Chapter 3 - The Wolves at the Door
The neon glow of a flickering streetlamp cut through the cracked window of the third-floor apartment in Bridgeport.
Emma sat at the small, laminate-topped kitchen table, the quiet hum of the ancient refrigerator filling the silence. The clock on the wall read 2:15 AM. Spread out before her were three past-due medical notices from the Illinois Medical Center, a red-stamped disconnection warning for their gas line, and Clara’s university tuition installment form.
Seven thousand four hundred dollars.
That was the exact number required to keep her family from drowning this month.
Emma pressed her forehead into her palms, breathing slowly. Her wrist was swollen and bruised from Victoria’s heavy gold cuff, but she didn’t care about the pain. She was still reeling from the events of the evening. The sound of Victoria’s screech, the terrifying calm of Vincent Moretti, and the way the entire high-society ballroom had bent to his absolute will played on an endless loop in her mind.
*“I’ll remember your name.”*
His voice echoed in her head. It wasn’t a threat, yet it carried the weight of an inescapable promise.
A soft shuffling sound broke her train of thought. Emma quickly gathered the bills and shoved them beneath an old phone book.
Her father, Thomas Carter, appeared in the doorway of the narrow hallway. He was wrapped in a faded flannel robe, clutching his chest with one hand while leaning heavily on an aluminum cane. At fifty-two, he looked twenty years older, his face hollowed by chronic congestive heart failure and endless rounds of experimental medication that insurance refused to cover.
“Emma, sweetheart?” Thomas’s voice was raspy. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
Emma forced a bright, reassuring smile onto her face, rising quickly to help him into a chair. “Just unwinding after the shift, Dad. You shouldn't be out of bed. Did you take your water pill before sleep?”
“I took it,” Thomas sighed, sinking into the vinyl seat. He looked down at her hands and immediately frowned, reaching out to catch her right wrist. “What happened here? You’re bruised, Em.”
Emma flinched slightly but kept her tone light. “Just a clumsy busboy dropping a silver tray at the banquet. I tried to catch it before it hit the floor. It looks worse than it is.”
Thomas’s weathered eyes filled with deep, agonizing guilt. He rubbed his calloused thumb over the back of her hand. “You’re working eighty hours a week between the diner and the catering shifts. Clara tells me you skipped dinner twice this week. You’re killing yourself for us, Emma.”
“I’m fine, Dad,” Emma whispered, leaning her head against his frail shoulder. “We’re a team. Mom told me to keep us together, remember? We just have to get Clara through her junior year of pre-med. Once she graduates, she’ll be a doctor, you’ll have your new heart valve, and I’m going to sleep for three whole weeks.”
Thomas let out a weak, bittersweet chuckle, but his eyes were rimmed with red. “I was supposed to provide for you girls. Not the other way around.”
“You gave us everything you had until your heart gave out,” Emma insisted, kissing his cheek. “Now go back to bed. I have the breakfast shift at the diner in five hours.”
After coaxing her father back to his room and ensuring his oxygen concentrator was running smoothly, Emma lay down on the lumpy pull-out sofa in the living room. Exhaustion pulled at her limbs, but sleep remained elusive.
At 7:30 AM, the sharp, relentless buzzing of Emma’s cell phone jolted her awake.
She fumbled for the phone, blinking against the harsh morning sun filtering through the blinds. The caller ID showed the staffing agency that booked her catering gigs.
“Hello? Mrs. Gable?” Emma answered groggily.
“Emma Carter?” The voice on the other end was icy, laced with corporate venom. “Don’t bother showing up for your scheduled shifts at the Drake or the Palmer House this weekend. In fact, your profile has been deactivated from our network.”
Emma bolted upright, her heart plummeting. “What? Mrs. Gable, why? I didn't do anything wrong! If this is about last night—”
“I don't know what you did, girl, but Langford Capital contacted our regional director directly an hour ago,” Mrs. Gable snapped. “They made it very clear that any hospitality agency employing you will lose their corporate event contracts across the entire tri-state area. We’re a business, Emma. We can’t afford you. Lose this number.”
*Click.*
The dial tone droned in Emma’s ear.
Emma sat paralyzed on the sofa. *Victoria Langford.* Even after Vincent Moretti had stripped her of her family loan, the Langford influence still had enough venom left to crush an insignificant waitress. Victoria couldn’t touch Moretti, so she was aiming her rage downward—at Emma’s throat.
Before Emma could even process the catastrophe, a violent pounding shook their front door.
*BANG. BANG. BANG.*
“Open up! Carter! We know you’re in there!” a gruff voice bellowed from the hallway.
Emma sprang to her feet, terror spiking through her veins. She rushed to the door, peering through the peephole. Two heavy-set men in cheap leather jackets were standing outside. Apex Debt Recovery—the predatory collection agency that had purchased her father’s unpaid medical bills from his first surgery two years ago.
She unlocked the chain and opened the door a crack. “Keep your voice down! My father has a severe heart condition!”
The larger of the two men, a scarred brute chewing a toothpick, jammed his boot into the doorframe. “Then maybe you should pay his bills, princess. Twelve thousand dollars in arrears. The court judgment cleared yesterday. You pay three thousand right now, or we start placing liens on your furniture and your sister’s car out front.”
“I don't have three thousand dollars today!” Emma pleaded in a desperate whisper, trying not to wake Thomas. “I had an arrangement with Mr. Rossi to pay five hundred on the fifteenth—”
“Rossi got reassigned. I’m handling it now,” the brute snarled, pushing the door open wider, invading her personal space. “Three grand. Or we take the television, the computer, and the keys to that beat-up Civic downstairs. Don’t play games with me, girl.”
“Get your hands off that door!” a voice snapped from the apartment hallway.
Clara, nineteen years old, clutching her backpack and biology textbooks, was standing halfway up the stairs, her eyes blazing with fury and fear. “Get away from my sister!”
“Clara, stay back!” Emma shouted.
The collector sneered at Clara, then turned back to Emma, reaching inside his jacket to pull out a clipboard. “You’ve got twenty-four hours, Carter. Tomorrow morning, we come back with a marshal and a moving truck. Have the cash, or start packing boxes.”
He turned to leave, but as he stepped toward the stairwell, he stopped dead in his tracks.
Coming up the narrow, peeling staircase was a man whose presence looked entirely absurd in a rundown South Side apartment building.
He wore a tailored charcoal wool overcoat, an Italian silk tie, and handmade leather shoes that didn't make a sound against the cracked linoleum. Two massive men in matching dark suits flanked him. It was Marcus Vance.
The debt collector scowled, trying to maintain his intimidating stance. “Hey, buddy, this is private business. Move aside.”
Marcus didn't even blink. He reached out, grabbed the collector by the lapels of his leather jacket with one hand, and slammed him against the stairwell wall with enough force to rattle the light fixture above.
“You have five seconds to leave this building,” Marcus said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “If you ever speak to Miss Carter or her family again, I will have your agency audited into bankruptcy, and your personal licenses revoked by noon.”
The collector choked, looking into Marcus’s cold, lethal eyes. The bravado evaporated in an instant. “Alright! Alright! We’re going! Jesus!”
Marcus released him. The two collectors practically tumbled down the stairs in their rush to get to the exit.
Clara stood frozen against the wall, clutching her books like a shield. Emma remained at her doorway, completely stunned.
Marcus turned, straightened his cuffs, and walked up the remaining steps. He stopped in front of Emma and offered a respectful, crisp nod.
“Miss Carter,” Marcus said formally. “Mr. Moretti requested that I bring you to his office. A car is waiting downstairs.”
Emma’s breath hitched. “Mr. Moretti? Did… did he send you to deal with those men?”
May you like
“Mr. Moretti anticipates problems before they escalate, Miss Carter,” Marcus replied smoothly. “Please, take whatever you need. We have an appointment at the Moretti Tower in forty minutes.”
***
