Chapter 3 - The Cold Apartment on 4th Avenue
Twenty minutes later, two of my most trusted security operatives—Gabe and Marcus—arrived on the fourth floor of St. Catherine. Both were built like concrete walls, wearing dark suits that barely concealed the custom holsters beneath their jackets.
“Boss,” Gabe said, leaning in close as I stepped out of Claire’s ICU room. “The floor is secure. I’ve posted Marcus at the secondary stairwell, and I’ll stay right here at the door. Nobody gets within fifty feet of Miss Dawson without going through us.”
“Good,” I said, checking my watch. It was 11:45 AM. “I need you to call my personal driver, Sam. Have him bring the armored Yukon to the lower bay. I’m taking the girls to my penthouse.”
Gabe glanced toward the three children, who were now sitting in a row on a hospital bench, eating warm soup that a nurse had brought them under my explicit orders. Ellie was carefully feeding Sophie small crackers, while Hannah watched the hallway like a hawk.
“Are they... yours, Boss?” Gabe asked softly. He had worked for me for eight years; he knew the story of the wedding that never happened.
“They’re my daughters, Gabe,” I said, the words feeling heavy, permanent, and terrifyingly real. “Which means whatever threatened Claire is now coming for my blood.”
I walked over to the girls and crouched down again. “Ellie, Hannah, Sophie. We’re going to take a short ride in a car, okay? We’re going to get your things from your house, and then we’re going to stay somewhere warm where nobody can bother us.”
Ellie looked up, her blue eyes sharp with a maturity no five-year-old should ever possess. “Are we going to get the blue box?”
“Yes,” I said softly. “We’re going to get the blue box.”
Ten minutes later, we pulled up to a dilapidated four-story brick building on 4th Avenue, situated in a neighborhood where streetlights remained broken for months and police cars only visited when forced to. The paint was peeling from the window frames, and the entryway smelled of damp mold and old trash.
Seeing where Claire had been forced to live felt like a slow poison working through my veins.
I carried Sophie on my left hip, while Ellie and Hannah held my right hand tightly as we climbed three flights of narrow, creaking stairs. The handrail was loose, and half the hallway lights were dead bulbs.
“It’s door 3B,” Hannah whispered, pointing her rabbit toward a faded green wooden door at the end of the corridor.
I pulled out the ring of keys the hospital staff had retrieved from Claire’s purse and unlocked the deadbolt. The door swung open with a loud, protesting screech.
The apartment was tiny—no larger than my master walk-in closet at the penthouse.
The living room had a faded sofa with a thin blanket draped over it, a small laminate table with three tiny wooden chairs, and a single window that was taped along the frame to keep out the whistling cold Pacific Northwest rain. There were no television sets, no expensive electronics, and no luxury items.
Yet, despite the poverty, the room was immaculately clean. Hand-drawn pictures of bright yellow suns, green trees, and three little girls holding hands were taped neatly along the walls at child-height.
On the small kitchen counter stood three plastic bowls, a half-empty box of generic cereal, and three tiny vitamins lined up in a row.
She had spent every ounce of her life energy trying to build a world for them out of nothing.
“Mommy sleeps in there,” Ellie said, pointing toward a small bedroom through an open doorway.
I walked inside, setting Sophie gently on the edge of a modest queen bed covered in a worn blue quilt. I knelt down on the cold hardwood floor, reached beneath the frame, and pulled out what lay hidden in the shadows.
It was a faded, navy-blue tin box with a silver latch, worn smooth around the edges from years of being touched.
My hand trembled as I lifted the latch and opened the lid.
Inside lay dozens of photographs. Pictures of me and Claire in Paris five years ago. A candid photo of me laughing on our boat in Elliott Bay. My old gold pocket watch—the one my father had given me—that had gone missing the week before she left. And beneath the photos lay dozens of unopened envelopes addressed to Julian Vance.
She had written letters to me. Dozens of them. Every single month for five years.
I pulled out the topmost letter, dated six months ago, and unfolded the paper with shaking fingers.
Julian,
Sophie asked about you again today. She has your smile—the small, crooked one you only give when you think nobody is watching. I wanted to call you. I picked up the phone four times, but I saw the news last night. I saw the cars outside your office after the harbor union trial. They are still watching you, Julian. The men who threatened your life five years ago are still out there.
If they ever found out about the girls, they would use them to destroy you. Or worse, they would take them to hurt you. I can starve, Julian. I can work three jobs. I can live in the dark. But I cannot let them hurt our daughters.
I love you. I have always loved you.
Claire
A heavy tear struck the paper, smudging the dark ink.
The truth slammed into me with crushing force. She hadn't run away because she fell out of love. She had run away because five years ago, during the bloodiest territory war my empire had ever fought, my enemies had sent her a message: Leave Julian Vance, or we will slaughter you and the child in your womb.
May you like
She had chosen to live in hiding, in poverty, in total isolation, just to keep our children safe from the shadow of my name.
Suddenly, a faint metallic sound echoed from the front entryway of the apartment—the subtle, distinct click of a door handle being picked from the outside.
