Chapter 3 - The Third Floor Corridor
Thursday night brought a freezing drizzle that turned the Long Island lawns into sheets of slick, black glass.
Inside the mansion, the heating system hissed through the old cast-iron radiators, creating a dry, ticking sound that echoed down the long, portrait-lined corridors of the third floor.
Dominic’s study door was unlocked.
It was never unlocked.
Usually, even the cleaning staff had to wait for a summons, their carts parked obediently at the far end of the hall while they worked under the watchful eye of a security guard.
But tonight, the security detail was downstairs in the billiard room, watching a baseball replay with the sound turned down low, convinced that the master of the house was safely sealed inside his fortress of whiskey and silence.
Dominic sat by the window.
His wheelchair had been locked into place with the hand brakes pulled tight.
In his right hand, he held the Beretta.
The metal was cold against his palm—familiar, heavy, and balanced with the deadly precision of a tool designed for one specific purpose.
He didn’t cock it. He didn’t raise it to his temple.
He simply looked down the length of the barrel, tracing the faint scratches near the muzzle where his father’s signet ring had rubbed against the steel during a late-night meeting in Little Italy twenty years ago.
“A man who cannot stand on his own two feet,” his father’s voice echoed in his memory, harsh and uncompromising, “is a liability to everyone who stands behind him.”
He had believed that once.
He believed it with every fiber of his being when he ran the docks, when he settled disputes between the unions, when he looked down from the balcony of his penthouse at a city that bowed its head whenever his name was spoken.
Now the city didn’t care.
Isabella had returned her ring.
His uncle was quietly signing away his operating authorities.
And his legs felt like two sacks of wet cement attached to a torso that no longer belonged to him.
A faint sound interrupted the ticking of the radiator.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Dominic didn’t move. He assumed it was the wind rattling the loose storm shutter on the eastern gable.
Then came a soft, rhythmic squeak.
Like the wheels of a toy cart rolling across hardwood.
Dominic lowered the Beretta slowly, his thumb resting over the safety catch, and turned his head toward the open study door.
The hallway outside was cast in deep shadow, illuminated only by the amber glow of a wall sconce ten feet away.
A small shadow detached itself from the wainscoting.
It was about two and a half feet tall.
It wore pink unicorn pajamas, mismatched socks—one yellow, one green—and clutched a yellow rubber duck under its left arm with the fierce determination of a knight carrying a shield into battle.
Maya stopped at the threshold of the study.
Her wide brown eyes blinked against the dim light as she surveyed the rows of dark leather books, the Persian rug, and the man sitting in the large gray machine behind the desk.
Dominic stared at her.
He didn't move. He didn’t speak.
For a terrifying, surreal moment, he wondered if the whiskey had finally fried his brain—if he was hallucinating a child out of some deep, hidden reservoir of grief he didn't know he possessed.
Maya didn’t seem frightened.
She walked past the threshold, her bare feet making soft pads against the Persian carpet, right up to the edge of the wheelchair’s front caster.
She tilted her head back, looking up at him with absolute, unblinking curiosity.
“You have a big chair,” Maya announced.
Dominic’s throat felt as dry as desert sand. He slowly lowered his right hand, slipping the heavy Beretta into the deep leather pocket of his trousers beneath the plaid blanket draped over his thighs.
“Who let you up here?” his voice came out harsh, raspy from hours of disuse.
Maya ignored the question. She reached down, picked up a stray pencil that had rolled off the edge of the desk, and examined it carefully before setting it back down.
“My mom is downstairs making soup,” she informed him in a confidential whisper. “It smells like onions. I don't like onions.”
Dominic stared down at her, his mind racing through the security protocols of the estate. How had a child wandered past three perimeter gates, an electronic deadbolt, and two armed guards who were currently getting paid two hundred dollars an hour to watch the front doors?
“You shouldn't be in this room,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into the cold, flat tone he used with boardroom adversaries. “Go back to the kitchen before someone finds you.”
Maya didn't flinch. She took one step closer, reached out, and touched the metal spokes of the wheelchair wheel with her sticky index finger.
“Why are you stuck?” she asked.
The question hit Dominic like a physical blow.
Not “What happened to your legs?”
Not “Can you walk?”
“Why are you stuck?”
“I’m not stuck,” Dominic lied, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched beneath his eye. “I am resting.”
“My uncle Tito got stuck in the mud with his tractor,” Maya said sagely, nodding her curly head. “He had to get a big chain and a red truck to pull him out. Are you gonna get a red truck?”
Dominic opened his mouth to tell her to get out—to ring the brass bell on his desk and summon security to throw her and her mother out onto the freezing gravel driveway once and for all.
Instead, a strange, choked sound escaped his throat.
Whether it was a laugh or a sob, even he wasn’t entirely sure.
Maya looked up at him, her dark eyes searching his face with an unsettling level of emotional intelligence that children of three and a half shouldn't possess.
May you like
She reached out and placed the yellow rubber duck on the footrest of his wheelchair, right between his unfeeling ankles.
“He squeaks if you squeeze him,” Maya said helpfully. “In case you get lonely.”
