I was at the door in a bunny suit. Tonight’s client was my husband—the man who left us here three years ago. Julian. The Don. “Three years, Nora,” he said, cold as a gun barrel. “Three years ago, you got your daughter Maya to safety but left Chloe on the gravel. You made a big mistake. Did you learn to be compliant now?” Chloe. His true love Serena’s daughter. I hadn’t known she was there that night. I stared at the ring on his hand—the one that had replaced ours. “Yes, sir.” His face flickered—then hardened. “Nora, don’t give me that dead look. You don’t get to do this.” “Selfishness has no place in the Vance family, Nora. You and Maya deserved that.” He smoothed his cuff. “And I came here today to offer you a chance at redemption.” Redemption? Was there such a thing for me anymore? I almost laughed, that hollow kind. Then Serena stepped out of the car. Her diamond rings caught the red neon of the bar. “Nora, please. Chloe is in the hospital,” she begged. “The doctors say she has weeks. We need Maya. We need her marrow. She’s a match.” “That’s it. Get the girl to the hospital. Then your punishment is over.” Julian finished. So that’s what this was. A bargain. But… it’s too late. “No, sir. You can’t take her,” I said. Julian’s jaw tightened. “Nora, I’m not asking. I’m taking my daughter back to Boston.” “She isn’t going to Boston. She can’t.” I said. “Because…” A choked sob rose in my throat. I swallowed it. Maya never liked to see me cry. “Because…she’s dead.” For a moment, The air turned solid. Julian didn’t move. Then— “Is this your play, Nora?” Julian’s voice dropped. “You’d curse your own daughter dead just to keep me from saving Chloe?” “Save your breath,” he didn’t blink. “Even if Maya’s dead, I’ll dig up her grave myself and see if her marrow can still be used.” I stood still. He didn’t know. Maya didn’t even have a coffin. In this flesh-eating underground, I couldn’t even save enough to buy her one. … Julian’s eyes locked on mine—the way he used to look at a bad ledger. Cold. Expecting me to bend first. Before I was sent here, I always did—the apology, the lapel, the surrender. He was waiting for it now. I wouldn’t. Neither of us moved. The doorway held a strange, frozen stalemate. I didn’t know how long we had stood there—my hands numb from the cold—before he finally spoke. “You think I put you in this shithole just to punish you? ” He sighed, “Truth is, I didn’t want to. But I had no choice.” I looked up at him. He looked away, jaw tight, reciting. “Three years ago, the East Side was bleeding into a turf war. The Commission had my neck in a noose. ” “I had to marry Serena to stop the bleeding. And I sent you and Maya here to keep you out of it.” I said nothing. He wanted me to understand. To see it the way he saw it—a chess move, a calculation, a necessary cruelty. But I was there. I was there when Maya asked me, in the back of that car, “Is Daddy leaving us?” I was there when she fell asleep on a jacket in the corner of a room that smelled like bleach and old sweat. I was there for every single day of the three years he called “keeping you out of it.” And I was still here. In a bunny suit. At the door. Smiling at every man who came in. With his wife’s diamond rings catching the red neon from the car he arrived in. So I said nothing. I just looked down at the frayed hem of my bunny suit. “I sent crates every month,” he said, taking a step closer. “Crates. Dry goods. Kerosene. Blankets…” “I made sure the trucks ran. I made sure they found you. I made sure you weren’t out in the cold.” “I did take care of you, Nora.” I remembered the kerosene. Two rusty cans that smelled like pond water—delivered by a guard who took my wedding ring in exchange. I kept my mouth shut. “I even started construction on the lot behind the estate,” Julian said. His voice softened, just a fraction. “A playground. Swings. A slide. Maya likes the outdoors.” “Trust me, Nora. I always wanted to bring you home—I just never had the right moment.” “Then Chloe got sick, and the doctors said we needed a match. It was the perfect reason to bring you home. But I never imagined…” A pause. His hand suddenly wrapped around my wrist, gripping so tight, the gold of his watch pressing into my skin. “Now you’re standing here, wearing this sleazy garbage, telling me my daughter is dead.” His chest rose and fell. “Apologize, Nora. Tell me where Maya is, and we go home. Right now.” With that, the grip on my wrist loosened slightly. “Julian,” I said, my voice flat like before. “Our daughter is dead.” “It was you who killed her,” I said. My voice stayed flat, even as my ribs ached and my chest hollowed out. “If you hadn’t thrown us into the cold to play your gangland games, she would be breathing.” A beat of dead silence. When he looked up again, his eyes were completely empty. The husband was gone. Only the Don remained. “After everything, you’re still lying to me?” He let go of my wrist and stepped back, his head dropping. His hand went to the gun at his belt. The hammer clicked back. A soldier ran up, snow clinging to his black wool coat. He was breathing hard. “Boss,” the soldier said, wiping frost from his forehead. “We found your daughter Maya.”
I didn’t understand the look on Julian’s face. It was as if I were the one holding the smoking gun. “You stood there and lied to my face, Nora,” he said, the disappointment heavy in his tone. “And now they’ve found her.” A laugh started in my throat—dry, sharp, and entirely out of my control. I shook my head, my shoulders trembling under the cheap satin of the bunny suit. “Why don’t you ask them, Julian?” I whispered, “Ask them what they found.” Julian looked past me to his soldier. The man’s face had gone the color of ash. He wouldn’t meet Julian’s eyes. “Bring her out,” Julian ordered. His voice didn’t have the same iron in it anymore. “Bring Maya out.” Time crawled. Julian’s hand was still on the gun. The hammer stayed back. He didn’t move. Neither did the soldier. “Move! Are you all deaf? Get Maya the fuck over here—now!” The soldiers finally moved. They didn’t have a proper coffin. The soldiers brought out a rough pine box—nailed together from kitchen scraps. They set it on the damp concrete floor between us. Maya lay there, eyelashes dusting her pale cheeks, fingers still curled like she was waiting for morning. The cold kept her. Seven days in the frozen dirt—she hadn’t rotted. “No… no, no… how—how is this even possible?” Julian took a step back, his leather boots dragging against the floor. His face went white. “Take it easy, Jules.” Serena patted his arm—a wife’s gesture—then turned to me, her smile thin and venomous. “Nora, I know you hate us,” she said, her voice smooth, like honey poured over glass. “But this is too much. Staging your own daughter’s death in a crate just to wound Jules? It’s sick. And bad luck—even if you don’t believe in that.” She turned to the box. “Maya, sweetie, get up now. The game is over.” I stared at her. Then I laughed again. A short, dry bark of a sound. I couldn’t believe she could lie so easily—so perfectly. For a fleeting second, I wished she wasn’t lying. And Julian? He bought it. Slap! It came fast. My head snapped left, the crack of it bouncing off the metal walls. Blood pooled under my tongue—metallic, immediate. Julian stood over me, his hand still raised, his chest heaving. “You are out of your mind, Nora!” Julian hissed. “You knew I was coming today. So you set this whole pathetic show up to punish me for three years ago?” “Why can’t you just see reason? I just did what I had to do for the Vance family!” He snarled, stepping closer, his expensive cologne mixing with the smell of the pine box. “Serena’s family was the key to securing the ports. My marriage to her was a contract on paper. And you? What were you? A liability. Worse. You’re a poison.” He stopped. Looked at the pine box. Then back at me. “You staged your daughter’s death. Fine. I don’t care if she’s breathing or not.” He pointed a finger at the pine box. “She’s donating. Even if I have to crack every bone in her body to scrape it out—Chloe will have what she needs.” For a second, I thought my ears had betrayed me. Did he really just say that about his own daughter? I swallowed blood in my mouth. I looked at Julian’s immaculate face. “Julian,” I said. “How are you so sure Maya is a match for Chloe?” He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink. “Because Chloe is my daughter, Nora,” he said. The silence in the place stretched. I stared at him. Chloe and Maya were the same age. Which meant—he’d been cheating on me while we were still married. “Don’t look at me like that. It wasn’t what you think.” he continued, his voice flat again. Business-like. “Serena’s family needed an heir. She wanted a child. So I helped her.” “I lied about Chicago so you wouldn’t have to know. I just did what I had to do. I did it to protect you and Maya.” “To protect me and Maya,” I repeated. “Yes, Nora, I love you, and I love Maya, too.” Julian said, his voice softening, his hand reaching toward my bruised cheek. I flinched away. He let out a sigh. ” Don’t make scene again, okay?” “If you apologize now, we can end this. We can go back to Boston. We can be a family again.” I closed my eyes. The image of the cheap pine box burned against my eyelids. “Our daughter is dead, Julian,” I said, opening my eyes to look at him one last time. “And there is no family.” “We’re done.” With that, I turned and walked toward the exit, my bare shoulders cold against the draft.
The place went dead quiet. Nobody drew a breath. Julian stared at me, his eyes wide. “What the hell did you say? We’re done?” His gaze swept the surroundings, finally landing on the corner. Cole, the young assistant from the near clinic, stood there, sleeves rolled up, watching me with pity. Julian’s mouth twisted into a cold sneer. “So that’s it. You’re lying to me just to run off with him, aren’t you?” “You’re insane,” I spat. Julian let out a dry, humorless chuckle. “Fine. If Maya is really dead, I’ll let you go. But if she’s breathing…” “You are never leaving me. Even when you die, you go into the Vance family vault.” He stepped closer. “Now, how do I end this little game of yours?” I met his gaze. Didn’t flinch. Then a raspy mew broke the silence from the corner. Serena’s eyes lit up. She leaned close to Julian, her hand resting on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. “Julian, that’s Maya’s cat. She rescued it when we were in Boston. She’d never let anyone hurt it.” Julian looked at the skinny, matted ragdoll cat near the crates. His brow furrowed. Serena noticed it and quickly withdrew her hand, looking down at her diamond rings. “You must think I’m a monster, Julian. Suggesting we use a cat.” Julian looked back at me, smirking. “Nora was willing to put Maya in a pine box to play a trick. A cat is nothing.” I froze—then lunged for it. That cat was all I had left of Maya. Serena flicked her eyes at the soldiers. They had me before I moved. Pinned me in place. I watched the cat squirm in a soldier’s grip, its tiny paws clawing at the air. “No—!” I screamed. “Julian, stop it!” My protest only earned me more mockery. Serena tilted her head. “Aw. Did you actually think you could keep something?” “Show her what happens.” One of the guards stepped forward, grabbed the cat by its scruff, and threw it hard against the floor. Bang. The wet, heavy thump echoed off the metal walls. A low whimper came from the matted fur. My blood went cold. Julian didn’t look at me. He walked over to the pine box, his leather shoes clicking on the concrete. He looked down at Maya. “Maya,” Julian said, his voice flat. “You wanted this thing. You found it in the alley. You told me you’d protect it. Now it’s dying. ” “Get up, and I’ll have the vet save it. Stop playing games with your mother.” Nothing moved. Maya lay still, her chest flat. Julian’s jaw ticked. “Look at what your mother turned you into. A cold, cruel brat. Letting an animal die just to keep up a lie.” He gestured to the guard. “Do it again.” I lunged forward, but two guards caught my arms, slamming me hard onto my knees. My joints cracked against the concrete. “Stop! Please—please, I’m begging you.” My throat closed around the words. Tears streaked my face—hot and helpless—and I couldn’t wipe them away. The soldiers had pinned my arms behind my back. I could only stand there, crying like a child, while they took the last thing Maya ever touched. Bang. The guard picked up the cat and threw it a second time. A sharp, broken screech cut through the room. Then, silence. The cat lay on its side, its glassy eyes fixed on the damp wall, completely still. My chest hollowed out. The air finally broke through my throat, raw and burning. “Julian! You monster!” I screamed, my voice cracking. Julian froze. He looked down at the dead animal, then slowly turned his gaze back to me. His hand shook slightly as he adjusted his coat. “You’re raising your voice at me, Nora?” he whispered, his lips trembling. “Six years. In six years, you never once raised your voice to me. And now you’re screaming at me in front of my men. For a cat?”
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