Chapter 7 - The Letter beneath the Floorboards
The docklands of South Boston were quiet under the afternoon sun.
The car stopped outside an abandoned, three-story brick warehouse near Pier 4—a building that had once been used as a salt storage facility in the 1950s. The windows were boarded up with weathered plywood, the rusted iron doors secured with thick chains.
Marcus, holding Lily’s small hand, walked into the dark, echoing interior of the building. Titan walked two steps ahead, his nose sweeping the concrete floor, his tail swishing slowly in the shadows.
In the rear corner of the warehouse, beneath a stack of broken wooden pallets, lay a hidden trapdoor.
Marcus pulled the heavy trapdoor open, revealing a small, dry cellar room built into the brick foundation.
The cellar was small, clean, and surprisingly warm. A small wood stove stood in the corner, its exhaust pipe running up through an old chimney flue. A single twin mattress lay against the wall, covered by a clean wool blanket. Beside the bed sat a makeshift wooden desk, littered with books, empty tea mugs, and hundreds of hand-drawn sketches.
Marcus stepped down into the cellar, his breathing shallow.
He picked up one of the sketches from the desk.
It was a portrait of Marcus—drawn in charcoal on rough brown wrapping paper. The portrait captured Marcus as he had been seven years ago: younger, smiling, standing beside Julian on the deck of their father’s yacht.
Beside it were dozen of sketches of Lily—capturing every year of her life, from a newborn infant to a seven-year-old girl playing in the snow.
Julian had spent seven years in this tiny, quiet room, watching his daughter grow, watching his brother rule the city, living like a ghost in the shadows of the empire he had helped build.
"Under the third floorboard," Lily whispered, pointing her small finger toward the corner near the desk.
Marcus knelt down. He pulled his pocket knife, pried up the loosened oak floorboard, and reached into the dark space beneath.
His fingers brushed against a heavy, thick manila envelope.
Marcus pulled the envelope out. On the front, written in bold, elegant blue ink, were four words:
May you like
TO MY BROTHER, MARCUS.
Marcus sat down on the edge of the twin bed, his hands trembling as he broke the wax seal on the envelope and pulled out ten closely written pages of parchment.
