Chapter 3 - The Nest in the Clouds
The penthouse looked different with a bicycle propped against the designer chrome shelving in the hallway.
Vincent stood in the center of the kitchen—a vast expanse of white marble and stainless steel that usually looked like a surgical theater—watching Leo attack a bowl of vanilla ice cream with a silver spoon that was nearly as big as his face.
"You're making a mess," Vincent said, though there was no heat in his voice.
"It's good," Leo mumbled through a mouthful of whipped cream and chocolate syrup. "Is this what rich people eat every day?"
"Rich people usually eat salads," Vincent said, pulling a stool out from the island and sitting down opposite the boy. "Salads are miserable. You made the right choice."
Leo giggled, swinging his legs back and forth so his sneakers banged rhythmically against the metal legs of the stool. "Can I keep the bike in my room?"
"You don't have a room yet, Leo."
"The big room with the glass wall?"
"That's my room."
"Can we share?"
Vincent looked at the boy. The dark circles under Leo's eyes were starting to fade, replaced by a healthy pink flush in his cheeks after a week of proper meals and warm baths. His hair had been cut by a stylist who looked terrified when Vincent brought the boy into the salon on the North Side, but the result made Leo look less like a street urchin and more like a normal six-year-old child.
"We can look for a room for you tomorrow," Vincent said softly. "An apartment down the hall. Or we can knock through the drywall and build one right next to mine."
"Will there be stars?"
"Fifty floors up? The stars are the only thing you'll see."
Leo stopped swinging his legs. He set the spoon down in the empty bowl, wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve—a habit Vincent had decided to ignore for at least another week—and stared up at the man across the island.
"Why are you doing this, Dad?"
The word didn't sound strange anymore. It had settled into the quiet spaces of the penthouse like it had always belonged there.
"Doing what?"
"Being nice to me. Everyone else told me to get lost. The men at the diner, the cops by the station, the lady with the clipboard who came to the park yesterday—"
Vincent stiffened. "What lady with a clipboard?"
"Yesterday. When you were talking on the phone by the fountain. She asked me my name, where I slept, if you hit me." Leo shrugged, his small shoulders shifting under the oversized sweater. "I told her you bought me a bike and a burger, and she looked mad. She said you weren't my real dad."
Vincent's jaw tightened until the muscle jumped beneath his skin. Social services. Arthur Vance must have triggered the emergency expedited guardianship filing through the family court judge they owned on the west side, but the municipal investigators were still sniffing around, trying to find a reason to deny the petition.
"She doesn't know anything," Vincent said, his voice dropping into that cold, steady register that brooked no argument. "You belong here now, Leo. Nobody is taking you back to the street."
"Promise?"
Vincent reached across the marble island, his large, calloused hand engulfing the boy's small fingers. His skin was warm. That was the thing Vincent had forgotten—how much heat a small human body generated, how different it was from the cold metal of the skyscrapers and the chill of the accounts.
"I promise," Vincent said. "Nothing touches you while I'm breathing."
Later that night, after Leo had finally fallen asleep in the guest suite down the hall—wrapped in three Egyptian cotton blankets and clutching a plush wolf that Julian had somehow procured from an upscale toy store at midnight—Vincent stood in his private study on the mezzanine level.
The door was open a crack. Julian stood just outside, holding a leather folder against his chest like a shield.
"The social worker's report was flagged," Julian said quietly. "A woman named Sarah Jenkins. She's clean—too clean. No political donations, no record of taking payouts from our network."
"Then she's being used," Vincent said, pouring a glass of scotch without looking at the bottle. "Who's backing her?"
"That's the problem, Vince. Her supervisor at the department is a man named Henderson—no relation to the grocer. Henderson retired from the state police five years ago with a pension that doesn't cover his gambling debts in Atlantic City. Three weeks ago, three hundred thousand dollars was wired into an offshore account in his name from a shell company registered in Panama."
Vincent stopped pouring. The amber liquid hit the rim of the glass, spilling a single drop onto the polished wood of the desk.
"Marcone," Vincent said.
"Marcone," Julian confirmed. "He's not just coming for the boy, Vince. He's setting a legal trap. If the state revokes the guardianship on the grounds of your criminal history, the city takes the boy into protective custody. Once he's in the state system, he goes to a public shelter on the east side."
"Where security is lax," Vincent finished, his eyes narrowing until they were nothing more than hard gray slits. "Where anyone can walk in off the street with a forged ID and take him out the back door."
"They're not just trying to hurt you," Julian said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "They're trying to break you in public. A custody battle on the front page of every newspaper in the state. The Wolf exposed as a criminal trying to buy a child's soul."
Vincent looked up at the ceiling, toward the room where Leo was sleeping. He could hear the faint, rhythmic sound of the boy's breathing through the intercom system he had installed that afternoon.
"Let them try the courts," Vincent said, turning around with the glass in his hand. "Arthur can fight them in front of the judges for as long as they want."
"And if they bypass the courts?"
May you like
Vincent took a slow sip of the scotch, the burn hitting the back of his throat like fire.
"Then they'll find out why they used to call me the Wolf."
