Chapter 2 - The Cold Floor
Three months later.
The radiator in the corner of the apartment clanked and hissed, belching out a faint puff of metallic steam before going dead quiet again.
I sat on the edge of the worn hand-me-down sofa, wrapped in a faded wool blanket, holding Elliot against my chest. Outside the frost-rimed window, the Chicago winter was in full force, whipping cold winds through the narrow brick alleyways of Logan Square.
Inside the apartment, the air was cold enough that I could see my own breath as a faint white mist.
It had been ninety days since I left St. Bernard Hospital, and my parents had made good on every single threat.
The day after I brought Elliot home, my bank account was frozen under a court motion filed by my father’s legal team, claiming "financial irregularity" regarding funds transferred from my late fiancé’s estate. My car—which was titled under my father’s corporate fleet—was repossessed from the street outside my building while I was feeding Elliot.
When I applied for remote research work with local historical archives, three potential employers backed out at the final interview stage, citing sudden "budget restructurings." I didn't need to guess who had called their board members.
My father was trying to starve me into submission. He wanted me broke, desperate, and shivering on his doorstep, begging him to take the baby away.
"Not going to happen, sweet boy," I murmured, kissing Elliot’s soft forehead. He was wearing three layers of onesies and a tiny knitted cap that Maya had made for him.
A sharp, rhythmic knock rattled the thin wooden front door of the apartment.
I froze, my body instantly going tense. I looked at the clock on the wall: 7:15 PM.
Setting Elliot gently into his portable bassinet near the electric space heater—the only working heat source in the room—I walked over to the door and looked through the peephole.
Standing in the dimly lit hallway was Arthur’s older brother, Marcus Vance.
My heart skipped a beat. Marcus was a man I hadn't seen since Arthur’s funeral four months ago. He was thirty-two, built broad and lean, with the same sharp jawline and deep-set grey eyes as Arthur, but where Arthur had been warm and expressive, Marcus was quiet, stoic, and intimidatingly intense. He worked as a chief investigator for a private security firm in state government.
I unlatched the chain and pulled the door open.
Marcus stood in the drafty hallway, wearing a dark canvas work coat dusted with snow, holding two heavy brown paper grocery bags in his arms.
"Clara," he said. His voice was a low, gravelly baritone.
"Marcus," I breathed, stunned. "What are you doing here?"
"Maya called me," Marcus said simply, stepping past the doorway as I pulled the door open further. "She told me your heat went out two days ago and your landlord wasn't answering his phone."
He walked into the tiny kitchen area and set the heavy grocery bags down onto the laminate counter. He turned around, his sharp grey eyes sweeping over the room—taking in the peeling wallpaper, the tiny space heater, the stacks of unpaid utility bills on the table, and finally, the small baby sleeping in the bassinet.
A strange, unreadable shadow passed across Marcus’s face as he looked at Elliot.
"He looks like Arthur," Marcus said quietly.
"He has his eyes," I replied softly, walking over to stand beside him. "And his stubbornness."
Marcus took off his heavy leather gloves and tucked them into his pocket. He reached into his coat, pulled out a heavy steel flashlight and a set of professional plumbing tools, and set them on the counter.
"Where's the radiator manifold?" he asked.
"Marcus, you don't have to do this—"
"I asked where the manifold is, Clara," Marcus interrupted gently, looking at me with a steady, uncompromising gaze. "Arthur isn't here to fix your pipes. I am. Where is it?"
"In the hallway closet," I said, pointing down the narrow corridor.
Without another word, Marcus walked down the hall, knelt on the cold floor, and opened the access panel. For the next hour, the apartment was filled with the rhythmic sounds of metal clanging against pipe, water draining into a bucket, and Marcus’s low muttered curses as he worked on the rusted boiler valves.
I stood in the kitchen, unpacking the grocery bags he had brought.
Inside was real food—fresh milk, eggs, roasted chicken, vegetables, three cans of high-grade baby formula, and two heavy wool thermal blankets still in their store packaging. At the bottom of the second bag was a small, hand-carved wooden mobile featuring tiny carved birds.
My eyes filled with tears as I held the wooden mobile in my hands. Arthur had started carving that exact mobile in his garage workspace three weeks before he died. Marcus had finished it.
A loud hiss echoed from the hallway closet, followed by the deep, gurgling sound of rushing water. Within minutes, the iron radiator in the corner began to knock, radiating a wave of real, glorious heat into the freezing room.
Marcus stepped out of the closet, wiping his grease-stained hands on a shop rag.
"The main valve was deliberately sabotaged," Marcus said, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy tone. "Someone came into the basement meters and turned off the line bypass."
I paused, holding the baby formula in my hand. " Sabotaged? Why would the landlord do that?"
"It wasn't your landlord," Marcus said, stepping closer to the kitchen counter. He pulled a small, folded piece of paper from his pocket and laid it beside the grocery bags. "Your landlord sold this building four days ago to a shell holding company based out of Wilmington."
I picked up the paper. It was a notice of ownership transfer. At the bottom, listed as the primary legal counsel for the purchasing firm, was the name: MERCER LEGAL ASSOCIATES.
My father.
He hadn't just cut me off. He had bought my entire apartment building to cut off my heat and force an eviction.
"They're coming for you, Clara," Marcus said, his grey eyes burning with a dark, protective fire. "Your father filed a petition with Child Protective Services this morning, claiming you are living in an uninhabitable environment without heat or adequate nutrition for an infant."
My stomach dropped into a cold, endless pit. "They're going to take Elliot."
"They're going to try," Marcus corrected, stepping right up to me, his broad frame blocking out the cold light of the kitchen bulb. "CPS is scheduled to execute a welfare check tomorrow morning at nine. If they find you here in the cold with no money, they will place Elliot in emergency foster care—and your father’s legal team will have custody of him by noon."
I clutched the edge of the counter, my knuckles turning white. "I won't let them. I'll pack our bags. I'll leave the city tonight."
"You can't run on foot in the middle of a blizzard with a three-month-old baby, Clara," Marcus said firmly. He reached out, his warm, calloused hand grasping my shoulder with absolute certainty. "You don't run."
"Then what do I do?" I cried, my voice finally breaking. "I have no money! I have no leverage! My father owns the city!"
Marcus reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a heavy brass key, setting it on the counter between us.
"Your father owns the city," Marcus said softly. "But Arthur and I owned a farm forty miles west of here, built on land my grandfather bought fifty years ago. It’s off the grid, it’s warm, and no process server or Mercer lawyer can step foot on it without trespassing on federal conservation land."
May you like
He looked over at the bassinet where Elliot lay sleeping happily under the warm air of the fixed radiator.
"Pack your things, Clara," Marcus said. "We leave in twenty minutes."
