Chapter 2 - The Knock on the Door
Sadie’s apartment was a masterclass in quiet desperation. The single-room studio smelled perpetually of damp plaster, old laundry, and the faint, sweet scent of the cheap burn cream she slathered over her peeling palms every four hours. Sitting on the edge of her lumpy mattress, she stared at the eviction notice taped to the back of her wooden front door like a death sentence. Three hundred and fifty dollars past due. Her next shift wasn't until Thursday, and even then, her manager had made it clear that clumsy, blistered hands were a liability the diner could no longer afford.
She had traded her physical safety, her skin, and her meager financial stability to drag an old woman out of a burning house. And what did she have to show for it? Hands that couldn't hold a coffee mug, and a landlord threatening to throw her meager belongings onto the slush-covered sidewalk.
Karma is a myth, she thought bitterly, pressing her forehead against her knees. Good deeds don't bounce back. They just bleed you dry.
Then, the heavy, rhythmic thud of knuckles struck her door.
It wasn't the tentative, apologetic knock of a struggling neighbor asking to borrow sugar. It was the deliberate, authoritative pounding of men who owned the building, the street, and everything in between.
Sadie froze, her heart hammering against her ribs. She slowly lifted her head, eyeing the cheap aluminum baseball bat leaning against the kitchen counter.
“Miss Brooks?” a deep, gravelly voice echoed through the thin wood. “Open the door. Please.”
“I don’t have the rent!” Sadie called out, her voice cracking with exhaustion and fear. “Come back on Friday! I’m warning you, I’ll call the police!”
“The police won’t help you here, Miss Brooks,” another voice answered smoothly—calm, cultured, and terrifyingly polite. “And we aren’t your landlord. My employer would like a word. It’s best if you open the lock yourself.”
Panic surged through Sadie’s veins. She stood up, ignoring the sharp pain shooting through her burned palms, and grabbed the baseball bat. She crept toward the door, her thumb hovering over the deadbolt, trying to calculate her chances of swinging the bat before whoever was standing out there kicked the frame in.
Before she could make a move, the heavy iron key turned smoothly in the lock.
The deadbolt slid back with a crisp click.
Sadie gasped, stumbling backward as the door swung open. Standing in the hallway were two mountain-sized men in immaculate, expensive dark suits that looked entirely alien to the grimy tenement corridor. But it wasn't the enforcers who made Sadie drop the baseball bat; it was the man standing calmly between them.
He wore a tailored charcoal overcoat, his dark hair swept back from a face carved from granite and cold authority. His piercing gray eyes locked onto Sadie with an intensity that made the air in the room feel heavy.
Dominic Castile stepped across the threshold, bringing with him the scent of expensive cologne, rain, and absolute, undisputed power.
“Who—who are you?” Sadie stammered, backing up until the back of her legs hit the edge of her mattress. “How did you open my door?”
“Locks are merely suggestions, Miss Brooks,” Dominic said, his voice a low, resonant baritone that vibrated right through the floorboards. He glanced around the cramped, decaying room, his gaze lingering on the eviction notice taped to the door, the peeling wallpaper, and the simple tube of burn cream sitting on the nightstand.
A muscle twitched in his jaw.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Sadie breathed, her fear momentarily overriding her awe of the imposing man standing in her kitchen space. “I don’t know you. Get out of my apartment.”
“You know my mother,” Dominic replied calmly, taking two slow steps forward into the room while his guards remained posted outside in the hallway like stone statues.
Sadie’s eyes widened. The old woman from the brownstone. The frail white hair, the silk nightgown, the whispered words: My son... he’ll be angry.
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“You’re... her son,” Sadie whispered, the pieces clicking together with terrifying clarity.
“I am Dominic Castile,” he said, his gaze never leaving her face. “And you are the woman who walked through an inferno to pull her out of a death trap.”
