Chapter 5 - The Knock on the Brownstone Door
Two days later, the rain was pouring over the red-brick brownstones of South Boston, drumming steadily against our kitchen window.
Noah was sitting at our small oak dining table, working through complex multivariable calculus equations with a steaming mug of tea beside him.
The apartment was modest—two bedrooms, worn hardwood floors, and shelves lined with second-hand textbooks—but it was warm, honest, and entirely ours.
A soft, hesitant knock sounded at the front door.
Noah looked up from his notebook, setting his pencil down. "Are we expecting someone, Mom?"
"No," I replied, wiping my hands on a kitchen towel as I walked into the narrow hallway.
I looked through the brass peephole, and my breath caught in my throat.
Vincent stood in the dimly lit hallway, drenched to the skin, his heavy cashmere coat soaked through by the autumn rain.
He had no security guards with him, no entourage of lawyers, and no weapons visible.
He held a thick leather portfolio in one hand and an umbrella that he hadn't bothered to open in the other.
I unlocked the deadbolt, pulled the door open four inches, and kept the safety chain firmly in place.
"I told you we have nothing to discuss, Vincent," I said through the crack.
Vincent looked at me through the gap, his eyes hollowed by sleepless agony, his face pale and weathered.
"Claire," he whispered, his voice trembling like a child lost in a storm.
"I didn't know about the money. I swear on my mother's grave, I sent ten thousand dollars every month for eighteen years."
"Sophia intercepted the routing codes through a Delaware shell company. I threw her and Ethan out of the Chicago estate yesterday."
I stared at him, feeling the truth in his broken tone, but the revelation brought no warmth to my heart.
"It doesn't change anything, Vincent," I said softly.
"Whether you sent money or not, you weren't there when he had asthma at three in the morning."
"You weren't there when he learned to ride a bicycle on a rusted frame we found by the curb."
"You were raising Sophia's son in a mansion while Noah studied under a desk lamp with a broken switch."
"Let me speak to him, Claire," Vincent begged, pressing his forehead against the wooden doorframe, weeping openly in the dingy hallway.
"Just let me look at him. Let me tell him that his father isn't a complete monster."
Behind me, the soft creak of the floorboards signaled Noah’s approach.
May you like
Noah reached past my shoulder, his long fingers gently unhooking the safety chain.
"Let him in, Mom," Noah said calmly. "It's time we finished this."
