Chapter 4 - The Confrontation and the Scar
Roderick slowly lowered the gun, tucking it back into his waistband. The silence in the room was broken only by the whistling breath of the old man on the mattress and the steady drip of water from a leak in the ceiling.
"Cyrus," Roderick said without looking back. "Clear the street. Put two men at the corners. If any of Gautier’s people come near this block, put them in the river."
Cyrus nodded once and vanished into the dark hallway.
Roderick walked to the edge of the examination table. He looked down at the nineteen-year-old runner. The boy was shivering despite the humidity.
"What is your name?" Roderick asked.
"Leo, sir," the boy whispered, his lips blue.
"Leo," Roderick said. "The Gautiers do not pay for doctors. If you go back to them, they will use you until you bleed through your stitches, and then they will leave you in a ditch. Do you understand?"
Leo nodded, a single tear cutting through the dirt on his cheek.
"When you can walk," Roderick said, "you go to the warehouse at Pier 9. Ask for Marcus. Tell him I sent you. You will sweep the floors, and you will learn to drive the trucks. If I see you near a heroin block again, I will personally throw you in the canal. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir," the boy sobbed.
Adriana watched Roderick, her expression softening for the first time. She walked to the small sink in the corner, pumping water from a rusted iron handle to wash the dried blood from her forearms.
Roderick followed her. He stood close behind her, smelling the lavender soap she had used to wash her hands, mixed with the sharp copper of the clinic. He reached down and took her left wrist—the one with the faint, jagged scar she always kept hidden beneath her sleeve.
"This didn't come from an accident," Roderick said, his thumb tracing the rough, white tissue.
Adriana stopped pumping the water. She did not pull her hand away.
"No," she said, looking at the water swirling down the rusted drain. "My father was a doctor in Chicago. He took money from the wrong people to pay for my mother’s cancer treatments. When he couldn't pay it back, they came to our house. They broke his hands. They did this to me to show him what would happen if he didn't find the cash."
She turned to face him, her eyes searching his. "He died in a state prison three years later. I came to New Orleans to disappear. I promised myself I would never let another person be broken because they were too poor to be protected. When I met you, Roderick, I was terrified. You had the same look in your eyes as the men who broke my father's hands. But then I saw your shoulder. I saw the way you carried your brother’s death like a physical weight. I realized you weren't a monster. You were just a man who had built a cage around himself."
"You should have told me," Roderick said, his voice cracking slightly. "I would have built this clinic for you in the Garden District. I would have bought you the best equipment in the state."
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"And what would your captains have said?" she asked, a sad smile touching her lips. "The Sabatini family funding a free clinic for the people they exploit? It would have made you look soft, Roderick. In your world, looking soft is a death sentence. I had to keep it separate. For your sake, and for theirs."
Before Roderick could answer, the front door of the house was kicked open with a violent crash.
