Chapter 1 - The Shadow of the Beast
The silence in the hallway felt like a loaded gun. Mrs. Gable stood with her hands clasped tightly over her apron, her knuckles white, while Carmine, my second-in-command, kept his right hand hovering an inch above his concealed shoulder holster. Behind him, two armed bodyguards stared at the wet floor of my bedroom as though Faith had just performed an exorcism on a demon. None of them had ever seen me submit to anyone. For six months, the mere mention of touching my paralyzed limbs would send me into a homicidal fury, throwing heavy crystal glasses and promising executions.
Yet there I was, slumped in my custom titanium wheelchair, chest heaving under a sweat-drenched silk shirt, my knuckles still gripping the armrests until the leather creaked. Faith Willis didn’t flinch under the weight of five deadly glares. She walked past Carmine as if he were just a piece of cheap hallway furniture, returning a minute later with a bucket of warm soapy water, a fresh sponge, and a dry towel.
"Out," I rasped, my throat raw from the scream I had choked down during the nerve spasm.
Carmine stepped forward, his sharp Italian features tightening with concern. "Boss, we heard the glass shatter. We thought she—"
"I said out! All of you!" My voice boomed with enough remnants of the old Dominic Carter that the two guards instinctively stepped backward into the corridor.
Carmine lingered for half a heartbeat, his dark eyes boring into the back of Faith’s head with deep suspicion, before he clicked his tongue, grabbed Mrs. Gable’s arm, and pulled the heavy oak double doors shut behind them. The latch engaged with a heavy, metallic click.
Faith was already down on her knees on the Persian rug. She didn’t complain about the hot coffee soaking into the knees of her worn denim jeans. She scooped up shards of white porcelain with bare, calloused hands.
"You're a fool," I growled, wheeling back a few inches. "Carmine would have put a bullet in your skull if he thought you were attacking me. Do you even know who he is? Do you know who I am?"
Faith dumped the broken ceramic into a small plastic bin with a sharp clatter. "You're a man who broke a perfectly good cup because you're angry you can't walk to the kitchen yourself. And your friend out there is a guy with expensive shoes and cheap manners. Neither of them pays my rent by Friday. Now hold still."
Before I could bark another threat, she reached out and took hold of my right ankle.
Every muscle in my torso locked up. "I told you never to touch me."
"Your foot is inverted thirty degrees," she said, her voice completely even, clinical, yet strangely soft beneath the gravelly edge of Chicago exhaustion. "The spasm twisted the peroneal tendon against the footplate. If you leave it twisted like that, the muscle will lock, the blood flow will restrict, and within twenty minutes your leg will cramp so violently you'll black out. You want to pass out in front of me, Mr. Big Boss?"
I glared down at her. Her brown hair was pulled back in a messy knot with a cheap yellow pencil shoved through it. She smelled of rain, cheap spearmint gum, and lavender laundry soap—not the high-end perfumes the socialite women of the Gold Coast wore when they used to throw themselves at my feet.
She applied firm, steady pressure with both palms, rotating my heel with an expert, gentle leverage that brought an immediate, strange sense of relief to my throbbing calf.
"Where did you learn to do that?" I muttered, the fight draining from my voice against my will.
"My younger brother, Toby," she answered, not looking up as she wiped coffee splashes off the wheels of my chair. "He got caught in crossfire on the South Side four years ago. Stray bullet nicked his L1 vertebra. Paralyzed from the waist down. I spent three years doing physical therapy on his legs every night after my shifts at the diner so his joints wouldn't seize up."
My jaw tightened. A familiar, dark irony twisted in my chest. "South Side? Who was running the block?"
May you like
Faith paused, her hand resting on the wet sponge. She looked up, her gray eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made the scar over my eyebrow throb. "Men like you. Men who think an entire neighborhood is just a monopoly board for their ego. Toby died six months ago because his lungs gave out from an infection we couldn't afford to treat. So don't try to scare me with your guns, Mr. Carter. You're just a man in a chair who's terrified the world will see him bleed."
She stood up, took the bucket, and walked toward the bathroom without waiting for my permission. For the first time in thirty-five years, someone had stripped away my armor, laid out my sins, and left me with absolutely nothing to say.
