Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Ashcombe Street
Weston remained frozen in the doorway, his boots rooted to the warped floorboards as he watched Wren move with the practiced precision of a veteran trauma nurse. She adjusted the flow rate on the oxygen machine, wiped a bead of sweat from the little boy’s forehead with a damp cloth, and kissed his cheek with a lingering, heartbreaking desperation.
"Can we... can we read the book tonight, Wren?" the boy whispered, his voice sounding like dry paper rubbing together.
"Of course we can, Leo," Wren smiled, though Weston could see the terrifying exhaustion pulling at the corners of her eyes. Her knuckles were bruised, and a fresh scrape ran along her left forearm—injuries that had nothing to do with scrubbing Persian rugs at the Ashcombe Street mansion. "We have the entire chapter about the dragon who lost his spark. Remember?"
"Will he find it?" Leo asked, his big, sunken eyes locking onto hers with absolute, unshakeable trust.
"He always finds it," Wren whispered fiercely, her voice thick with unshed tears. "Because he has people who love him fighting for him every single day. Nothing is ever truly lost as long as someone refuses to let go."
Weston closed his eyes for a single heartbeat, the weight of his own ruthless existence crashing down upon his shoulders.
For ten years, he had ruled Chicago through fear, blood, and calculated detachment. He lived by a creed forged in concrete and gunfire: Trust no one. Crush everything that threatens the Kade name. He had suspected this young woman of treason, had tracked her down with a loaded weapon intending to execute her in the dark like a stray dog, and had mentally prepared himself to burn her world to ash.
And yet, looking at the glowing medical monitors and the little boy fighting for every breath, Weston realized something that chilled him to his core.
The boy’s injuries weren't congenital. They weren't the result of a rare disease or an unfortunate accident.
Weston recognized the precise pattern of the surgical scarring across Leo’s abdomen. He recognized the specific type of trauma inflicted by high-velocity kinetic impacts and structural collapse.
It was the signature of a Kade Syndicate demolition crew.
Six months ago, Weston had ordered the razing of an abandoned commercial block on the city's west side to clear land for a waterfront warehouse expansion. Syndicate enforcers had cleared the buildings quickly, brutally, and without checking the squatters' dens tucked away in the basements. A collapsing concrete slab had crushed a section of an illegal tenement, burying several people beneath tons of rubble. Silas had covered it up, burying the incident reports before they reached the police.
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Leo wasn't just a sick child. He was collateral damage. A stray casualty of Weston’s own ruthless empire.
And Wren—the quiet, invisible maid scrubbing blood from Weston’s carpets every night—was working herself to the bone in his own mansion to pay for the expensive private surgeries and medical equipment required to piece back together a boy his own men had nearly murdered.
