Chapter 2 - The Queens Apartment
I drove my own car into the city before the sun came up.
The rain had turned the streets of Queens into a slippery, reflective canvas.
Grant had sent the address to my phone, along with a heavily encrypted file containing the birth certificate.
The document confirmed that Mara had a six-year-old son named Leo.
What troubled me deeply was the blank space where the father’s name should have been.
I parked my black sedan a block away from the crumbling brick apartment building.
This was not a neighborhood where men in tailored suits walked around safely at dawn.
The air smelled of wet asphalt and rotting garbage.
I bypassed the broken front door lock and climbed three flights of dimly lit stairs.
I stood outside apartment 3B and listened to the hollow sounds bleeding through the thin wood.
I could hear the mechanical hum of a cheap medical machine struggling to run.
Then I heard a child coughing, a wet and painful sound that echoed in the hallway.
Mara’s voice followed, speaking in soft, soothing tones that broke my heart.
She was telling the boy to be brave, promising him that she would find a way to pay for his medicine today.
I knew she was lying to him to give him hope.
There was no way a maid could generate forty-four thousand dollars in a single day without resorting to extreme violence.
I raised my hand to knock, but a heavy thud from the opposite end of the hallway stopped me.
Two men wearing dark leather jackets and brass knuckles stepped out of the shadows.
They did not look like debt collectors from a legitimate medical clinic.
They looked like street-level enforcers who broke bones for a living.
One of them kicked Mara’s door violently, shouting for her to open up before they took the door off its hinges.
I stepped back into the dark recess of the stairwell, watching silently.
Mara opened the door a fraction of an inch, her terrified face visible through the narrow gap.
She pleaded with them, swearing she just needed one more week to get the money.
The larger man laughed and slammed his palm against the wood, forcing the door wide open.
He told her the boss was tired of waiting and that they were taking the medical machine as collateral.
Mara screamed as they pushed past her into the tiny apartment.
I pulled my suppressed pistol from my shoulder holster and stepped out of the shadows.
I walked through the open doorway just as the enforcer reached for the breathing machine.
I shot him in the kneecap without saying a word.
The man collapsed in agony, dropping to the cheap linoleum floor.
His partner turned toward me, his eyes widening in absolute terror.
He slowly raised his hands and stammered that I was making a huge mistake.
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The bleeding man on the floor groaned in pain, clutching his shattered leg.
He looked up at me and laughed through his bloody teeth, claiming that Vanessa Marino had personally sent them to ensure the child died.
