Chapter 2 - The Penthouse of Wolves
“Gabriel Varrick,” Vivian Chase said.
Claire went still.
Everyone in New York knew the name, even people who pretended they didn’t.
Gabriel Varrick was never mentioned directly in newspapers. His companies appeared in business sections. His lawyers appeared on television. His properties appeared in architecture magazines. But his name lived in quieter places—in the lowered voices of bartenders, in the nervous smiles of politicians, in the stories people told only after checking the room for strangers.
Claire had heard enough to know one thing.
You did not say no to Gabriel Varrick easily.
“You mean that Gabriel Varrick?” she asked.
Vivian gave a short, humorless laugh. “There is only one.”
Claire looked at the hospital bill again.
Eighty-one thousand dollars.
Her mother’s chemotherapy appointment was tomorrow morning. The insurance company had denied the newest treatment. The hospital had offered payment plans with numbers so large they felt almost insulting.
Fifteen thousand dollars for one week.
Seventy-five thousand for a month.
“What exactly happened to the child?” Claire asked.
Vivian hesitated.
“That is not information you need.”
“I’m being asked to care for a traumatized four-year-old who hasn’t eaten or drunk anything in four days. I need to know what happened.”
“The family was attacked.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
“Was she hurt?”
“Physically? No. Not seriously.” Vivian lowered her voice. “Her mother was killed.”
For a moment, Claire could only hear rain against the window.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“So is everyone,” Vivian said. “But sympathy does not fix the situation. Mr. Varrick needs someone who can reach her.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re cheap.”
The bluntness almost made Claire laugh.
Vivian continued. “You don’t have the credentials our other candidates had. You don’t have a degree, a private child-trauma certification, or experience with high-risk families. But three different clients have said you have a way with children who won’t speak.”
Claire stared at the peeling paint on her kitchen wall.
“I sing to them,” she said quietly.
“That is not a professional qualification.”
“No,” Claire agreed. “It isn’t.”
“But it may be the only thing left.”
Claire looked toward the bedroom where her mother was sleeping. Margaret Donnelly had once been a music teacher. Before cancer, before hospital rooms, before pain medication and wigs and invoices, she had filled their apartment with old folk songs, lullabies, and show tunes.
Claire had learned to sing before she learned to drive.
“Send me the address,” Claire said.
Vivian exhaled. “A car will be downstairs in forty minutes.”
“And my mother?”
“Your payment will be delivered in cash upon arrival. You can make arrangements.”
Claire’s chest tightened.
“I’ll be there.”
---
The black SUV waiting outside her building looked too expensive for Astoria.
The driver did not introduce himself. He only opened the door, took Claire’s worn canvas bag, and drove through the rain without speaking.
As the city changed around her, Claire felt like she was being carried into someone else’s life.
The modest buildings of Queens gave way to sleek towers, private entrances, and streets washed clean by money. By the time the SUV pulled beneath a covered entrance in Tribeca, the rain had softened into a silver mist.
The building did not have a visible name.
It did not need one.
Two men in dark suits stood beneath the awning. Their posture was too alert to be doormen.
Claire stepped out, clutching her bag.
One of them glanced at her ID.
“Claire Donnelly?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll be searched.”
She swallowed. “Okay.”
The search was professional but thorough. Her phone was sealed inside a small security pouch. Her bag was checked. Even the old paperback novel she kept inside was flipped through page by page.
Then an elevator opened.
There were no buttons inside.
One of the guards scanned a card, and the doors closed.
Claire watched the numbers rise.
Thirty-two.
Thirty-eight.
Forty-five.
Forty-nine.
The elevator opened directly into a marble hallway larger than her entire apartment.
At the far end stood a woman in a black dress with silver hair pinned into a low knot.
She looked elegant, controlled, and exhausted.
“Claire,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I’m Mara Ellis. Mr. Varrick’s house manager.”
Claire nodded.
Mara’s eyes moved over her thrift-store coat, her rain-damp sneakers, her cheap tote bag.
If she judged her, she didn’t show it.
“Follow me,” Mara said. “And before we enter the room, understand something. Lily has not spoken since the attack. She becomes distressed if strangers move too quickly. Do not touch her unless she reaches for you. Do not make promises you cannot keep. And do not ask her about what happened.”
Claire’s throat tightened. “I understand.”
Mara led her through rooms that looked staged for a luxury magazine—white stone floors, glass walls, museum-worthy artwork, a piano beside windows overlooking the gray sweep of Manhattan.
But the penthouse did not feel beautiful.
It felt guarded.
Every hallway had cameras. Every doorway had a man standing near it. The air itself seemed afraid to make noise.
Finally, Mara stopped outside a set of double doors.
Inside, someone was shouting.
“Get out!”
A man’s voice.
Then something shattered.
Mara didn’t flinch. “That would be Mr. Varrick.”
She opened the door.
The master suite was dim except for the city light beyond the windows. A doctor stood near a medical cart. Two nurses moved quietly around the bed. A broken glass of water glittered across the floor.
And beside the bed stood Gabriel Varrick.
Claire understood instantly why people feared him.
He was not loud now.
He was not threatening anyone.
He was simply standing there, motionless, with his hands clenched at his sides and grief written into every line of his body.
Then his eyes moved to Claire.
Gray eyes.
Cold eyes.
The room seemed to wait for his judgment.
“This is the nanny?” he asked.
Vivian Chase stepped in behind Claire. “Claire Donnelly. She comes highly recommended.”
Gabriel looked at Claire’s sweater, her scuffed shoes, and the cheap plastic clip holding her hair back.
“This is who you brought me?” he asked.
Vivian’s smile tightened. “She was available.”
Claire should have been afraid.
Instead, something inside her hardened.
“She’s not a project,” Claire said.
The room went silent.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
Claire stepped forward anyway, looking not at him but at the tiny girl curled against the headboard.
Lily Varrick was smaller than Claire expected.
She looked fragile beneath the expensive pink blanket. Her face was pale, her lips dry, and her eyes were too old for a four-year-old child.
Claire crouched several feet away.
“Hi, Lily,” she said softly.
Lily did not look at her.
Claire saw a glass of water on the bedside table.
Untouched.
A bowl of broth.
Untouched.
A stuffed rabbit with one ear bent forward.
Claire did not ask Lily to drink.
She did not tell her everything would be okay.
Instead, she sat on the floor.
Then, so quietly that no one in the room expected it, Claire began to hum.
It was an old lullaby her mother had sung when Claire had nightmares.
A simple melody.
Soft and slow.
*Hush now, little sparrow,
Night is not forever…*
Lily’s eyes moved.
Not toward Claire.
Toward the window.
Then Lily’s lips parted.
Her voice came out cracked and almost soundless.
“She sang that.”
Claire stopped humming.
Gabriel’s face drained of color.
“Who sang that, sweetheart?” he asked.
Lily flinched so violently that the heart monitor began to beep faster.
Claire lifted one hand without looking at Gabriel.
“Please,” she said quietly. “Don’t.”
Gabriel froze.
Claire turned back to Lily.
“That song?” she asked gently.
Lily stared at her.
Then tears began rolling silently down her cheeks.
“The lady,” she whispered. “The lady in the red coat.”
May you like
And for the first time in four days, Lily reached for the glass of water.
---
