Chapter 2 - The Red Bow
Elena felt the blood rush from her extremities, pooling like lead in her stomach. Outside, the sleet turned to heavier snow, ticking against the glass like restless fingernails. She kept her palms pinned to the wooden table, her knuckles whitening until the skin stretched translucent.
""You're mistaken,"" Elena said, her voice dropping to a harsh, trembling whisper so as not to disturb the girl. ""You've been out of the city for five years, Julian. You don't have the right to walk into my workplace and start imagining ghosts.""
Julian didn't blink. He took half a step forward, the wool of his coat brushing the edges of the red server apron tied around her waist. The smell of him hadn't changed—bergamot, tobacco smoke, and the cold metallic tang of high-end gun oil. It was the scent of the penthouse she had fled in the dead of winter five Decembers ago, carrying only a single duffel bag and a positive test in her pocket.
""Ghosts don't breathe,"" Julian replied smoothly. He reached out. Elena flinched, preparing to throw herself between his arm and the booth, but his hand stopped inches short of Lily’s face. His thumb delicately brushed the satin edge of the red bow tied in the little girl's hair. ""And they certainly don't inherit the Vance heart murmur. Arthur tells me you spend three hundred dollars every other week at the downtown pediatric clinic.""
Elena’s spine stiffened. ""You spoke to Arthur?""
""Arthur owes me four hundred thousand dollars and his life,"" Julian said casually, as if remarking on the weather forecast. ""He’s very eager to ensure his dining room remains peaceful. Which means he answers my calls.""
Lily shifted in her sleep, a small whimper escaping her parted lips. Her tiny eyelids fluttered, lashes long and dark against her cheeks. Julian’s hand didn't retract; instead, his posture grew unnervingly still, like a predator pausing at an unexpected sound.
""You vanished into the gutter to raise an heiress on tips?"" Julian asked, his voice losing its mocking edge, replaced by something dangerously flat.
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""She’s not an heiress,"" Elena hissed. ""She’s a child. And she has nothing to do with you or your family.""
Julian reached slowly into the inner pocket of his coat. Elena tensed, expecting a custody subpoena, or worse. Instead, he withdrew an old black-and-white hospital printout, folded in neat quarters, and laid it directly onto the wet ring her cleaning rag had left behind.
