Chapter 9 - The Baptism of the Bay
The private chapel of the Vale estate was located on the fourth floor, a high, small room paneled in old cedar that smelled of incense, sea salt, and the cold, clean air that came straight off the Atlantic cliffs.
There were no politicians there, and there were no collection specialists from Apex.
There was only Mr. Sullivan, wearing his best blue suit with a small white carnation in his lapel, and Mrs. Gable, who was holding the two infants in a single, large bundle of white linen that she had spent three weeks embroidering with the pattern of two small stars and a crescent moon.
The babies were being baptized with water from the northern rivers—the same water that ran through the Grace timber lines in Maine before it met the sea at the mouth of the Boston channel.
"Their names are Leo and Mia," the priest said, his voice echoing through the quiet cedar room. "Leo Cassius Vale and Mia Eleanor Vale."
Elara stood beside Cassius at the altar, her nurse's uniform gone, replaced by a simple cream silk dress that fell straight around her ankles. She looked at the two children, then at the man whose name had once been a whisper of terror in the alleys of South Boston.
Cassius didn't look at the security monitors that were glowing in the corridor outside, and he didn't look at the shipping manifests that sat on his desk in the library below. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small platinum chain—not the heavy, black one he had used to secure his pistol, but a thin, perfect thing that caught the light of the altar candles like a star.
He fastened it around Elara’s wrist, right beside her mother’s old silver bracelet.
"No matter how low the world makes you kneel, Elara," he whispered into the quiet room, his voice dropping into that low, resonant baritone that was now entirely filled with a quiet, dangerous warmth. "The stone underneath stays the same. You are the stone."
May you like
She looked out the high window of the chapel, where the container ships were moving through the channel, their great hulls white against the blue water of the bay. The tide was coming in, heavy and loud, but the gates of the fortress were open. The street below was quiet, the diner was safe, and the ledger was finally clean.
We had brought our own terms to the table. And the table was exactly the right size.
