Chapter 3 - GHOSTS IN THE LAUNDRY ANNEX
“Stand up, Mrs. Hayes,” Dario said.
His voice was no longer soft. It was heavy, flat, and absolute.
Nora didn't move. She kept her arms locked around Lila, shielding the child’s face against her shoulder. “Mr. Montesi... I’ll pack our things tonight. Just give us until morning. The rain is too heavy to walk to the station with a child—”
“I told you to stand up,” Dario repeated, rising slowly to his full height.
He towered over her, casting a long, dark shadow across the room. Nora slowly helped Lila to her feet, keeping one hand firmly on the child's back, her chin trembling as she braced herself for whatever punishment was coming. Exile to the streets in a midnight downpour. A beating from his enforcers. Total ruin. In the underworld, crossing Dario Montesi meant disappearing without a trace.
Instead, Dario turned his back to them, walking slowly toward the mahogany desk in the corner. He opened the top drawer, pulled out a pristine white handkerchief, and walked back over.
Without a word, he knelt down once more—right in front of little Lila.
Nora gasped, stepping forward instinctively, but Dario raised a single finger, stopping her in her tracks.
He gently took Lila’s small, polish-blackened hand in his massive palm. With agonizing slowness, using the corner of the white handkerchief, he began to wipe the thick black paste from her skin, cleaning her fingers one by one.
“Why were you polishing my shoes, Lila?” Dario asked quietly, his eyes fixed on her tiny knuckles.
Lila peeked out from behind her mother’s skirt, her fear momentarily eclipsed by childish curiosity. “Because... because the lady with the sharp voice said if the master’s shoes aren't shiny when he comes home, nobody gets to eat supper tomorrow.”
Dario’s hands stopped moving.
The air in the room dropped ten degrees. The quiet became so absolute that the hum of the refrigerator down the hall sounded like a roar.
“The lady with the sharp voice,” Dario murmured, his eyes darkening into pools of black ice. “Mrs. Gable.”
Nora closed her eyes, a shudder wracking her frame. “She... she said it was the house rules, Mr. Montesi. She let us stay in the damp little storage room behind the laundry annex under the condition that I work double shifts without extra pay, and that Lila stayed out of sight. But tonight... Lila wandered out.”
Dario stood up. The handkerchief in his hand was smeared with black grease and dried tears.
“Mrs. Gable told you my rules?” Dario asked, his voice dangerously low.
“Yes, sir,” Nora whispered.
“My rules,” Dario said, turning to face her fully, “have never included starving a child or treating the staff like indentured slaves in my own home. And my rules certainly never included hiding a mother and her daughter in a freezing storage room.”
He reached into his breast pocket, pulling out a heavy gold-plated cigar cutter—a habit he only indulged when he was holding back a rage capable of tearing a building apart.
“Nora Hayes,” Dario said, his gaze piercing straight through her. “Look at me.”
Nora raised her chin, her eyes swimming with unshed tears.
“Six years ago,” Dario continued, his voice dropping into a register that sent a shiver down her spine, “your brother, Thomas Hayes, worked the docks in South Chicago. He took a bullet meant for my shipment, and he died in my arms on a cold warehouse floor. Before he died, he made me promise one thing.”
Nora’s breath hitched. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
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“He made me promise that if anything ever happened to him, I would look after his sister—that I would make sure she never had to worry about rent, or food, or the cold,” Dario said, his iron exterior finally cracking, a single tear cutting a clean path through the stubble on his cheek. “I searched for you for three years, Nora. I had every investigator in the Midwest looking for you. And all this time... you were trapped right beneath my nose, enslaved by a crooked housekeeper who took advantage of my absence.”
Nora sank to her knees, not out of fear this time, but because her legs simply gave out. She covered her mouth with her hands, a broken sob tearing from her chest.
