Chapter 8 - The Miracle UpstairsI set my glass down and walked slowly out of the study, climbing the grand staircase two steps at a time. My boots felt heavy, as if the weight of the past three years was finally catching up with my bones.
When I reached the second-floor hallway, I pushed open the door to Isabella's bedroom.
The room was warm, lit by a single bedside lamp shaped like a glowing moon. Nurse Sarah was packing up her medical bag by the corner, whispering words of encouragement.
And there, standing by the edge of her floral-print bed, holding onto the wooden bedpost with trembling, white-knuckled fingers, was my daughter.
Isabella was standing on her own two feet.
Her legs were shaking violently, her knees wobbling like a newborn foal taking its first steps, but she was standing.
When she saw me enter the doorway, her head snapped up. Tears brimmed in her big, beautiful brown eyes—eyes that looked so much like her mother's it hurt to breathe.
"Daddy," she whispered, her voice cracking with emotion. "Look... look, Daddy. The magic worked."
My knees finally buckled.
May you like
The man whom entire syndicates feared, the untouchable king of the underworld who hadn't shed a single tear since the night his wife was murdered, dropped to his knees right there on the Persian rug in the hallway.
Covering my face with my shaking hands, I broke down. All the walls, all the ice, all the calculated vengeance melted away in a flood of long-overdue grief and overwhelming, blinding joy.
