Chapter 4 - A Cold Chicago Winter Without Her Paint-Stained Fingers
Miles away in the frozen expanse of downtown Chicago,
Declan Voss stared out the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of his penthouse office.
The city skyline glittered beneath a blanket of bitter winter snow,
but the cavernous office felt like an empty tomb.
His desk was cluttered with unread shipping manifests,
weapons contracts,
and territorial dispute reports from the South Side syndicates.
None of it mattered to him anymore.
His long fingers traced the edge of an empty wooden paint palette sitting quietly on the corner of his polished mahogany desk.
It was Amelia’s palette.
She had left it behind on the workbench in the restoration studio downstairs when she packed her bags in the freezing dead of night.
The bristles of her favorite sable brush were stiff with dried ultramarine blue,
frozen in time like everything else since she disappeared from his life.
“Boss,
” Gavin’s voice crackled sharply through the encrypted desk intercom.
“I found her.
” Declan didn’t blink.
His hand tightened around the wooden palette until his knuckles turned white,
the polished wood pressing deep into his calloused palm.
“Where is she?” His voice was low,
gravelly,
and charged with a suppressed fury that made even his most trusted captain hesitate on the secure line.
“A small mountain town outside Asheville,
North Carolina.
Living above an old antiques shop under the alias Claire Mason.
She’s safe for the moment,
Declan,
but she’s running scared.
” Declan closed his eyes,
remembering the hospital envelope sitting on his marble kitchen counter the morning she walked out.
Miles away in the frozen expanse of downtown Chicago,
Declan Voss stared out the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of his penthouse office.
The city skyline glittered beneath a blanket of bitter winter snow,
but the cavernous office felt like an empty tomb.
His desk was cluttered with unread shipping manifests,
weapons contracts,
and territorial dispute reports from the South Side syndicates.
None of it mattered to him anymore.
His long fingers traced the edge of an empty wooden paint palette sitting quietly on the corner of his polished mahogany desk.
It was Amelia’s palette.
She had left it behind on the workbench in the restoration studio downstairs when she packed her bags in the freezing dead of night.
The bristles of her favorite sable brush were stiff with dried ultramarine blue,
frozen in time like everything else since she disappeared from his life.
“Boss,
” Gavin’s voice crackled sharply through the encrypted desk intercom.
“I found her.
” Declan didn’t blink.
His hand tightened around the wooden palette until his knuckles turned white,
the polished wood pressing deep into his calloused palm.
“Where is she?” His voice was low,
gravelly,
and charged with a suppressed fury that made even his most trusted captain hesitate on the secure line.
“A small mountain town outside Asheville,
North Carolina.
Living above an old antiques shop under the alias Claire Mason.
She’s safe for the moment,
Declan,
but she’s running scared.
May you like
” Declan closed his eyes,
remembering the hospital envelope sitting on his marble kitchen counter the morning she walked out.
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