Chapter 3 - THE STORAGE UNIT HELD A HORRIFYING TRUTH
The silence in the empty nursery was suffocating.
Dominic’s face turned the color of ash.
For a man who controlled half the criminal underworld in Chicago, he suddenly looked incredibly small.
“Margaret, give me the watch,” he said.
His voice wasn't a request. It was an order.
Vanessa took a step back, her hands instinctively wrapping around her pregnant stomach.
“Dominic?” she asked, her voice wavering. “What is she talking about? My father died twenty years ago. Why would his name be in your watch?”
Dominic ignored her. He took a slow, menacing step toward me.
“It’s business, Maggie. Old business. It has nothing to do with Charlotte.”
“Don't you dare say her name!” I screamed, scrambling backward until my spine hit the cold plaster wall.
I held the deposit slip tightly in my fist.
Three million dollars.
Twenty-three years ago, Dominic and I had barely enough money to afford our small apartment. He was just a low-level enforcer.
But the month after Charlotte died, Dominic miraculously bought his first waterfront warehouse. He told me he had taken a loan from a loan shark.
He built his entire empire on a lie.
“You traded her,” I breathed, the horrific realization settling over me like a suffocating blanket. “Carlo Bellini was your boss back then. What did you do, Dominic? What did you sell him?”
Dominic rubbed his jaw, his eyes darting toward Vanessa, then back to me.
“Paulie!” Dominic barked over his shoulder.
Heavy footsteps thundered up the stairs. Paulie, a massive man with a scarred neck and dead eyes, appeared in the doorway.
“Boss?”
“Escort Vanessa to the car. Take her back to her penthouse,” Dominic ordered.
Vanessa protested. “Dominic, I’m not leaving until—”
“Now, Vanessa!” he roared.
The sheer volume of his voice made the windows rattle.
Vanessa flinched. She looked at me, a flicker of genuine fear in her eyes, before she turned and let Paulie guide her out of the room.
Once we were alone, Dominic slowly knelt in front of me.
He reached out to touch my knee, but I slapped his hand away.
“Maggie, you have to listen to me,” he said, his voice dropping to a frantic whisper. “Carlo Bellini didn't pay me for our daughter. He paid me for my silence.”
I stared at him.
“The night Charlotte was born, there was a hit at the hospital,” Dominic confessed, the words pouring out like poison. “Carlo sent men to kill a rival boss who was in the ICU. The hospital went into lockdown. The nurses were pulled away. The pediatrician was delayed.”
My stomach churned.
I remembered the chaos. The alarms. The frantic pressing of the call button while my baby struggled to breathe.
“They didn't reach her in time because of Carlo’s men,” Dominic whispered, tears finally spilling over his eyelashes. “When Carlo found out his hit caused the death of my child, he bought my silence to prevent a war. He gave me the seed money for my empire.”
I felt physically sick.
My husband had taken blood money over avenging our child.
He had built his wealth on the price of her life.
And now, he was bringing Carlo Bellini’s daughter into our home to replace me.
I stood up, pushing past him.
“Margaret, where are you going?” he asked.
“To get my daughter’s things,” I said coldly.
I didn't pack a bag. I didn't change my clothes.
I walked out of the mansion, got into my Mercedes, and drove into the freezing Chicago rain.
Dominic had said Paulie put Charlotte’s belongings in a climate-controlled storage unit downtown. I knew the facility. It was the one Dominic used for his legitimate business records.
I arrived at the facility just past midnight.
The night watchman recognized me and let me in.
I walked down the long, fluorescent-lit corridor to Unit 402.
My hands shook as I punched in our anniversary date on the keypad.
The heavy metal door rolled up with a screech.
I stepped inside, reaching for the light string.
I expected to see the white oak crib. The boxes of tiny dresses. The rocking chair.
The light flickered on.
The unit was completely empty.
Except for one thing sitting perfectly in the center of the concrete floor.
It was a small, rusted metal incinerator bin.
The smell of smoke and burnt plastic still hung heavy in the air.
I walked slowly toward the bin.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
I looked inside.
At the bottom of the bin lay a pile of grey ashes.
And resting on top of the ashes, completely untouched by the fire, was a small, perfectly preserved child’s drawing.
I reached in and pulled it out.
It was a drawing of a house with a yellow roof, drawn in wobbly green crayon.
I had never seen it before in my life.
Charlotte died at birth. She never lived to hold a crayon.
I flipped the drawing over.
Written on the back, in an adult’s handwriting, were four words that made the floor drop out from under me:
May you like
She survived the poison.
TITLE: THE PAWNBROKER WHO REMEMBERED MY FACE
