Stepmother Beats Poor Waitress For Feeding Stray Dog — The Mafia Boss Saw Her Scars & Takes Action

Chapter 15

Three months passed.

Winter deepened, then began to loosen its grip. The days grew longer. The snow turned to slush, then to nothing.

Cassian didn’t go back to the Copper Kettle. He didn’t go looking for the dog again either.

Wilder asked him once, carefully, whether he wanted them to keep searching.

Cassian said no.

Some things, he’d learned, couldn’t be found by walking forty-three alleys. Some things found you when they were ready. Or they didn’t find you at all. And you learned to live with that.

But on a Tuesday morning in early March, Cassian received a phone call.

The voice on the other end was soft, hesitant, and achingly familiar.

“Mr. Ror?”

He stopped walking. He was on Wacker Street, halfway to a meeting he no longer remembered the purpose of.

“This is Elodie Whitfield,” the voice continued. “I… I’m sorry to bother you. Tobias gave me your number. He said it would be all right.”

Cassian didn’t speak. He waited.

“I wanted to thank you,” she said. “I should have done it sooner. I just… I didn’t know how.”

“You don’t need to thank me,” Cassian said.

“I do,” she said quietly. “You gave me my daughter back. You gave me my life back.”

There was a pause.

Then she said, “There’s one more thing.”

Cassian heard something in the background—a dog barking, low and uncertain.

“I found her,” Elodie said. “Your dog. She’s been coming to the back door of my building for the past two weeks. I’ve been leaving food out. She won’t let me get close, but she hasn’t run away either.”

Cassian closed his eyes.

“I thought…” Elodie hesitated. “I thought maybe she was waiting for someone.”

“Where are you?” Cassian asked.

She gave him the address.

He was there in twenty minutes.