The wind off Lake Ontario did not just blow; it cut.
By the time Vienna stepped off the transit bus onto the icy asphalt of Dundas Street, the slush had already frozen into a slick, treacherous glaze. She pulled her wool scarf tightly over her nose, but the damp, biting cold of a Toronto December seeped through her coat anyway, settling deep into her bones.
She looked down the street. Dundas was a massive, sprawling artery, lined with endless rows of low-rise brick walk-ups, narrow alleys, and shuttered storefronts fading into the blinding whiteout of the storm. Newton's letter had said he was in a drafty one-bedroom "off Dundas," but without an apartment number or a cross-street, searching on foot in a full-blown blizzard was a fool's errand. She would freeze before she found him.
She wasn't going to let that happen. Not when she was this close.
Vienna retreated into the shallow shelter of a closed shop doorway, her fingers trembling as she pulled off her glove with her teeth. She pulled out her phone. Her battery icon was already dropping rapidly in the freezing temperature. She didn't have Newton's new number, and calling the Washington Manor was out of the question.
But she had one other contact saved in her phone. A number she had kept from a cold night in a hospital parking lot three months ago.
She hovered over the name Marcus and pressed call.
The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. Just as she was about to lose hope, the line connected. The background noise on the other end was a low, steady hum.
"Dr. Vienna," Marcus's deep, level voice came through the speaker. He didn't sound surprised. He sounded alert.
"Marcus," Vienna said, her voice shaking from the cold. "I need your help. Newton... he left the Manor. He wrote to me. He's somewhere off Dundas, but I don't know where. I'm standing in a blizzard on the corner of Dundas and Parliament, and I can't do this alone."
There was a brief, heavy pause on the line. Then, Marcus spoke, his tone shifting from professional detachment to something urgent.
"Stay exactly where you are, Doc. I'm already in the area. But I'm not alone. There are some people you need to see."
Ten minutes later, the blinding headlights of a massive, dark grey Ford F-150 cut through the snow, pulling up directly in front of Vienna's makeshift shelter.
The passenger door swung open. Vienna didn't hesitate. She scrambled up into the high cabin, the blast of the vehicle's heater instantly thawing her frozen cheeks. As she shut the door, she turned to thank Marcus—but stopped.
The spacious back seats of the truck were fully occupied.
Erick, JB, Allan, and Jackson. The "Big Boys." Newton's lifelong circle from their days at LIBS.
They weren't dressed in their usual tailored wool coats or designer suits; they were in heavy parkas, rugged work boots, and beanies. Their faces were drawn, heavy with a mixture of exhaustion and deep anxiety.
"Vienna, thank God," Erick said quietly, immediately passing a thermos of hot tea up to her. "Drink this. You're white as a sheet."
"What are you guys doing here?" Vienna asked, her fingers clutching the warm metal cup as she looked at the four of them.
"We've been looking for him, too," JB said, his voice low. "When Newton walked away from the family, his mother went on a warpath. She seized his accounts, locked his files, and tried to pretend he never existed. He thought he had to go through this entirely alone to prove himself. The idiot completely cut us out to protect us."
"He's a fool if he thinks we care about his family's money," Jackson said from the passenger seat. His usual poise was gone, replaced by a hard, defensive edge. "We've been brothers since we were scraping our knees on the school playground. We aren't letting him freeze in some run-down apartment to prove a point to Laverne."
Vienna reached into her inner pocket and pulled out the plain brown envelope, handing the letter to Marcus. "He's working as a dispatcher at the harbor. He bought a cheap car."
Marcus took the letter, his eyes running over Newton's handwriting. He didn't say a word, but his jaw tightened. He passed the letter back to Jackson, who read it quickly before handing it to the others.
"He's near the docks," Marcus said, tapping the digital map mounted to the truck's dashboard. "When Newton left, he bought a ten-year-old black sedan at a salvage auction under a local business alias to keep his family's corporate tracking software from flagging him. It was a smart play, but he had to register the plate at the Ministry of Transportation. I managed to pull the address off the database an hour ago. He's parked three blocks from here."
Marcus shifted the heavy truck into drive, the tires biting into the fresh snow as they surged forward into the grid.
The truck crawled down a narrow, snow-packed side street off the main avenue. The neighborhood was quiet, dominated by old brick triplexes and small, family-owned shops closed for the night.
"There," Allan said, pointing through the frosted glass.
Nestled between a closed dry-cleaner and a dim convenience store was a weathered, three-story brick walk-up. Parked in front of it, half-buried under a drift of fresh snow, was a rusted black sedan.
Marcus pulled the truck to the curb and killed the headlights, letting the engine idle quietly in the dark.
"Apartment 3B," Marcus said, turning his head to look at Vienna. "The lock on the front foyer door is busted. Just walk straight up."
Vienna looked back at the four men in the back seat. "Aren't you coming up with me?"
Jackson shook his head gently. "If we all crowd into that tiny room, his pride is going to kick in and he'll shut down. He's hurting, Vienna. He needs to see you first. He needs to know that the sacrifice actually meant something to the one person he did it for."
"We'll be down here keeping watch," JB added. "We're not going anywhere."
Vienna looked at the five of them—the bodyguard who had once been her shadow, and the friends who had once seemed so untouchable. They were his family. And now, they were hers, too.
"Thank you," Vienna said softly.
Marcus gave her a brief, solid nod. "Go on, Doc. Let him know he's not alone."
The air inside the building's stairwell was thick with the smell of damp coats, old steam pipes, and boiled spices. The wooden stairs groaned beneath Vienna's boots as she climbed to the third floor, the creaking sounds echoing in the narrow, dim corridor.
She stopped in front of the door labeled 3B. The brass numbers were tarnished, hanging crookedly by a single loose screw.
She didn't knock. She turned the unlocked brass handle and stepped inside.
The apartment was small, sparse, and cold. A single radiator in the corner hissed and clanked, struggling against the draft coming from the worn window frames. There was no television, no art on the walls, and no expensive furniture—just a small laminate table, a metal cot, and a single wooden chair.
Newton stood by the counter, his back to her. He was wearing a dark grey hoodie, the sleeves pushed up to reveal forearms smudged with black grease from the shipping yard. He was pouring hot water from a dented metal kettle into a thick mug.
At the sound of the door closing, he went completely still.
Slowly, he turned.
When his eyes met hers, the breath caught in his throat. The exhaustion on his face was stark. The sharp, polished edge he had carried his entire life was gone, replaced by the heavy, physical fatigue of a man working twelve-hour shifts on his feet. He looked thinner, his jawline shadowed with several days of dark stubble, but there was a quiet, solid stability in his eyes that Vienna had never seen before.
"Vienna," he whispered, the kettle still hovering in his hand. "How did you find me?"
"The front lock is broken," she said, her voice remarkably steady despite the racing of her heart. She pulled off her gloves and stepped further into the room. "And you have friends who refuse to let you disappear. Erick, JB, Allan, and Jackson are downstairs. I called Marcus. They brought me to you."
Newton stared at her, his jaw tightening as he set the kettle down. A complex wave of emotion crossed his face—shame, relief, and a deep, quiet gratitude that he tried to swallow down.
"I told Marcus to walk away," Newton said quietly. "I told him I couldn't pay him anymore."
"Marcus doesn't care about your money, Newton. Neither do your friends," Vienna said. She reached into her coat, pulled out the white envelope, and laid the $8,500 check on the laminate counter between them. "And neither do I."
Newton looked down at the check. "I wanted it to be clean. I didn't want any of my father's influence on it."
"It is clean," Vienna said, taking the final step to close the distance between them. "And I'm accepting it. But we're paying it back together. No more running away to freeze in a drafty room to prove you're a good man. If we do this, we do it as equals. Side by side. Or not at all."
Newton looked at her for a long, silent moment. The defensive, guarded posture he had built up over a lifetime of being a Washington finally crumbled. He reached out, his calloused, grease-stained fingers gently brushing the cold skin of her cheek.
"Side by side," he agreed, his voice barely a whisper.
As he pulled her into a quiet, desperate embrace, Vienna closed her eyes, listening to the steady beat of his heart. Outside, the storm continued to batter the city, and his brothers waited in the cold below—but inside, the silence was finally gone.