Chapter 10 - THE NEW DAWNA year later, the city had changed. The empire had fallen, the streets were safer, and Ricardo Falcone was a man who had chosen to testify rather than hide.
I opened a veterinary clinic in Dundalk—a place for the broken, the lost, and the strays.
I was walking down the street one morning, the morning air crisp and cold, when a black sedan pulled up to the curb.
The door opened, and Ricardo stepped out. He looked different—lighter, cleaner, a man who had finally finished grieving his brother.
He didn't say a word. He just walked up, handed me a bag of high-end dog food for Nero, and tipped his hat.
"The shift is over, Charlotte," he said.
"No," I replied, Nero barking happily as we walked toward the clinic. "The shift is just beginning."
Some people think a widow is a woman who stops existing when her husband leaves. They think a janitor is someone who cleans up the messes of the powerful. They are wrong.
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A widow is a woman who knows what death is, and isn't afraid of it. And a janitor? We know how to scrub the world clean.
I walked into my clinic, locked the door, and looked at the dog that had saved my life—and the man who had helped me find my own. The story wasn't over. But for the first time in years, it was mine to write.
