Chapter 5 - ROOTS IN CONCRETE
Two weeks had passed since the night I walked out of the glass tower, and my temporary motel room had successfully been traded for something much better.
Using the cash I earned from my daily shifts at Gable’s Corner and a modest advance from Mrs. Gable, I rented a tiny, sunlit studio apartment located right above a historic Italian bakery in Astoria, Queens.
The floors creaked whenever the baker downstairs rolled out his morning dough at four in the morning, but unlike the silent, oppressive emptiness of the penthouse, those sounds meant life.
My apartment was furnished with a secondhand mattress, a wooden kitchen table I bought from a thrift store down the block, and a single metal lamp with a warm yellow glow.
I spent my days working hard at the diner, learning the rhythms of neighborhood life where people smiled at each other on the sidewalk and greeted the local grocer by his first name.
At night, I sat at my wooden table drinking chamomile tea and unpacking a small cardboard box I had brought with me from my pre-Nico life—a box my former self had kept hidden in the back of her childhood closet.
Inside sat an old silver locket belonging to my mother, a few faded photographs of my grandparents, and a handwritten recipe book passed down through generations of women who knew how to survive hard winters.
Tracing the worn leather cover of the recipe book, I realized how far I had drifted from the frightened, dependent girl who had allowed a dangerous man to define her worth.
One evening, while walking back from the grocery store with a bag of fresh vegetables and crusty bread, I noticed a sleek black sedan idling near the corner of my street.
My heart leapt into my throat for a fraction of a second, my old instincts screaming that Nico’s enforcers had finally managed to trace my movements.
I ducked quickly behind a fruit stand, my breathing shallow as I watched the tinted window of the sedan roll down half an inch in the misty twilight air.
A pair of familiar eyes scanned the busy sidewalk, looking past me with cold indifference, searching for a woman wearing designer clothes and carrying luxury bags instead of a girl in a faded denim jacket holding a bag of groceries.
The car idled for another agonizing minute before accelerating smoothly down the avenue and disappearing around the corner into the heavy traffic.
I let out a long, shuddering breath of relief, realizing that Nico’s obsession was still blinding him to the simple reality of who I had become.
He was looking for a trophy wife hiding in high-end hotels, failing entirely to comprehend that I had willingly traded silk for cotton to find my freedom.
Returning to my cozy studio, I unlocked the heavy wooden door and locked it securely behind me, sliding the safety chain into place with a definitive click.
I set my groceries on the wooden table, walked over to the small window overlooking the lively Queens street, and watched the yellow streetlights flicker on against the evening sky.
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Friday was only two days away—the exact day Nico had claimed he would completely forget my name.
I smiled to myself in the dim light, knowing that he would never forget me as long as he lived, because I was the only ghost who had ever successfully slipped through his security and walked away.
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