Chapter 2 - The Ghost of Room 6018
Alexander didn’t leave. Even after I threatened to call the county sheriff, he simply stepped back until he was standing under the wooden awning outside the glass door, letting the Southern rain drench his expensive Italian leather shoes. He stood there like a grim gargoyle carved out of stone, his dark eyes locked on the front window, refusing to move until the shadows lengthened and twilight swallowed the small street.
I kept the blinds shut and locked every deadbolt twice.
Inside the quiet apartment above the studio, I fed Noah his warm mashed squash, bathed him, and sang the soft lullaby my grandmother used to hum. Yet my mind was miles and years away, trapped inside the suffocating corridor of the Manhattan hotel where my previous life had bled out.
People thought leaving a billionaire mafia don was an impulsive act of jealousy. It wasn’t. It had been the culmination of months of small, bleeding cuts. I remembered the architecture student who had carried my heavy bags of stoneware clay up four flights of stairs in Chicago. I remembered the boy who promised he would design our dream house with floor-to-ceiling windows facing Lake Michigan. But when his father was murdered in an alleyway, Alexander had laid down his T-squares and drafting pencils to pick up a cold black pistol.
He swore he would protect me from that violent darkness. Instead, he simply locked me away from his life.
The secret phone calls began six months before New York. The late-night departures, the sudden smell of unfamiliar jasmine perfume clinging to his lapels, and the cool distance in his touch whenever I reached for him in the dark. And then came Sophia Reynolds. Sophia was an internationally renowned art curator, polished, wealthy, and aristocratic—the exact opposite of me, a quiet girl with clay beneath her fingernails. When I questioned him about the text message on his screen, he had dismissed my fear with a casual wave of his hand. 'Sophia is handling family business, Claire. Don’t worry your pretty head about it.'
The arrogance had stung, but discovering the blue whale keychain had crushed me. It had been a cheap plastic trinket I bought for Alexander at an aquarium gift shop during our third date. He had claimed he lost it during a move. To see an identical one hanging off Sophia’s designer suitcase while Alexander opened his suite door for her in the dead of night was the final confirmation of my redundancy.
I hadn't run out of anger; I had run out of hope. When I found out I was pregnant two weeks after settling in this quiet Georgia hollow, I made a solemn pact with the universe: my baby would never grow up surrounded by men with concealed weapons and a father who treated promises like cheap smoke.
A soft knock at my back alley door shattered my thoughts.
I crept down the stairs, heart pounding in my throat, holding an old brass sculpting chisel tightly in my right hand. I peered through the peephole.
Standing on the dripping back porch wasn't Alexander. It was Marco, his oldest and most trusted lieutenant. Unlike his boss, Marco wore a simple dark raincoat, holding a thick manila envelope against his chest.
"Claire," Marco said quietly through the thick wood, his voice carrying genuine sorrow. "Don't open the door if you don't want to. Just listen for two minutes. Please. For the respect you always showed my mother when you lived in Chicago."
I hesitated, my grip on the chisel tightening. Marco was the only one in Alexander’s inner circle who had ever treated me with genuine kindness instead of wary deference.
"Say what you came to say, Marco. Then tell your boss to leave my town," I replied through the crack of the door, keeping the safety chain firmly engaged.
Marco let out a heavy sigh that smelled faintly of cheap cigars and wet wool. "He won't leave, Claire. Not now. He nearly tore Chicago apart looking for you. When you disappeared, he thought the Rossi family had taken you. He burned three of their warehouses to the ground before he realized your car was still parked at the train station and your bank accounts were completely untouched."
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"He had Sophia to comfort him," I scoffed, bitterness coloring my words. "Why would he care about an empty house?"
"Because Sophia was never his mistress, Claire," Marco said, his voice dropping to a low, urgent murmur. "Sophia Reynolds is a federal informant. And that night in Room 6018 was never a romantic getaway. It was an ambush."
