Chapter 10 - The Horizon of the Reyes
The return to Chicago in late August coincided with the arrival of the great autumn storms that regularly swept across Lake Michigan, turning the city’s skyline into a dark, dramatic landscape of slate gray and silver.
But inside the penthouse of Reyes Tower, the rules had changed.
The leather sofas were still there, but they were now covered in small, colorful cushions shaped like dinosaur heads. The long walnut dining table had a permanent section at the far end where a box of sugar cubes and a set of watercolor paints sat undisturbed by the cleaning crew.
Dominic stood by his desk, his navy suit sharp, his phone face down on the green blotter. He was looking at a large, framed document that had been mounted on the wall directly behind his chair—the only item of decoration he had added to the office in fifteen years.
It was Sophia’s birth certificate from California, its blue seal bright under the halogen lights.
The private elevator opened with a soft chime. Sophia burst into the room, her school uniform slightly wrinkled, her leather backpack open as she dragged her old purple suitcase behind her.
“We’re going back to the cottage,” she announced, planting her pink boots firmly on his silk rug. “Hawk said the weather in California is seventy-two degrees today. That’s warmer than seventy-one.”
Dominic turned around from the window, a small, nearly imperceptible smile softening the hard lines around his mouth—the expression that Felix had recently taken to calling the “Reyes anomaly.”
“You have school tomorrow, Sophia,” he said, walking over to her and lifting her backpack from her shoulders with one hand.
“The school is stupid,” she said, sitting down on the low stool near his desk and pulling her stuffed rabbit out of her suitcase. “They don't have any books about the Cretaceous period. They only have books about bears that wear hats. Bears don't wear hats, Dominic. That’s irrational.”
Dominic sat in his large leather chair, reaching down to pull her up into his lap. She didn't resist. She simply nestled her dark curls against his shoulder, her small, warm body settling against his chest with the complete, unquestioning security of a child who knew she was inside the strongest fortress in the world.
Felix walked into the office, carrying a folder of active shipping manifests from the North Side docks. He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the most feared man in Chicago using his gold signet ring to carefully untangle a knot in a six-year-old girl’s pigtail.
“Boss,” Felix said, his voice carefully neutral. “The Marcone family has completed the withdrawal from the Cicero terminals. Leo sent over a letter of apology regarding the... administrative error from last autumn.”
Dominic didn't look up from his daughter’s hair. “Throw it away, Felix. We don't need his letters.”
“And the new protocols for the winter harbor security?”
Dominic looked out at the city below, where the lights of Chicago were beginning to come on one by one against the gathering dark. For forty-five years, he had believed that strength was defined by the size of the wall you built between yourself and the world. He had thought that every child was a weakness—a target that a man’s enemies could use to tear him down to the bone.
But as he felt Sophia’s small, steady breath against his throat, he realized that the wall hadn't been protecting him at all. It had just been keeping him in the dark. The little girl in the yellow rain boots hadn't brought a weakness into his tower; she had brought the only weapon big enough to make the crown worth holding.
“Cancel the night shift at the harbor, Felix,” Dominic said, his voice firm, carrying the absolute authority of a man who had finally rewritten his own ledger. “I’m taking my daughter to the planetarium tomorrow morning. We’re going to count the stars.”
Sophia looked up from his chest, her green eyes bright with a sudden, joyful triumph. “Can we buy the pony after the stars, Dominic?”
May you like
Dominic Reyes reached down, his large, scarred hand closing completely over her tiny, flour-pale fingers, his smile finally breaking across his face like the morning sun over Lake Michigan.
“We’ll buy two, Sophia,” he whispered into her curls. “One for the roof, and one for the beach.”
