Chapter 9 - The Reckoning of Alexander Hayes
Winter arrived early in Canada. By mid-November, the streets of Toronto were carpeted in thick, pristine white snow.
One Tuesday evening at 6:00 PM, I stepped out of the Bennett Logistics headquarters downtown. The air was bitingly cold, my breath misting into the twilight as I pulled my woolen scarf tightly around my neck.
I walked toward the quiet side street where my car was parked.
Standing beside the lamppost, half-covered in falling snowflakes, was a man.
He was tall, dressed in a long black cashmere coat, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. He had no guards with him. He had no entourage.
As I approached, the lamppost light illuminated his face.
It was Alexander.
He looked unrecognizable. The once-untouchable mafia king of Chicago looked like a dying man walking among the living. He was gaunt, his cheekbones protruding sharply beneath pale, sunken skin. His slate eyes were bloodshot, surrounded by dark purple rings of chronic insomnia. Silver threads streaked through his dark hair.
When he saw me, his entire body shuddered. A ragged gasp escaped his lips, as if he had just surfaced from underwater after six months of drowning.
"Emily," he whispered. His voice was hoarse, fractured, barely carrying over the falling snow.
I stopped ten feet away from him. I didn't reach for my phone. I didn't scream for help.
I simply stood in the snow, looking at him with the cool detachment of a stranger viewing a monument to an ancient, forgotten war.
"Alexander."
He took a step forward, his boots crunching in the snow, his hands trembling as he reached out toward me, desperate, but hovering in the air as if he feared I would vanish if he touched me.
"I found you," he choked out, tears instantly welling in his ruined eyes. "Emily... my God, I found you. I searched every city... every flight record... I thought I would die before I saw you again."
"You shouldn't have come," I said quietly.
"I had to!" he cried, his voice breaking into the freezing evening air. "I couldn't live, Emily! The house... it’s an empty grave! Every corner screams your name. Every room smells like Grace! I can't breathe! I haven't slept a full hour since you left!"
"That is your burden to carry, Alexander. Not mine."
Alexander flinched, the words striking him like physical blows. He took another stumbling step forward, his knees suddenly giving out.
The most feared mafia boss in Chicago dropped to both knees in the freezing Canadian snow, right at my feet.
He bowed his head, his hands grabbing the hem of my winter coat, burying his face against the fabric, his broad shoulders shaking with violent, uncontrollable weeping.
"Please," he sobbed, his voice muffled by the wool. "Please, Emily... come home. Punish me every day. Spit on me. Beat me. Lock me in a cell. Just come back. Let me be near you. Let me bring Grace home. I destroyed Olivia. I cast out Madison. I gave up the syndicate—Marco runs the business now! I don't care about the empire! I only want my wife! I only want my family!"
Passersby on the distant avenue glanced over, seeing a well-dressed man kneeling in the snow, weeping like a broken child before a calm woman.
I looked down at the dark head of hair pressed against my knees.
For five years, I had loved this man. I had tended his wounds when he came home bleeding from syndicate ambushes. I had smoothed his furrowed brow while he slept, whispering that we would build a peaceful life together. I had given him a daughter with golden curls and a laugh like summer bells.
And he had let that daughter die on a cold wet street because he was busy decorating balloons for another woman.
Slowly, gently, I reached down and pulled the fabric of my coat out of his grasping, trembling fingers.
Alexander lifted his head, his face ruined by tears, his slate eyes begging for mercy from a court that had long since adjourned.
"Alexander," I said softly, my voice drifting like mist on the cold air. "Do you remember the last promise you made to Grace?"
A violent shudder racked his frame. "Emily... please don't..."
"You promised her you would be there at three o'clock," I continued, each word falling like an icicle into his bleeding heart. "She waited for two hours. She trusted you. She walked into traffic because she thought her daddy was coming."
"I know!" he screamed in agony, clutching his chest with both hands. "I know! God forgive me, I know!"
"God might forgive you, Alexander," I said, stepping back into the snow, putting distance between us. "But Grace cannot. And neither can I."
"Emily!" he wailed, reaching his hands across the snowy ground toward my boots. "Don't leave me here! Don't leave me alone!"
"You were never alone, Alexander. You had Olivia. You had your mother. You had your empire. You chose them every single day of our marriage."
I looked down at him one last time, my eyes completely clear, carrying no hatred, no anger, only the vast, tranquil expanse of a clean slate.
"Grace is at peace here. She likes Toronto. It’s quiet. There are no guns, no blood, and no broken promises."
"Take me with you," he pleaded, his voice reduced to a dry, broken rattle. "Just let me visit her grave... let me see where she rests..."
"No."
The word was quiet, but it fell with the weight of an iron vault closing forever.
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"You don't get to visit her, Alexander. You lost that right when you picked Olivia’s flowers over your daughter’s life. Grace is mine. She will always be mine."
***
