Chapter 1 - The Weight of Three Wishes“What are those?” Ellie asked, her small chin resting on the edge of the polished mahogany table as she stared at the cream-colored cards.
Roman DeLuca, the most feared man in Chicago, pulled a silver fountain pen from his inner jacket pocket. For a man who wrote execution lists and multi-million-dollar shipping contracts without a second thought, his hand hovered over the paper with strange hesitation.
“They are wishes, Ellie,” Roman said, his voice dropping into a register so uncharacteristically gentle that it would have shocked every caporegime and lieutenant in his syndicate. “Three wishes. Anything within reason. Or... even slightly outside of reason.”
Ellie blinked her big dark eyes, her patched cloth rabbit clutched tightly in her small arms. “Like a pony?”
“If you want a pony, I’ll buy you a stable,” Roman murmured, though a ghost of a smile touched his lips.
“No,” Ellie shook her head solemnly. “Mama says horses eat too much grass and make the yard messy. But...” She paused, her gaze dropping to the floor before looking back up with a heartbreaking maturity that no three-year-old should possess. “My first wish is that Mommy could sleep until the sun wakes up. And she still gets money. Because Mommy says sleeping costs money. And then maybe we can make pancakes when she’s not tired.”
That was when the words hit Roman like a physical blow.
“That Mommy could sleep until the sun wakes up... and she still gets money.”
May you like
Roman turned abruptly toward the rain-streaked window, hiding his face from the child. He heard Maya gasp softly from the doorway of the sitting room, her hands covering her mouth as tears spilled over her lashes.
Roman did not turn back around. He stared at the dark, wet courtyard outside, his shoulders rigid. For a man who never showed weakness, the sight of a exhausted mother breaking her back for pennies while her toddler worried about the cost of sleep cracked open a vault in his chest he thought he had welded shut twenty years ago.
