Chapter 6 - The Language of Broken Things
The storm that hit Chicago that night was the worst of the winter. The wind came off Lake Michigan with a scream that shook the old limestone pillars of the mansion, and the snow fell so thick the security cameras showed nothing but white static.
At two in the morning, a sound woke me.
It wasn't the wind. It was a low, rhythmic tapping from the nursery across the hall.
I got out of my bed, threw on a thick flannel robe Enzo had left for me, and walked across the corridor. The nursery door was ajar. Inside, Nico was sitting on the floor between his bed and Leo's, his green quilt pulled over his head like a tent. He was holding a small silver spoon he had taken from the kitchen and was tapping it against the brass leg of his bedframe.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Nico?" I whispered, kneeling on the carpet outside his tent.
The tapping stopped. A small, pale face appeared from beneath the green wool. His eyes were wide and dark, the pupils dilated with a terror that didn't belong to a six-year-old child. "The ice is coming," he whispered.
"The ice?"
"The ships get stuck," he said, his voice shaking so hard his teeth clicked. "In the book. The men had to eat their boots because the water turned to stone. And then the dark came and they didn't have any candles."
He was talking about the polar exploration book I had read to him before bed. His little mind had taken the historical tragedy and turned it into a nightmare that fit the size of the storm outside.
I didn't tell him it was just a story. I didn't tell him he was safe in a mansion with twenty guards. I simply crawled under the green quilt with him.
It was a tight fit. My shoulders filled the space between the beds, and my head brushed the mattress frame above us, but Nico didn't say I was too big. He immediately crawled into my lap, his small, cold hands tucking themselves under the sleeves of my flannel robe.
"We have plenty of candles," I told him, my chin resting on his dark hair. "And the kitchen has twelve boxes of crackers and three jars of honey. Even if the water turns to stone, the kitchen is too warm for the ice to get in."
"Are you sure?"
"I’m certain," I said. "My grandfather once upholstery-lined a whole bobsled for a race in Wisconsin. He told me that if you have enough wool and a good piece of cedar, the cold can't find your toes."
"Your grandfather sounds like a smart man," a voice said from the darkness outside the quilt.
I startled, my head hitting the brass rail with a loud thunk.
Dante Bellandi was sitting in the rocking chair by the window. He hadn't turned on the lights. The only illumination came from the green glow of the radiator valve and the white flash of the lightning through the storm. He was wearing his black trousers and a white linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing arms that were covered in long, pale scars beneath the dark ink.
"Don Bellandi," I said, trying to adjust my position without crushing Nico. "He had a nightmare."
"I know," Dante said. He didn't move from the chair. He rocked slowly, the old wood making a dry, rhythmic sound that matched the wind outside. "Nico has had that nightmare every winter since his mother died."
Nico went very still in my arms.
"She died in January," Dante continued, his gray eyes fixed on the green quilt. "The lake was frozen over. The car went through the barrier near Northwestern Hospital. The guards got the boys out, but the water... the water was too heavy for her."
The silence that followed was louder than the storm. For the first time, I understood the metallic smell beneath the roses in the hallway. I understood the private chapel with the marble Madonna. This wasn't a fortress built for pride; it was a fortress built to keep the water from taking what was left.
"I didn't know," I whispered.
"Nobody knows," Dante said. He stood up and walked over to the beds, kneeling down so his face was level with the opening of our tent. He didn't look like a Don now. He looked like a man who had been broken in a place that could never be mended with money or blood. "Nico. Look at me."
Nico looked out from my lap.
"Miss Ward is here," Dante said, his gloved hand reaching in to touch the boy’s cheek. "She is not going through the ice, Nico. She is too strong for the stone water. Do you understand?"
Nico nodded once, his thumb returning to his mouth. Within five minutes, his head went heavy against my chest, his breathing smoothing out into deep, restorative sleep.
Dante didn't tell me to get out from under the bed. He stayed on the floor beside us, his back against Leo’s mattress, his long fingers looped around his knees.
"Your ex-husband called my personal line after the noon bell," Dante said into the quiet. "He offered to buy the West Loop concrete permits out of his own account if I returned you to the Crane estate's legal counsel for 'breach of nondisclosure.'"
My heart stopped. "What did you say?"
Dante turned his head to look at me. The white lightning flashed across his face, making his gray eyes look like silver coins. "I told him that if he called my line again, I would buy his father’s hotel on Wacker Drive and turn the ballroom into a laundry facility for the county jail."
May you like
I let out a breath that was half a laugh and half a sob. "He would hate that. He spent forty thousand dollars on the molding in that ballroom."
"I know," Dante said. He reached out and touched the edge of my flannel robe, his fingers lingering on the thick, cheap wool. "You are not a breach of contract, Evelyn. You are the only thing in this house that doesn't smell like cement or old blood. Stay under the quilt as long as he needs you."
