Chapter 4 - The Shadows in the Yard
By three in the morning, the rain had cleared, leaving the streets of the Gold Coast slick and greasy with oil and street dirt.
Damian stood on the second-floor balcony, his hands jammed into the pockets of his dark trousers, a lit cigarette held between his teeth. He didn't smoke often—only when the work ran late and the numbers in his head wouldn't settle down into straight columns.
Rafe appeared behind him, his shoes silent on the wet stone.
"The swab’s in the lab in Northbrook," Rafe said. "They’ll have the markers by noon."
"Good."
"The North Side boys didn't go home," Rafe added, leaning his forearm against the stone balustrade. "They’ve got two cars sitting on State Street, three blocks down. They think we don't see them."
"They’re waiting to see if I’m going to make a move on the dock leases tomorrow," Damian said, exhaling a long plume of blue smoke into the cold air. "They think because I spent three hours in a back room with a waitress, I’m soft."
"Are you?" Rafe asked.
It was a question only Rafe could ask. They had been in the same cell in Cook County when they were nineteen; they had shared the same bread and the same cold soup before Damian’s uncle had paid off the bail warden.
Damian didn't turn his head. "She has my hair, Rafe."
"Lots of kids have dark hair, Damian."
"She has my mother’s eyes," Damian said. "The left one’s slightly darker than the right. You didn't see it because the light was bad."
Rafe spat over the balcony railing onto the wet ivy below. "If the kid’s yours, the North Side’s going to use him. They know you don't have an heir. They know your cousin Marco’s been sitting in Cicero waiting for you to die so he can take the haulage contracts."
"Marco’s a fool," Damian said.
"A fool with thirty guys and four machine guns is still forty percent of a problem," Rafe said. "What are you going to do with her?"
"She stays here."
"She hates you."
"She doesn't have a choice," Damian said, flicking the butt of his cigarette over the stone edge. "She has twenty-two dollars in her bank account and two cracked ribs. Where’s she going to go? Back to Michigan?"
"She could go to the cops."
Damian let out a short, cold sound that was almost a laugh. "The cops in this town don't answer calls from women who work at The Monarch. They answer calls from me."
He turned back toward the dark glass of the library doors. Through the window, he could see the outline of Laurel’s red hair against the green pillow. She hadn't moved. She was sleeping with her arm thrown over the child’s legs, even in her sleep trying to protect the only thing she had left in the world.
"Get two more men on the front gate," Damian said as he pulled the glass door open. "And tell Marco if I see his car on Dearborn Street again before Friday, I’ll take his garage in Berwyn away from him."
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"And the girl?" Rafe asked.
"Give her some clothes from the guest room," Damian said. "And tell the cook to make something with iron in it."
