Chapter 5 - The Glass on the Stairs
Hannah looked from Damen’s outstretched hand to the gray stoop of her apartment building fifty yards away.
Through the rain-streaked glass, she saw the front door of the walk-up open.
Arthur Vance stepped out onto the concrete porch. He was wearing a beige trench coat over his charcoal suit, his hair slightly rumpled, holding an unlit cigarette between his fingers. He checked his gold watch, then pulled his phone from his pocket, dialing with sharp, aggressive stabs of his thumb.
In Hannah’s coat pocket, her phone began to vibrate against her hip.
Arthur - Mobile.
The device buzzed with a dull, rhythmic frequency that felt like a predator scratching at a wooden door.
"He's calling you," Marco said quietly from the driver's seat.
Hannah didn't answer the phone. She looked at Damen Moretti.
"What happens if I go up there?" she asked, her voice steadying, the trembling in her fingers slowly freezing into the cold clarity of a woman who has reached the edge of a cliff and realized the bridge behind her has already burned.
"If you go up there alone," Damen replied, "you will spend the next forty-five minutes apologizing for being sick. You will let him check your phone. You will explain why your clothes were laundered by a hospital service. And tonight, when he finishes his fourth glass of whiskey, he will ensure that the bruises on your ribs match the bruises on your wrists."
"And if I don't go up there?"
"Then you step out of this car with me," Damen said, his voice dropping into that deep, unyielding register that brooked no debate. "We walk up those stairs together. You collect your passport, your nursing license, and whatever personal effects have meaning to you. And Mr. Vance learns that the contract he believed he held on your life has been permanently cancelled."
Hannah closed her eyes.
She thought of her father. She thought of the little girl who had grown up in Bridgeport believing that if you were quiet enough, kind enough, and worked hard enough, the world would treat you fairly. She thought of the six years she had spent at West Haven Community Clinic, cleaning the wounds of strangers while hiding her own beneath layers of navy wool and foundation makeup.
She was done being quiet.
She opened her eyes, reached forward, and placed her hand directly into Damen Moretti’s palm.
His fingers closed around hers. His skin was warm, his grip made of solid iron, but he held her hand with an immense, protective reverence that made her breath catch.
"Marco," Damen said.
"Yes, Boss?"
"Wait by the front entrance. If Mr. Vance attempts to leave before we descend, remind him that leaving a room without permission is considered impolite."
"Understood, Boss."
Damen pushed his door open, stepping out into the cold October rain. He did not open an umbrella. He walked around the rear of the Mercedes, opened Hannah’s door, and offered her his arm.
Hannah stepped onto the wet pavement of Paulina Street. She didn't look down. She linked her arm through Damen’s, her shoulder pressing against the heavy charcoal wool of his coat, and together they began walking toward the brownstone where Arthur Vance stood under the awning, flicking a silver lighter.
Arthur saw them when they were twenty paces away.
His lighter snapped shut with a sharp clink. His expression shifted through a rapid, comical succession of emotional states: irritation, confusion, and then a sudden, arrogant smirk as he assumed Hannah had hired an attorney or brought an older relative to mediate their domestic dispute.
"Hannah," Arthur called out, stepping down the three stone steps to the sidewalk, shoving his hands into his trench coat pockets. "Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea what time it is? I’ve been sitting in that freezing dump of an apartment for three hours waiting for—"
Arthur stopped mid-sentence.
His eyes traveled from Hannah’s face to the man walking beside her.
Arthur Vance was an attorney who spent his days in the Cook County criminal courts and the municipal commercial tribunals. He knew the faces of every judge, every prosecutor, and every high-ranking political donor in the city.
And he knew the face of Damen Moretti.
The color drained from Arthur’s face so fast that his skin turned the sickening shade of spoiled cream. His mouth fell slightly open, his cigarette slipping from his fingers, landing with a soft hiss in a puddle of rainwater at his feet.
"Mr... Mr. Moretti?" Arthur stammered, his voice cracking, losing every shred of the booming courtroom baritone he had practiced in the mirror.
Damen did not slow his stride. He walked straight up to the base of the steps, stopping three feet away from the trembling young lawyer, his gray eyes boring into Arthur’s skull with the weight of an oncoming locomotive.
"You're standing in my way, Vance," Damen said softly.
Arthur took two frantic, stumbling steps backward, his heels catching on the riser of the stone step, nearly sending him tumbling onto his back. He caught himself against the iron handrail, his knuckles white, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps.
"I... I apologize, sir," Arthur choked out, his eyes darting frantically past Damen to Marco, who had positioned his broad frame directly in front of the building’s only exit gate. "I didn't... there must be some professional matter regarding the firm's commercial maritime filings—"
"This is not a commercial matter, Arthur," Damen said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on the back of Hannah’s neck stand up.
May you like
Damen stepped up onto the porch, towering over Arthur, his presence swallowing the light from the overhead fixture.
"Miss Brooks is going upstairs to collect her belongings," Damen informed him with terrifying calm. "You will stand here, in the rain, with your hands outside your pockets. If you move, if you speak, or if you look toward the street before she comes back down... Marco will take you to the basement of our logistics warehouse on 31st Street. And you will spend the weekend learning what an actual broken bone feels like."
