Chapter 3 - The Basement on 54th
The South Side of Chicago was worlds away from the manicured hedges and limestone mansions of Lake Forest. The buildings here bore the scars of decades of neglect—flaking brick, rusty fire escapes, and cracked sidewalks where weeds forced their way toward the pale sunlight.
Preston stepped out of his black town car on 54th Street. He wore a dark wool coat, having discarded his silk tie in the car. He looked up at a dilapidated three-story walk-up. The address Martin’s private investigators had provided led him around the side of the building, down four concrete steps to a partially submerged basement apartment.
The iron security grate was rusted, and the small window at eye level was covered with an old floral bedsheet acting as a curtain.
Preston stood before the battered wooden door, his hand raised, hovering an inch from the wood. His heart was pounding harder than it ever had in any hostile corporate takeover. What right did he have to knock? What could he possibly say to a woman whose life had been systematically dismantled by his own name?
He knocked. Three measured, firm raps.
From inside, he heard the faint hum of an old television, followed by the clatter of pots, and then a small, high voice: “Mommy, is that the pizza man? Did Frank send pizza?”
“No, baby, stay by the table,” Naomi’s voice floated through the door, tense, protective, and unmistakably exhausted.
Footsteps approached. The sound of a deadbolt turning, followed by the metallic click of a safety chain. The heavy door opened three inches.
Naomi peered through the gap, her face guarded. “Yes? Can I help—"
The words choked in her throat.
The color drained from Naomi’s face so rapidly Preston thought she was going to collapse right there. Her brown eyes dilated in raw, primal shock. She instinctively moved to slam the door shut.
“Naomi, wait! Please!” Preston lunged forward, catching the heavy frame with the flat of his hand before the latch could engage. “Naomi, don’t shut me out. Please. Just give me five minutes.”
“Get away from here,” she whispered, her voice shaking with an agonizing blend of terror and rage. “Get away from my home, Preston. You swore… your lawyers swore if I stayed away, you would leave us alone.”
“I didn't know!” he pleaded, his voice breaking, abandoning every shred of his pride. “Naomi, I swear to God on everything holy, I never saw the letters. I never sent those lawyers. I found out three hours ago.”
Naomi stopped pushing against the door, but her hand remained white-knuckled on the brass knob. Tears welled in her eyes, pooling at the rims before spilling down her pale, unpowdered cheeks.
“You’re lying,” she breathed. “You always were a master at crafting narratives, Preston. You sent your mother’s attack dogs to threaten me while I was bleeding in an emergency clinic at four months pregnant. You told them to make sure I disappeared.”
“My mother did that,” Preston said, pressing his forehead against the splintered wood of the doorframe. “She intercepted your mail. She signed the receipts. She forged my authority. I swear to you, Naomi, if I had known you were carrying my children, I would have burned the entire world to the ground to bring you home.”
From the shadows behind her, a small figure appeared. It was Theo, holding a wooden spoon like a sword.
“Mommy? Who is the tall man? Why is he making you cry?”
Preston looked down through the crack in the door. Seeing the boy up close shattered him. Theo had Naomi’s soft jawline and Preston’s intense, storm-grey eyes. The boy was wearing a faded green sweater with sleeves that were rolled up twice because it was clearly a hand-me-down.
Naomi wiped her cheeks furiously with the back of her sleeve, glancing back at her son with a mother’s fierce instinct to shield him from the world's cruelty.
“He’s… he’s an old acquaintance from work, Theo,” Naomi lied, her voice cracking. “Go back to your brother. Help him set the plates for dinner.”
“Okay,” Theo said cautiously, eyeing Preston with distrust before retreating into the apartment.
Naomi turned back to Preston. Her expression was no longer shocked; it was hardened into cold, impenetrable granite.
May you like
“You have sixty seconds, Preston,” she said, unhooking the safety chain and swinging the door open just enough to step into the tiny, concrete entry alcove. “Say whatever corporate lie you came to say, and then get out of our lives forever.”
---
