ena
abella so cleverly masked in her cQueens distillery had been partitioned with heavy canvas tarps, creating a
ing the extraction. Nonna Elena knelt at the foot of the bed, her rosary beads clicking softly in the dim light. I didn't pray. I
le ticked beneath his skin. He had promised me a doctor. He n
sted Underboss, pushed through the canvas flaps. His usually s
demanded, his voice
s curling into fists. "Dr. A
atever he wanted, Leo. Dr
. Alistair Kirkland bought him. The contract explicitly states Alcott is forbidden from tre
over the infirmary, broken only
he bullets was dangerous; a Don who controlled the scalpels was a god. Kirkland's power wasn't just in his soldiers; it was woven
rival family. We were fighting an invisible, suffo
ate, clawing need by nightfall. I needed a reason to keep breath
Hobbs and I slipped past the rusted, pol
rs ago. Now, it was nothing but a blackened skeleton looming under the pale moonlight. Weed
and resting on the grip of his holstered weapon.
my grandfather's study. The roof had caved in, and the mahogany bookshelves were reduced to splinter
ere
artment my grandfather had shown me when I was a little girl. Insidd closer, clicking on a small flashlight, casting
out the rolled parchment.
, a seven-year-old holding a wooden wooden horse. They progressed, year by year, until the final sketch-a si
o forget her. The Professor had taught me that nostalgia was a
ily, and future had been violently stol
ger," I whispered into the dark, not car
or The Professor anymore. It wasn't just a
clutching it to my chest like a shield. The cold, perfect we
Derek," I said,
ing the ghosts of my past back to the distillery, w
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