Chapter 2 - The Crimson Stain
The silence in the cramped apartment felt heavier than the rain beating against the thin windowpanes. Maeve stood in the doorway of her tiny kitchen, the silver Zippo frozen in her right hand. The Roman numeral V cut into the metal gleamed under the flickering fluorescent bulb overhead.
Arthur Romano didn’t move from the vinyl armchair. His dark head rested against the faded floral pattern of the cushion, but his one unswollen grey eye followed her every breath. Beside him, Titan, the massive Cane Corso, lay sprawled on the cheap rug, his heavy head resting squarely over Maeve’s scuffed work boots as if claiming her as his official guard.
“You know the mark,” Arthur said softly. His voice was a low, rasping growl, gravel dragged across velvet.
“Everyone in the North End knows it,” Maeve whispered, her thumb brushing the cold silver. “The Romano Syndicate. They say you own the docks, the distribution centers, and half the judges in the precinct.”
“Supposedly,” Arthur replied. He winced slightly as he shifted, his hand rising to touch the fresh linen bandage wrapped tightly around his ribs. “Though at the moment, I seem to own nothing more than a ruined suit, a bleeding flank, and a seat in a stranger’s kitchen.”
“Why were you behind Carmichael’s?” Maeve stepped closer, though every survival instinct honed over twenty-four years of poverty warned her to step back. “A man like you doesn’t end up muzzled and tied to a steam pipe because of bad luck.”
Arthur’s mouth twitched into the ghost of a bitter smile. “Bad luck? No. Bad judgment. I trusted a man who called himself my brother. Julian Vance.”
Maeve’s breath hitched. She recognized that name too. Julian Vance was the smooth-talking underboss who frequently appeared in local newspaper society pages, donating money to city museums while managing the syndicate’s legal fronts.
“Julian turned on you?”
“He made a play for the throne,” Arthur said simply. “He thought if he killed me quietly in an alley and tossed my dog in the river, he could step into the vacuum by morning. He didn’t account for Titan fighting like a demon, or for a stubborn waitress refusing to leave a trash bag behind.”
Titan let out a soft huff at the mention of his name, his tail giving a heavy, thump-thump against the floor.
Maeve looked from the dog to the man whose life she had just saved. Her apartment was forty square feet of peeling wallpaper, leaking pipes, and late notices. She made twelve dollars an hour plus tips. She was invisible to the city. But standing before Arthur Romano, she felt the sudden, terrifying shift of the world sliding off its axis.
“You can’t stay here,” she said, her voice trembling slightly. “If Vance is looking for you, he’ll check the cameras around the diner. He’ll find my license plate.”
Arthur stared at her, his pale grey eye sharpening with an intensity that made her chest tighten. “You’re smarter than most of the men on my payroll, Maeve Nolan.”
“I’m not smart. I’m broke,” she corrected fiercely. “And broke people can’t afford to get caught in mob wars.”
Before Arthur could answer, a low, wet growl vibrated deep within Titan’s chest. The dog’s ears flattened against his broad skull. He sat up in an instant, his dark body rigid, staring directly at the front door.
Maeve froze.
Outside in the narrow hallway, the old wooden floorboards creaked. Slow. Deliberate. Steps that didn't belong to her eighty-year-old neighbor Mrs. Gable.
Arthur reached toward his side out of pure instinct, but his suit coat was shredded and his weapon was gone. His eyes snapped to Maeve. “Behind me,” he ordered, his voice dropping into absolute command.
May you like
“In my own apartment? Not a chance,” Maeve whispered back. She quietly set the lighter on the counter and gripped the iron skillet sitting on her stove.
The doorknob turned once, slowly, testing the lock.
