SHE WAS HIRED TO COMFORT A DYING MAFIA BOSS—THEN A STRAY CAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

Chapter 4: Sunlight and Porridge

Before dawn, Celeste raided the kitchen for dried mint, chamomile, and forgotten lavender, then let herself into Elias’s room while he slept. She stripped the damp sheets, hauled open the curtains he’d kept sealed for months, and let October light flood a room that hadn’t seen it in longer than anyone could say. She filled the air with steam and herbs, cleared the expired medicine, swept up broken glass no one had bothered to touch.

Elias woke to sunlight for the first time in months and came up swinging with fury — “Who gave you permission to touch my room?” — voice gone low and slow, which Celeste would learn was far more dangerous than shouting.

“A patient’s room needs to be clean and ventilated,” she said, calm as still water. “That’s a medical standard, not an opinion. You can fire me. You can’t say I’m wrong.”

He didn’t argue. His lungs pulled in a full breath for the first time in months, and something in his rigid shoulders let go, just slightly.

She talked him into a warm herbal bath he swore he’d refuse and then refused to leave for nearly ninety minutes. When Oscar arrived with the usual tray — greasy bacon, dry eggs, coffee thick as tar — Celeste stopped it at the door. “From today, I’m in charge of Mr. Cade’s meals.”

Oscar’s face did something she couldn’t quite read. “He’ll only eat bacon and eggs. Refuses everything else. Either throws it up or shoves the tray away.”

She said nothing, made two bowls of bone-broth porridge with ginger and honey instead, and when Elias refused it flatly — “I’d rather starve” — she simply sat down and ate her own, slow and unhurried, saying nothing at all. Four minutes of silence, broken only by her spoon against the bowl.

Then his stomach growled, loud enough to be undeniable.

“Give it here,” he snapped. He finished the whole bowl. No nausea. No refusal. For the first time in months, food stayed down. “It was acceptable,” he muttered, not looking at her.

“Tomorrow I’ll make it even better,” she said, and left him alone with an expression he made sure no one in the world was allowed to see.