Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE ON THE LAKE
The car wasn't a sedan; it was a black, armored SUV with dark tint so thick the streetlights of Chicago looked like dying orange embers through the glass.
I sat in the middle row with the baby—whose name, Dominic told me, was Mateo—wrapped in a soft cashmere blanket that smelled of expensive cologne and cedarwood. Dominic sat across from me on the rear bench, his phone buzzing every forty seconds with encrypted text messages he ignored with practiced discipline.
“Where are we going?” I asked, keeping my hand flat against Mateo’s back as the car navigated the slick rain-slicked turns of Lake Shore Drive.
“Home,” Dominic said.
“I have an apartment in Pilsen,” I said firmly. “I have a shift tomorrow at eleven. My landlord expects rent on the first.”
“Your landlord has already been paid for six months,” Dominic said without looking up from his phone screen. “And Frank has already filled your shift at Bellavita.”
My jaw tightened. “You can’t just buy my life because your baby had colic.”
Dominic finally set his phone down on the leather seat beside him. The dark amber of his eyes caught the glow of the dashboard lights.
“I didn't buy your life, Claire,” he said smoothly. “I bought your time. Two thousand dollars a day. Live-in. Full medical authority over Mateo’s care. You answer only to me.”
I swallowed hard. Two thousand dollars a day was more than I used to make in a month at the pediatric clinic. It was enough to pay off Leo’s remaining hospital bills—the cold, heartless collection letters that had been piling up on my kitchen table like autumn leaves.
“And if I say no?” I challenged, leaning forward slightly.
Dominic looked at me for a long, silent moment. “Then I ask you politely to reconsider. Because if I take him back to that empty house alone tonight, and he screams like that again, I will burn down half the city trying to find someone who can help him.”
He wasn't flexing his power; he was stating a terrifying, literal fact. He was a father drowning in deep water, and he had grabbed the only person who knew how to swim.
Ten minutes later, the SUV turned through a massive set of wrought-iron gates on the Gold Coast, winding up a private driveway lined with old oak trees whose leaves dripped heavy rainwater onto the hood.
The house wasn't a mansion; it was a fortress.
Grey stone walls, three stories tall, with thick slate roofs and high narrow windows that looked out over the dark, churning expanse of Lake Michigan. As the car stopped under the wide stone portico, six security guards stepped out of the shadows, their hands resting casually near their belts.
“Welcome to the estate,” Dominic said, stepping out first and holding the door open for me—a gesture so natural and chivalrous it felt bizarre coming from a man who commanded Chicago’s underworld.
Inside, the house was vast, cold, and quiet.
High ceilings with exposed dark oak beams, white marble floors that echoed with every step, and minimal furniture that looked more like art pieces than things meant to be sat on. It lacked any warmth, any sign that a child actually lived there—except for a solitary white crib standing in the center of a massive living room, looking like a tiny, abandoned island in an ocean of grey stone.
“Where is his room?” I asked, looking around the cold hall.
“Upstairs,” Dominic said. “The nursery. But he wouldn't stay there. The noise was... too loud.”
“The noise?” I looked at the vast, echoing high ceilings. “This room has a four-second echo, Dominic. Every time he whimpers, the sound bounces off the marble and bounces right back into his ears. It’s like sleeping inside a drum.”
Dominic blinked, looking around his own living room as if seeing the architecture for the first time.
“Take me to the nursery,” I said.
The nursery was on the second floor, down a long hallway carpeted in deep navy wool. Inside, the room was beautiful—decorated in cream and pale blue, with a plush rug, a rocking chair, and soft linen curtains. But it was freezing cold.
“Why is the vent open?” I asked, walking over to the wall.
“The AC was set to sixty-five,” one of the guards who had followed us upstairs said. “Mr. Moretti said cold air keeps the air fresh.”
“He’s a newborn, not a side of beef,” I snapped, reaching up and closing the vent. “Get me three warm blankets. Clean ones. And a humidifier if you have one. If you don't, go buy one.”
The guard looked at Dominic, waiting for permission to take orders from a waitress.
“Did she stutter?” Dominic said softly.
The guard vanished down the hall immediately.
I set Mateo down on the changing table in the corner. I unbuttoned his designer jumpsuit—a seventy-dollar piece of silk that was entirely impractical for an infant—and checked his stomach. It was still distended, hard as a drum under my fingers.
“Bring me olive oil,” I said to Dominic, who was standing in the doorway, watching my every move with an intensity that made the skin on the back of my neck prickle.
“Olive oil?”
“Warm olive oil,” I clarified. “I’m going to massage his abdomen to release the gas.”
Five minutes later, Dominic returned himself, carrying a small porcelain bowl of warm oil. He didn't send a servant; he brought it with his own hands.
I dipped my fingers into the oil, warmed them together, and laid my palms gently on Mateo’s bare stomach. I began moving my hands in slow, clockwise circles, pressing just firmly enough to stimulate the bowel without causing pain.
Mateo let out a soft, grunting whimper, his little legs kicking against my arm.
“Shh,” I whispered, leaning down close to his ear. “I know, little man. I know it hurts. Let it out.”
Dominic watched from the side, his hands folded behind his back. “What are you doing?”
“It’s called the ‘I Love You’ stroke,” I explained, my hands continuing their steady, rhythmic motion. “It moves the trapped gas through the colon. In hospitals, we teach it to mothers whose babies have severe colic.”
As if on cue, Mateo let out a loud, long bubble of gas, his tiny shoulders instantly relaxing against the changing table pad. His eyes, heavy with exhaustion, began to flutter closed.
Dominic stared at his son’s face, his mouth slightly open in genuine disbelief.
“That’s it?” Dominic asked softly. “That’s all it was?”
“Not all,” I said, wiping my fingers on a towel. “He needs warmth, proper feeding schedules, and quiet. Not four guards stomping around in combat boots.”
Dominic looked at his own boots, then up at me. For the first time all night, the harsh, lethal lines around his eyes seemed to smooth out, revealing the face of a man who was simply, profoundly tired.
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“Thank you, Claire,” he whispered.
“Don't thank me yet,” I said, picking Mateo up and cradling him against my chest as his breath finally turned long, slow, and deep. “The night is young. And colic doesn't go away in twenty minutes.”
