Chapter 3 - “I needed you to see that the world is full of monsters, Nora. Your boss, Arthur, threw you to the wolves to save his own skin. Your landlord was going to throw you into the snow for being $50 short. The world doesn’t care about you. It will consume you.”
Roman dropped the sponge.
He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her beneath the water.
“I am a monster.”
There was no apology in the statement.
“But I am your monster. I am the only thing in this miserable world that will burn a city to the ground to keep you warm. You know that now.”
Sadie closed her eyes.
A tear slipped into the bathwater.
His logic was twisted and dark.
She was also exhausted.
The moral high ground she had chosen had been cold and lonely.
She let her body rest against him.
“I’m so tired, Roman.”
“I know, mia.”
He kissed her damp neck.
“Go to sleep. I have you.”
Morning light on the 40th floor was different from the light above the dry cleaner on Fourth Street.
At the studio, sunlight had filtered through smog, dirty glass, and neighboring brick buildings.
It arrived gray.
Here, it entered unobstructed.
Norah woke slowly beneath a massive down comforter.
Normally waking meant panic: checking the time, calculating subway schedules, worrying about her uniform.
This morning there was only silk against her skin.
Her muscles felt loose.
The severe ache in her back had diminished.
Her injured finger remained securely bandaged.
The other side of the California king bed was empty, although the rumpled sheets still carried Roman’s scent.
At the foot of the bed, a thick white cashmere robe had been arranged beside fleece slippers.
Norah understood the message.
She put them on.
She did not search for her waitressing clothes.
She assumed Roman had disposed of them as soon as she fell asleep.
Moving toward the living area, she heard his voice.
Roman stood in the kitchen with black espresso in his hand. He wore a charcoal suit without the jacket and tie, sleeves rolled upward.
Tommy stood at the marble island.
Roman spoke rapidly in Italian.
“Tell the port authority they get their percentage on Tuesday. If they hold up the containers on dock 4 again, we don’t negotiate.”
He drank from the espresso.
“Break his knees.”
Tommy nodded.
“Understood, boss. And the issue in Brooklyn?”
“Handled. They won’t be operating on our territory by midnight.”
Norah stopped in the hallway.
This was the reality that had driven her away 3 years earlier.
Casual violence.
Pain discussed with the indifference of weather.
Blood money paying for silk sheets and cashmere.
She waited for the panic to return.
It did not.
That realization disturbed her.
What happened on the docks did not reach the 40th floor.
The Brooklyn territory dispute did not touch her.
Roman was still a butcher.
He was also the butcher who had secretly bought her apartment building to keep other dangers away from her.
She had attempted to live among ordinary people and had been ground down by the experience.
Norah stepped from the hallway into the kitchen.
Tommy saw her first.
He immediately stopped speaking and lowered his gaze in respect.
After a brief nod, he left.
Roman turned.
He looked at Norah standing in his kitchen wearing the cashmere robe.
The tension in his shoulders disappeared.
“Good morning.”
Norah approached him.
She had heard what he ordered.
She did not pretend otherwise.
“I need coffee.”
Roman traced his knuckles along her cheek.
“I’ll have the chef make whatever you want.”
He searched her face.
“Are you going to run today, Nora?”
Norah looked through the enormous windows.
Below them was the sprawling, dirty, freezing city.
She thought about Arthur.
The broken radiator.
The cork-lined tray.
The shattered porcelain.
The wine spreading across Lombardi’s floor.
She thought about the 3 years she had spent trying to construct a life beyond Roman’s reach, unaware that he had found her within 1 week, purchased her building 2 weeks after she signed the lease, kept her rent artificially low, and placed protection around her neighborhood while allowing her to believe she was completely independent.
She remembered why she had run.
She had discovered what happened to the Moretti crew and finally understood what Roman’s life truly required. The man who could be gentle with her was also capable of ordering violence without hesitation. She had recognized that she was becoming accustomed to it, and that realization had frightened her enough to abandon everything.
For 1,095 days, she had tried to prove that she could live outside his world.
She changed her identity.
Changed her hair.
Moved 3 times.
Worked double shifts.
Counted money.
Ate toast for dinner.
Endured a failing radiator.
Carried expensive meals for strangers who barely noticed her.
She had considered every hardship proof that the life was hers.
Now she knew Roman had remained somewhere beyond its edges the entire time.
The independence had never been as complete as she believed.
She looked back at him.
The man standing before her had not become better during those 3 years.
He had not renounced the syndicate.
He had not abandoned violence.
Minutes earlier, he had calmly ordered a man’s knees broken.
Roman remained exactly what Norah had discovered him to be before she fled.
The difference was that she no longer possessed the illusion that the world outside his penthouse was free of cruelty.
Arthur had dismissed her to protect his restaurant.
Her original landlord had been prepared to evict her over $50.
Roman had allowed her to struggle because he believed she needed to learn that lesson for herself.
He had watched.
He had waited.
Then he had walked through Lombardi’s brass doors and ended the experiment.
Norah looked again at the city.
“No.”
Roman remained still.
“No?” he asked.
She leaned slightly into his hand.
“It’s too cold outside.”
Roman exhaled slowly.
He pulled her against his chest and buried his face in her hair.
Norah did not resist.
3 years earlier, she had run from the penthouse because she feared becoming comfortable with Roman’s darkness.
Now she stood inside the same fortress, wearing his cashmere, having heard him order violence only moments earlier, and felt no panic.
May you like
The door she had fought to keep open had closed.
Roman held her against him.
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