Chapter 3 - Shadows in the East Wing
The east wing of Castellano Manor was a museum of forgotten joy.
While the rest of the mansion was a fortress of dark wood, heavy velvet draperies, and intimidating neoclassical art, the nursery had been painted in warm butter-yellow and soft sky-blue by Audrey Castellano’s own hands. Hand-carved wooden toys lined the oak shelves; a miniature rocking horse stood silently by the bay window; and a stack of picture books sat undisturbed on a reading rug.
It was Wednesday afternoon, and the rest of the estate staff was occupied with preparations for a high-level business dinner Victor was hosting for the South Side shipping syndicate.
Iris was tasked with dusting the baseboards of the second-floor gallery. As she rounded the corner near the arched entryway of the east wing, she noticed the nursery door was ajar. A single sliver of pale afternoon light cut across the hallway floor.
She stopped, her dusting cloth clutched tightly in her hand.
From inside the room came a faint, rhythmic scratching sound. Tap. Tap. Scrape.
Iris hesitated, remembering Mrs. Croft’s warning. But the memory of Maya—and the desperate, hollow look in Leo’s eyes—overrode her caution. She crept silently down the carpeted corridor and peered through the crack in the door.
Leo sat in the center of the nursery floor, surrounded by a dozen crayons scattered like colorful debris. He wasn't drawing on paper. He was holding a heavy black marker, furiously scribbling across the pristine yellow baseboards near the toy chest, covering the pristine paint with frantic, jagged lines of black ink.
He was breathing heavily, his small shoulders shaking.
Iris pushed the door open just enough to step inside. The floorboards gave a soft, betraying squeak.
Leo froze.
He didn't turn around immediately. He pressed the black marker so hard against the wood that the tip snapped with a sharp crunch. Slowly, he tilted his head back, looking up at her through his tangled dark hair. His eyes were wide, rimmed with red, filled with a terrifying mix of defiance and absolute terror.
Iris didn't rush toward him. She didn't scold him for ruining the baseboards.
Instead, she sank down onto her hands and knees right there on the floor, about six feet away from him. Without a word, she reached into the pocket of her apron, pulled out a clean white handkerchief and a small, damp sponge she had been using for cleaning, and began wiping a smudge of black ink off her own wrist.
Leo watched her every move, his chest heaving.
Iris didn't look directly into his eyes; direct eye contact with a traumatized child was often interpreted as a predatory threat. She kept her gaze lowered, reaching out very slowly to pick up one of the stray blue crayons rolling near her knee.
She didn't try to draw a house, or a sun, or an animal.
Using her left hand—the one bearing no rings, the one marked by a small, faded scar from an old IV line—she drew a simple, crooked line on the hardwood floor between them. Then, she drew a small circle above it. A road and a stone.
Leo stared at the drawing.
For three long minutes, the only sound in the vast, sunlit room was the distant rumble of traffic from the Outer Drive outside the estate gates.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Leo let go of the broken marker. He reached out with a trembling, ink-stained finger, picked up a yellow crayon, and drew a second line parallel to hers.
Then he pushed the yellow crayon toward her across the floor.
A lump rose in Iris’s throat. She picked up the crayon, her heart pounding against her ribs like a trapped bird. She wanted to say something—to whisper his name, to tell him it was going to be alright. But she remembered the rule of silence that governed her own grief. Sometimes, words were too heavy for small shoulders to carry.
She simply drew a tiny star beside his yellow line.
Before Leo could respond, heavy, rapid footsteps echoed down the gallery hallway.
The door swung violently wide open.
Victor Castellano stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders blocking the light, his face etched with a dark, terrifying fury. He had left his syndicate meeting early, alerted by the estate’s internal security sensors that someone had entered the restricted east wing nursery.
“What are you doing?” Victor’s voice vibrated through the floorboards, cold and lethal.
Leo flinched as if struck, instantly curling into a tight ball on the floor, clutching Mr. Bumbles to his chest and shutting his eyes so hard his entire face wrinkled.
Iris stood up smoothly, placing herself between Victor and the trembling child. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but her voice remained level.
“I was cleaning the baseboards, Mr. Castellano,” Iris said steadily, keeping her eyes fixed on the lapel of his expensive charcoal suit. “I noticed the door was open.”
Victor’s dark eyes swept past her, landing on the jagged black marker lines across the yellow paint, and then on his son, who was shaking uncontrollably on the floor. A muscle ticked violently along Victor’s jaw.
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“Get out,” Victor hissed, stepping into the room. “Mrs. Croft! Clear this floor immediately!”
Iris didn't argue. She gave Leo one last, lingering look—noting the way his small fingers clutched the blue elephant’s ear—and walked out past the dangerous, towering man who owned half of Chicago, knowing she had just crossed a line from which there was no turning back.
