Chapter 3 - The Offer and the Threat
The knock came again. Louder this time.
“Hollis?” a gruff voice called through the wood. “Open up. We know you’re in there.”
Hollis’s heart hammered against her ribs, but her mind remained ice-cold. She looked at Posy, who had retreated instinctively behind her mother’s skirt, clutching her star blanket like a shield. Then she looked at Wynn, who looked like she might pass out again.
“Stay here,” Hollis whispered.
She walked across the small room, her bare feet silent against the worn linoleum, and reached for the deadbolt. She didn't open it all the way; she threw the security chain across the slot, cracking the door open by three inches.
A pair of cold, merciless eyes stared back through the gap.
The man standing in the hallway was built like a brick wall, dressed in an expensive charcoal overcoat that looked completely out of place in the grimy tenement building. His shoulders filled the doorframe, and a small, jagged scar cut through his left eyebrow. Marco. Sullivan Castellano’s chief enforcer.
“Mrs. Brennan,” Marco said, his voice flat, devoid of warmth. “Open the door.”
“You have the wrong apartment,” Hollis said steadily, her voice not shaking an inch. “There’s nothing in here for you.”
Marco’s gaze shifted past her, catching the edge of the cot where Wynn sat huddled in the corner. A flicker of recognition crossed his granite features.
“The boss is looking for his sister,” Marco said, his tone turning dangerous. “And she’s sitting right behind you. Open this door now, or we take it off the hinges.”
Hollis planted her hand firmly against the edge of the door. “You break this door down, and every tenant in this building—every cop who answers the noise complaint—will see a squad of thugs terrorizing a single mother and a five-year-old child. Is that the kind of attention the great Sullivan Castellano wants right now?”
Marco narrowed his eyes. He hadn't expected the cleaning woman to stare him down without blinking. In his world, people fell to their knees at the mere mention of his boss's name.
“You don't know who you're dealing with, lady,” Marco growled, stepping closer.
“And you don't know whose home you're standing in,” Hollis countered, her voice dropping an octave. “She stays here. If Sullivan Castellano wants to talk to her, he can come here himself like a civilized human being, or he can send an army and explain to the newspapers why he’s kicking down a little girl’s door.”
Marco stared at her for three agonizing seconds, weighing the risks. Finally, a grim, humorless smile touched the corner of his mouth.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, Mrs. Brennan,” Marco said softly. “The boss hates being kept waiting. But if you’re telling him no... I hope you have a very strong lock.”
He turned on his heel and walked down the dim hallway, his heavy boots echoing away until silence returned to the third floor.
Hollis closed the door, threw the deadbolt, and let out a long, shaky breath she didn't realize she’d been holding. She turned around to face Wynn, who was staring at her with undisguised awe.
“You... you talked back to Marco?” Wynn whispered. “Nobody talks back to Marco and lives.”
“Marco puts his pants on one leg at a time just like everyone else,” Hollis said briskly, walking over to the stove to check the kettle. “Now listen to me, Wynn. Your brother knows you’re here. He’s not going to storm the building with guns blazing because, for all his power, he cares about your safety more than his pride. But he’s coming.”
Wynn gripped her head in her hands. “I can’t face him. I can’t look at him knowing the truth.”
“The truth?” Hollis stopped, turning around with a sharp look. “Wynn, let me ask you something. When you were sick in that alley, dying of fever, did your brother leave you there?”
“No,” Wynn answered defensively. “He would search the entire city for me.”
“When you were ten, and your parents died, did he throw you on the street?”
“He took me in. He gave me everything.”
“Then whatever is written on that scrap of paper,” Hollis said, holding up the crumpled note, “doesn't change what he did for the last ten years. Blood makes you related, Wynn. Loyalty and love make you family. If he raised you, if he protected you, then you are his sister, whether some piece of paper in a safe says so or not.”
Wynn stared at her, the words sinking into the deep, wounded places of her heart.
Before she could reply, a soft knock sounded at the door again.
Not three heavy thuds. Just one single, quiet rap.
Hollis walked to the door and looked through the peephole.
Standing alone in the hallway was a man.
He wasn't wearing an overcoat. He wore a simple black cashmere sweater, dark trousers, and a coat thrown casually over one arm. He was tall, with sharp, aristocratic features, raven-dark hair touched with silver at the temples, and eyes the color of a stormy sea.
Sullivan Castellano.
He didn't look like a monster. He looked exhausted, hollowed out by grief and panic, a man who had spent the last forty-eight hours staring into the abyss of losing the only person in the world he truly loved.
Hollis slowly unlocked the door and pulled it open.
Sully didn't look at Hollis at first. His gaze shot past her, straight into the small, warm room, landing directly on the figure sitting by the cot.
May you like
“Wynn,” he breathed.
The name sounded like a prayer broken in half.
