Chapter 4 - The Brownstone on Tremont Street
At 6:15 AM, the historic gas lamps of Boston’s South End flickered against a dense, damp fog rolling in from Boston Harbor.
Tremont Street was quiet. The brick sidewalks were slick with autumn rain, littered with golden maple leaves that clung to the stone curbs. A distant commuter train rumbled through Back Bay, and the smell of roasting espresso drifted from a bakery at the corner.
I stepped out of the black sedan, pulling the collar of my dark cashmere coat tight against the morning chill.
Number 412 was a narrow, four-story Victorian brownstone with a cracked sandstone stoop and an iron handrail covered in peeling black paint.
I walked up the steps, my polished Italian shoes making no sound against the wet masonry.
Inside the small entryway, the mailboxes were brass, tarnished with age. Beside the slot for Apartment 4B was a plastic label with two names typed on a label maker:
COLE / CARTER.
My chest contracted violently, but I forced my breathing to remain rhythmic and controlled.
I climbed the narrow wooden staircase. The steps creaked beneath my weight; the floral wallpaper on the third-floor landing was peeling at the seams, smelling of old timber, laundry detergent, and floor wax.
On the fourth-floor landing, the hallway narrowed.
Outside the door of Apartment 4B, sitting neatly against the baseboard, was a pair of tiny yellow rubber rain boots with frog faces painted on the toes. Beside them sat a matching pair of miniature red sneakers, their velcro straps scuffed with dried playground mud.
On the door itself was a sheet of construction paper taped with clear packaging tape. In uneven purple and green crayon, a child had drawn two smiling stick figures holding hands beneath a giant yellow sun, flanked by a clumsy sketch of a gray cat.
Written across the bottom in phonetic, childish printing was:
LEO & MIA’S CASTLE — NO MONSTERS ALLOWED.
I stood before that paper for a full minute, my hand hovering inches from the wooden panel, feeling completely paralyzed.
No monsters allowed.
The irony was an iron nail driven straight through my heart.
From inside the apartment came the soft, familiar sounds of an ordinary morning: the whistling of a tea kettle on a gas stove, the squeak of a refrigerator door opening, and then—clear as a silver chime through the quiet air—a child’s sweet, high-pitched giggle.
“Mia, sit down on the rug before you spill the milk, please,” Evelyn’s voice drifted through the door.
That voice.
It was the same melodious, gentle voice that had whispered to me in the dark of our penthouse, the voice that had calmed my fever when I was shot in Detroit, the voice that had promised to love me until the end of the world.
My knuckles struck the wood.
Knock. Knock.
The whistling of the kettle stopped immediately.
Footsteps moved across the floorboards inside, followed by the clinking of a ceramic mug being set down on a counter.
“Julian?” Evelyn called out, her voice approaching the door. “Did you forget your hospital security badge on the dresser again?”
The brass deadbolt slid back with a sharp, mechanical click.
The door swung open.
Evelyn was standing on the threshold, wiping her hands on a blue-and-white checked kitchen towel. She was wearing an oversized cream knit sweater that slipped slightly off her left shoulder, faded jeans, and wool socks. Her long chestnut hair was pinned up in a loose, untamed bun, with soft wisps framing her face.
She looked up with a warm, teasing smile ready on her lips.
“You always lose your badge when you have morning ro—"
The words died in her throat.
Her smile vanished so violently it was as if someone had physically struck her across the face.
Every single drop of blood drained from her skin, leaving her as pale as winter snow. Her hazel eyes widened in pure, unadulterated, primal horror.
May you like
The kitchen towel slipped from her fingers, tumbling to the floor between our feet.
“Adrian…?” she whispered.
