Chapter 1 - THE GIRL WHO BEGGED FOR FORMULA
I was eight years old when a grocery store full of strangers watched me fall to my knees and beg for two cans of baby formula.
Some of them laughed.
One man filmed me.
I didn't care.
My twin baby brothers hadn't eaten since morning.
My mother had been sick in bed for two days, and the few dollars I'd found in our kitchen weren't enough.
I stood barefoot at the checkout, soaked from the cold October rain, while the cashier counted my wet coins twice.
“You're short.”
The manager came over.
“No money, no formula.”
I begged.
I offered to clean the store.
Someone behind me laughed.
Then a deep voice cut through the checkout lane.
“That's enough.”
The laughter stopped.
A tall man in a charcoal coat stepped through the crowd.
People whispered his name.
Arthur Pendelton.
I didn't know Chicago feared him.
I didn't know powerful men lowered their voices when they said his name.
All I knew was that he paid for the formula.
Then he bought bread, canned food, diapers, medicine, and enough groceries to fill two bags.
“Go home, kid.”
I thanked him and ran.
But Arthur followed me.
He watched the good streets become bad ones.
He watched the streetlights disappear.
And he watched me slip through the broken door of an abandoned building at the end of an alley.
Inside, my baby brothers lay crying weakly beneath a thin blanket.
My mother didn't move when I touched her shoulder.
Then Arthur entered.
He looked at my mother.
At the babies.
Then at something beside the bed.
A small silver necklace lay beside an old photograph.
Arthur picked up the photograph with trembling fingers.
For the first time, the man everyone feared looked afraid.
He stared at my mother's face.
Then at the necklace.
May you like
And whispered three words.
“It can't be.”
