Chapter 6 - The Visitor in the Night
Two nights later, the storm returned with a vengeance.
Lightning fractured the sky over Providence, turning the tall windows of the mansion blindingly white before the thunder rattled the windowpanes in their old lead frames.
Salvatore lay awake in his massive mahogany bed. Sleep was an enemy that rarely visited him anymore. When he closed his eyes, he was back in the concrete parking garage, smelling burnt rubber and copper, watching Aldo Bianchi’s shoes step backward into the shadows.
A soft creak came from the bedroom door.
Salvatore didn’t reach for the gun. His ears, finely tuned by years of paranoia, caught the faint, hesitant drag of fabric against the hardwood floor.
The door pushed open an inch.
Two small eyes peered into the dark room, illuminated by a flash of lightning.
Salvatore propped himself up on one elbow, his chest bare, muscles corded under pale skin.
“Who’s there?” he asked, his voice cutting through the rumble of distant thunder.
The door swung wider. Milo walked in.
He was wearing striped pajamas that were far too short at the ankles, clutching his wooden soldier in one hand and a tattered blue blanket in the other. He looked small, terribly vulnerable, and completely fearless.
Salvatore stared at him from the bed.
“You’re out of your wing,” Salvatore said, though the edge was gone from his tone.
Milo didn’t answer. He walked right up to the side of the high bed, staring up at the mattress. He placed the wooden soldier on the floorboards directly beneath Salvatore’s hand, then held up his arms.
Up.
Salvatore’s breath caught.
“I can’t pick you up, kid,” Salvatore said, his voice dropping into a harsh, gravelly whisper. He pointed a finger at his own motionless legs beneath the heavy blankets. “Look at me. I’m anchored to this bed. I’m broken.”
Milo didn’t move. He kept his arms raised, his dark eyes shining with stubborn trust.
Cursing under his breath, Salvatore shifted his weight, gripped the edge of the mattress with both powerful arms, and hauled his upper body upward, leaning over the side of the bed. He reached down, grabbed Milo under the arms, and hoisted the four-year-old up, swinging him over the side and pulling him onto the edge of the mattress.
Milo immediately scrambled across the blankets, curled up right against Salvatore’s side, and tucked the wooden soldier under his chin.
Salvatore froze.
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For the first time in two years, the cold, hollow ache in his chest felt... buffered. He looked down at the boy sleeping—truly sleeping—with absolute peace against the flank of a man everyone else considered a monster.
Slowly, awkwardly, Salvatore’s heavy, scarred arm came around, resting protectively over the boy’s small shoulders.
