounced it carefully, syllable by syllable. “And they said it would look like a natural heart attack, just like the father eight years ago.”
Claire let out a small, choked gasp, her hand flying to her mouth. Her eyes widened in sheer horror as the pieces clicked together in her mind. “Daniel... my husband... he died eight years ago. At that same hospital. They told us it was a heart attack in the ambulance, but he was thirty-two years old and ran five miles every morning—”
“He wasn't having a heart attack, Claire,” Levi said, his voice dropping into a register so cold it felt like winter had moved inside the room. “He was cleaning up a mess he wasn't supposed to see.”
Levi stood up so abruptly his chair scraped backward against the parquet floor. He looked at Sal, who stepped out from the shadows near the door.
“Get the cars ready,” Levi commanded.
May you like
“Boss?” Sal asked.
“We’re going to Street Grace Memorial,” Levi said, buttoning his jacket over the holster beneath his arm. “It’s time to settle an old debt.”
