Chapter 4 - The Debt Collector’s Shadow
Midnight in Chicago brought a bitter, freezing drizzle that turned the asphalt into a slick, black mirror.
Iris stood outside the rear service exit of Castellano Manor, taking out the heavy bags of estate trash to the commercial bins. The cold air hit her face like a physical blow, numbing her cheeks.
She pulled her wool coat tighter around her shoulders, shivering. Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
She pulled it out. A text message from an unknown number: Two weeks is almost up, Iris. Forty-eight thousand. Principal and interest. We know where you’re sleeping now. Don't think those iron gates will protect you forever.
A cold sweat broke out across her neck, superseding the chill of the rain. The loan sharks hadn't just tracked her; they knew she was inside Castellano Manor. In their world, sneaking a message past the most feared mob boss in the Midwest wasn't just a threat—it was a declaration of war.
“You’re standing in the cold without a jacket, Miss Day. That is a reliable way to contract pneumonia, and Mrs. Croft hates doing paperwork for dead staff.”
Iris gasped, dropping her phone into her palm as she spun around.
Victor Castellano stood in the shadows of the stone archway, smoking a cigarette. The orange ember glowed faintly against his dark jawline and the thin scar over his eyebrow. He was wearing an unbuttoned black overcoat, the collar turned up against the wind.
“Mr. Castellano,” Iris murmured, quickly pocketing her phone. “I was just finishing the trash.”
Victor took a slow drag of his cigarette, exhaling a plume of white smoke that vanished into the drizzle. He didn't move toward her, but his presence dominated the small courtyard as thoroughly as a tidal wave.
“You were in the nursery this afternoon,” Victor said, his voice dangerously low. “My orders regarding the east wing are absolute. No servants. No staff. No exceptions.”
“I know,” Iris said, keeping her chin up. “I apologize. I saw the door open, and... I wanted to make sure he wasn't hurt.”
“He is my son. He is safe,” Victor snapped, though there was a hollow fatigue beneath his anger. He stepped closer, tossing the cigarette onto the wet cobblestones and crushing it beneath his heel. He studied her face in the pale amber light of the security lamps—the dark circles under her eyes, the faint tension in her jaw. “You didn't speak to him.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he didn't want to hear words,” Iris replied honestly, the words slipping out before she could censor them. “When you lose someone the way he lost his mother, words are just noise. Everyone is talking at you, telling you how to feel, telling you it’s going to be okay. But nobody is listening to the silence.”
Victor went completely still. The rain continued to fall, pattering against the shoulders of his coat. For a moment, the dangerous crime boss vanished, leaving only a grieving father who recognized a kindred spirit in the ruins.
“Forty-two doctors,” Victor said quietly, his voice cracking just a fraction. “Specialists from Zurich, Boston, Harvard. They all had theories about trauma-induced aphasia. They prescribed therapies, behavioral modifications, electrical stimulation. None of them looked at him like he was a person.”
“Because they were looking at a puzzle to be solved,” Iris said softly. “Not a child who is grieving.”
Victor stared at her for a long, intense beat. His dark eyes seemed to weigh every word, measuring her sincerity, searching for an angle, a trap, a hidden debt. Finding none, he turned his collar up further against the wind.
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“Get inside, Miss Day,” Victor commanded, his tone reverting back to its cold, impenetrable barrier. “And if you ever enter the nursery again... bring a cleaning cloth and erase the marks your crayons left on the baseboard.”
He turned and walked back into the warmth of the mansion, leaving Iris alone in the freezing rain with her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.
