Chapter 2 - THE SWAN AND THE SHADOW
Madame Yvette did not care about the Moretti crime family.
She was seventy-two years old, weighed eighty-five pounds soaking wet, smelled intensely of lavender water and menthol cigarettes, and possessed the temper of an enraged wolverine.
"NO! NO! NO!" she shrieked, slamming her wooden cane against the hardwood floor of the private studio I had leased in SoHo so Lily wouldn't have to practice in the drafty orphanage gym. "You are an oak tree with cement shoes, Mr. Moretti! Lightness! Grace! The swan does not crush the lake beneath its boots; the swan glides!"
I stood in the center of the studio. My tailored suit jacket was draped over a chair. My sleeves were rolled up, exposing the dark black ink of dragons and Latin verse coiled around my forearms. Around my waist, pinned by safety pins because no store in Manhattan sold one that fit a 260-pound frame, was a massive tutu made of stiff pink tulle.
Lily sat in her wheelchair by the mirrors, clutching her sides, her laughter ringing like small silver bells through the high-ceilinged room.
"Look at his face, Madame Yvette!" she giggled. "He looks like he wants to eat the mirror!"
"Arms up, Mr. Dinosaur!" Madame Yvette barked, ignoring my lethal glare.
I raised both arms, curving them over my head as instructed.
"Higher!"
I lifted them until my shoulders burned.
"Now smile! You're supposed to be a beautiful swan, not an angry refrigerator!"
That was when Marco, standing by the double security doors with an earpiece humming, completely lost control of his lungs.
The snort echoed off the glass.
I turned slowly. Marco immediately clapped both hands over his mouth, turning bright red, his broad shoulders shaking.
"YOU'RE FIRED!" Lily shouted, pointing a tiny finger at my head of security. "Fired from ballet! You don't respect the dancers!"
Marco looked at me, pleading with his eyes.
"You heard the artistic director," I said without dropping my arms. "Apologize to Miss Harper."
Marco cleared his throat, bowed his head, and mumbled, "My deepest apologies, Miss Lily. I lacked decorum."
"Better," she sniffed, tossing her curls. "Now, Mr. Dominic, the lift. The music is starting."
Madame Yvette dropped the needle on the vintage record player. The soaring strings of Tchaikovsky’s *Swan Lake* filled the studio.
I took a breath, letting the tension leave my jaw. Stepping forward, I approached the wheelchair. Over the last two weeks, we had developed our own routine. Lily couldn't support her weight for long, but her upper body was strong from hauling herself through physical therapy.
I leaned down, sliding my hands beneath her arms, supporting her torso and ribs with a gentle precision that surprised even me.
"Ready, swan?" I murmured.
"Ready, dinosaur," she whispered back, her small hands locking securely around my wrists.
On the crescendo, I lifted.
I didn't just hoist her; I pressed upward with my shoulders, extending my arms until Lily was suspended six feet in the air, framed against the warm afternoon sunlight streaming through the loft windows. Her lavender skirt flared out like wings. Her braces hung light and forgotten.
She let out a gasp of pure, unfiltered joy—a sound so bright it felt entirely alien to the concrete and gunpowder reality I had inhabited for forty years.
"I'm flying!" she cried out softly. "Dominic, look! I'm flying!"
"I see you, princess," I said, holding her perfectly still, my muscles locked like steel beams so she wouldn't feel even a tremor of instability. "Point your toes."
She pointed them, arching her back gracefully, arms spreading wide just as Madame Yvette had drilled into her. For ten full seconds, the broken child of the West Side Highway crash was weightless.
When I brought her back down, lowering her gently into the cushioned seat of her chair, she was breathless, her cheeks flushed with pink. She immediately reached up and adjusted my ridiculous tulle skirt.
"You did good," she approved gravely. "You get an extra button for that."
"Keep your money, kid. Just drink your water."
As Lily turned to argue with Madame Yvette about whether swans were allowed to eat Oreos between routines, Marco caught my eye. The humor had vanished entirely from his posture. His jaw was tight, his hand resting instinctively near his left armpit.
I stepped away, walking over to the observation rail where Marco waited.
"Report," I commanded softly, the warmth in my chest instantly freezing back into ice.
"We ran Elena Harper’s files, boss. Just like you asked." Marco handed me a thin manila folder tucked inside a leather portfolio. "It’s bad."
I opened it. Inside were bank transfers, land registry deeds, and autopsy photos.
"Elena Harper wasn't just an archivist," Marco whispered. "Her grandfather was Thomas Vance Harper. Co-founder of Vance-Harper Maritime. The grandfather set up a blind trust twenty years ago—twenty-five percent of the Brooklyn container terminals. When Elena died, the shares were supposed to dissolve into the general board... *unless* she had an heir."
My eyes darkened. "Viktor Vance."
"Viktor Vance," Marco confirmed grimly. "If Lily dies or is declared permanently incapacitated without legal guardianship before her seventh birthday next month, Vance’s holding company absorbs the shares. That’s ninety million dollars in deep-water shipping lanes. The car that clipped Elena’s sedan on the West Side Highway? Stolen plates. Recovered two days later burned to the chassis in an industrial park in Queens."
I looked across the room. Lily was currently balanced on one foot, holding Madame Yvette’s cane for support, sticking her tongue out as she tried to balance a plastic tiara on her head.
A little girl worth ninety million dollars, left to rot in an underfunded orphanage while the man who murdered her mother sat in a penthouse overlooking Central Park, sipping scotch and waiting for the clock to run out.
"Does Vance know she's at St. Catherine's?" I asked, my voice chillingly calm.
"He didn't care while she was a ward of the state with no representation," Marco said. "The state court was scheduled to quietly move her to a permanent long-term care facility upstate next week. But yesterday... our legal team filed the preliminary intent papers for your private guardianship."
"And Vance found out."
"His people started sniffing around St. Catherine’s an hour ago. Boss... he knows you’re involved. He thinks you’re making a play for his shipping terminals."
"He thinks I care about the terminals?" I closed the folder with a sharp snap.
Suddenly, the studio’s heavy glass window shattered.
A sharp, high-velocity *crack* echoed through the room. A spiderweb of fractures blossomed across the reinforced glass just six inches above where Lily was standing.
"DOWN!" I roared.
May you like
In a single movement, I crossed the ten feet between us, kicking the pink tutu off my legs with a violent rip as my body slammed between Lily and the window. I grabbed her small frame, pulling her down behind the heavy mahogany grand piano just as three more rounds punched through the brick and plaster, showering the floor with dust and pulverized drywall.
---
