Chapter 2 - The Stolen Spoonful
The silence of room 4B was shattered by the violent swing of the door.
Mrs. Gable stood on the threshold, her chest heaving, a ring of heavy brass keys rattling furiously against her hip. Behind her in the dim corridor, two junior maids lingered, their eyes wide with malicious anticipation.
“I knew it,” Mrs. Gable spat, stepping into the room. Her eyes locked instantly onto the orange peel resting on the bedside table. “I knew you were up here stealing from the pantry while the lower floors sit in filth!”
Nora jumped to her feet, instinctively placing herself between the furious housekeeper and Giovanni’s wheelchair. The sudden movement sent a dizzying pulse of pain through her pelvic bones, causing her to stagger slightly against the edge of the dresser.
“Mrs. Gable, please,” Nora pleaded, holding her hands out. “He hadn't eaten since breakfast. He was freezing. I only took one orange that was already bruised—”
“You steal from the Moretti family, you worthless little rat?” Mrs. Gable advanced, her features contorted in rage. “The master is downstairs reviewing the household ledgers! Do you know what he does to thieves? Do you have any concept of what kind of family pays for your miserable shelter?”
Giovanni sat rigid in his chair, his eyes fixed on Mrs. Gable. A low, wet rattle began in the back of his throat—a sound he had not produced in over half a decade.
Mrs. Gable didn't even glance at him. She reached out and grabbed Nora by the front of her uniform, yanking her forward with enough force that Nora cried out, her knees striking the floorboards with a dull thud.
“You think because you are carrying a bastard you get special privileges?” Mrs. Gable hissed, leaning down over the kneeling girl. “You are garbage. You will scrub the cellar until your fingers bleed, and when Mr. Moretti asks why the pantry was flooded, I will tell him you did it out of spite.”
“Don’t... please don’t hurt the baby,” Nora sobbed, curling her body forward to shield her stomach from the woman’s proximity.
In the corner, the sound grew louder.
*Gggg... rrrgh...*
It was a guttural, inhuman sound.
Mrs. Gable paused, irritated, and turned her head toward the wheelchair. “Shut up, you old fossil. Be grateful I don’t shut off the radiator in here permanently.”
She raised her hand to strike Nora across the face—a physical punishment she had used more than once to keep the younger staff compliant.
She never landed the blow.
A sudden, sharp thud echoed through the room.
Giovanni’s right arm—the arm that had remained completely inert since the autumn of his collapse—slammed down onto the wooden armrest. It wasn't a spasm. It was an intentional, violent expenditure of pure will. His fingers, claw-like and trembling with agony, gripped the carved wood so tightly that the aged lacquer cracked beneath his nails.
His eyes, usually clouded with the dull haze of forced passivity, were burning with a terrifying, lucid brilliance. They were the eyes that had watched rival capos plead for their lives in the warehouses of Brooklyn.
Mrs. Gable froze, her hand suspended in the air. For a fleeting second, an ancient, instinctual terror crawled up her spine. She took a step back, her gaze darting to the old man’s face.
“What is wrong with you?” she whispered, her voice faltering before she quickly regained her arrogance. “You think you can scare me, John? You can’t even wipe your own chin.”
She turned back to Nora, grabbing her by the collar of her dress and hauling her to her feet. “Get downstairs. Now. If I see your face in this wing before midnight, I will personally throw your things into the snowdrift outside the service gate.”
Nora scrambled to her feet, weeping silently. She cast one desperate, apologetic look at Giovanni. “I’m sorry, John,” she whispered through her tears. “I’m so sorry.”
She was shoved out the door, the junior maids laughing nervously as they followed Mrs. Gable down the hall.
The heavy door swung shut once more, cutting off the light from the hallway.
Room 4B plunged back into semi-darkness, illuminated only by the orange glow of the birch fire.
Inside the wheelchair, Giovanni breathed heavily, his chest rising and falling in ragged, shallow gasps. Sweat beaded along his silver hairline, dripping down into his furrowed brow. The physical effort of that single movement had torn through his exhausted nervous system like liquid fire.
Slowly, agonizingly, his right hand uncurled. On the armrest remained five deep indentations in the polished wood.
May you like
He closed his eyes. The time for waiting had ended. If his son Lorenzo did not see the rot in this house tonight, Giovanni would find a way to burn it to the ground himself.
***
