Chapter 3 - The Waking Giant
"Lucia!" Marisol screamed, rushing forward to pull her child away from the bed.
In the Kant family, a waking monster was far more dangerous than a sleeping one.
"Don't move!" Francesca commanded, her hand dropping inside her tailored jacket. The metallic glint of a small, snub-nosed revolver caught the harsh fluorescent light of the room. She wasn't pointing it at Marisol; she was pointing it at the door. "If the guards outside hear a commotion, they will alert Marco. And if Marco knows my brother is conscious, neither of us leaves this floor alive."
Marisol stopped dead in her tracks, her hands raised, her body shielding Lucia.
On the bed, the breathing was harsh and ragged. Daario’s chest rose and fell like a bellows. The oxygen mask fogged with every heavy exhalation. His hand—thick, battle-scarred, with broken knuckles that had healed wrong—refused to let go of Lucia’s small fingers.
"Clara..." Daario’s voice came out as a broken, sandpaper rasp. It was barely a whisper, a sound that seemed to tear his throat on the way out.
He blinked heavily, trying to clear the three-week fog from his vision. His dark eyes, famous in the city’s criminal underworld for their terrifying lack of mercy, were wide, dilated, and fixed entirely on Lucia’s small face.
"No, Mister Daario," Lucia said softly, not looking afraid at all. She used her free hand to pat his massive knuckles. "I'm Lucia. You were sleeping a really long time."
Daario’s jaw worked silently. Tears, thick and slow, welled in the corners of his bloodshot eyes and tracked down into his graying stubble. He squeezed her hand again—carefully, precisely, as if terrified that if he squeezed too hard, the small child would dissolve into mist.
"Francesca..." Daario rasped, his head turning an inch toward his sister.
Francesca lowered her weapon, her face pale. "Daario. Can you hear me? Can you speak?"
"Where... is she?" Daario choked out, his throat working violently. "The baby... Clara said... she had to hide her..."
Francesca looked from her brother’s tortured face to Marisol, whose chest was heaving with silent, terrified sobs.
"She’s right here, Daario," Francesca whispered, her sharp voice suddenly cracking with an emotion she couldn't suppress. She pointed a silver-manicured finger at Lucia. "She’s been standing beside your bed for two weeks."
Daario’s gaze shifted back to Lucia. His breath hitched. His eyes swept over her small forehead, her dark eyes, the shape of her small nose. He looked at Marisol, standing paralyzed in her blue maid’s apron.
"You..." Daario rasped, staring at Marisol. "You kept her?"
"I... I raised her," Marisol sobbed, dropping to her knees beside the bed, keeping her arms wrapped tightly around Lucia’s waist. "I didn't know who she was! I swear to God, I didn't know! A woman left her at the parish sanctuary six years ago wrapped in the yellow blanket. I loved her! I have taken care of her every single day!"
Daario closed his eyes for three long seconds. A single heavy sob wracked his chest, causing the heart monitors to spike wildly.
When he opened his eyes again, the disorientation was gone. The fog of the coma had burned away, replaced by the terrifying, razor-sharp focus that had made Daario Kant the ruler of the city’s shadows for fifteen years.
"Marco..." Daario whispered, his voice gaining a terrifying, low authority despite his raw vocal cords. "Who... cut... the line?"
Francesca stepped closer to the head of the bed, her face hardening into stone. "It was Marco. He paid off the mechanic in the East District. He’s already secured five of the seven capos for the vote on Friday. He thinks you’re brain-dead, Daario. He’s planning to take the docks by midnight tomorrow."
Daario didn't look surprised. He slowly pulled the oxygen mask off his face, dropping it onto the sheets.
"Call... Doctor Vance," Daario ordered his sister. "The one... who owes me... the gambling debt."
"Vance is off duty," Francesca said. "The attending physician is Marco’s man."
"Then buy him," Daario growled. His hand finally loosened its grip on Lucia’s hand, resting heavily on the bedrail. He looked at Marisol. "Woman."
Marisol looked up, her eyes wide with terror. "Yes... sir?"
"What is your name?"
"Marisol."
Daario looked at her intensely. For a terrifying moment, Marisol thought he was going to order his sister to execute her to keep the secret buried.
Instead, Daario reached out his broad, scarred hand and laid his palm gently against Marisol’s trembling shoulder.
"You gave her... a roof?" he asked softly.
"Yes," Marisol whispered. "And food. And love."
"Then you... are family now," Daario rasped, his dark eyes flashing with a fierce, iron intensity. "And nobody... touches my family."
He turned his head toward Francesca. "Keep the monitor flatlining. Bring Vance in through the service elevator. Tell the guards outside... that the maid and her child... are under my personal protection."
"Daario, you can't even stand up," Francesca warned. "You've been in a coma for twenty-one days. Your muscles—"
"Get... Vance," Daario snapped, his voice dropping into a tone that made even his formidable sister step back.
He turned his gaze back to Lucia, who was staring at him with bright, curious eyes.
"Lucia," Daario said, his broad face softening into an expression no mobster in the city had ever seen on him—a look of raw, unadulterated fatherly devotion.
"Yes, Mister Daario?"
"Sing it... again," he whispered, closing his eyes as his body fought the immense physical toll of regaining consciousness. "Sing the song."
Lucia smiled, leaned her elbows on the steel bedrail, and began to sing.
May you like
“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine...”
As the small girl’s voice filled the room, Daario Kant lay back against the pillows, his jaw set like granite, his mind already calculating the absolute destruction of every man who had ever dared to threaten the child holding his hand.
