Chapter 1 - The Blood on My ApronForty-five Minutes Late
Rain, blood, and forty-five stolen minutes were all it took to destroy the only job keeping my five-year-old son and me from falling apart.
My shift at Laura, an upscale French bistro in downtown Chicago, started at exactly 4:30.
At 4:12, I was rushing through freezing rain, one hand gripping my purse and the other holding my dead phone, thinking about the antibiotics Leo desperately needed for his ear infection.
Then I heard a strangled gasp behind a closed bakery.
Every sensible thought screamed at me to keep walking.
Leo needed medicine.
I needed my job.
And whatever was happening in that filthy alley was not my problem.
The sound came again.
I stopped.
Then I turned.
A man was slumped beneath a rusted fire escape.
Blood spread across an expensive charcoal coat.
He pressed one hand against his abdomen, but his fingers were slipping. His face had gone ghostly pale.
"Do you need an ambulance?"
"Don't."
His voice was barely audible.
"Walk away."
I dropped my purse.
I knelt beside him.
When I pulled his hand away, my stomach twisted at the deep, jagged wound beneath his ribs.
I tore apart the thick apron I wore for work and folded the fabric into a makeshift pad.
"Hold still."
He stared at me.
"You have no idea what you're doing."
"I know enough to know you're dying."
I pressed the fabric against the wound.
His entire body arched.
Then his hand shot upward and closed around my throat.
He didn't squeeze.
He simply looked into my eyes.
A warning.
"Squeeze if you want," I whispered. "But if I let go, you're going to bleed out."
His gray eyes stayed on mine.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Then his hand dropped.
"What's your name?"
"Roman."
"I'm Megan."
My phone had died from the rain.
Nobody was coming.
So I stayed.
I talked to him because I had read somewhere that keeping an injured person conscious mattered.
I told him about absolutely nothing.
The weather.
The bakery.
My son's terrible obsession with dinosaur stickers.
Anything to keep him talking.
"Your son?" Roman asked.
"Leo."
"How old?"
"Five."
Roman closed his eyes.
"Does he have a father?"
I hesitated.
"Not one who shows up."
Something unreadable crossed Roman's face.
Then he coughed.
Fresh blood touched his lips.
I pressed harder.
"No," he whispered.
"No what?"
"No hospital."
"You're bleeding through my apron."
"My people are coming."
"Your people need to come faster."
As if summoned by the words, a matte-black SUV screamed into the alley.
Three men jumped out.
All wearing black.
One had a pistol in his hand.
He pointed it directly at me.
"Back away."
My heart nearly stopped.
I froze.
Roman lifted one blood-covered hand.
"She helped."
The gun lowered slightly.
Roman looked at me.
"Go."
I grabbed my purse and ran.
By the time I reached Laura's service entrance, I was soaked to the bone.
The clock read 5:15.
Forty-five minutes late.
I scrubbed Roman's blood from my hands while praying David Kesler would listen.
He didn't.
My manager stood near the kitchen entrance, his face twisted with disgust.
"Take off your coat."
I obeyed.
The white blouse underneath was covered in dark blood.
"I found an injured man," I said. "He'd been stabbed. I stopped the bleeding."
David didn't ask if the man was alive.
He reminded me that the mayor's chief of staff was dining there.
A restaurant critic was coming.
The restaurant's investors were coming.
"This is Laura," he said coldly. "We sell perfection."
"My son is sick."
"Everyone has a problem, Megan."
"Please."
I swallowed.
"I just need to work tonight."
David disappeared into his office.
When he returned, there was an envelope in his hand.
He threw it at my feet.
"You're fired."
The envelope landed beside my wet shoes.
My final paycheck.
I stared at it.
For one terrible second, I thought about kneeling down and begging.
Then the kitchen went silent.
Not normal silence.
The kind where every person suddenly senses something dangerous has entered the room.
Three men in black suits walked through the service entrance.
Behind them stood the man from the alley.
Roman.
Fresh suit.
No blood.
No weakness.
He looked completely different.
Not like a dying stranger.
Like a man accustomed to rooms falling silent when he entered.
David went white.
Roman's eyes moved from me to the envelope on the floor.
Then back to David.
"Who fired her?"
David's mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Roman walked closer.
"I asked a question."
"I... I did."
Roman's expression didn't change.
"On whose authority?"
David swallowed.
"The restaurant's management."
Roman glanced around the kitchen.
"Management?"
He reached into his coat and removed a slim black folder.
He opened it.
Then placed one sheet of paper on the nearest stainless-steel table.
"The building you're standing in," he said quietly, "belongs to me."
Nobody moved.
David stared at the paper.
Roman continued.
"So does the restaurant."
My knees weakened.
I grabbed the counter.
Roman looked at me again.
Then at my ruined apron lying in the trash.
"You used that to keep me alive."
His eyes hardened.
"And this man fired you for it."
He looked at David.
"Interesting."
David's face drained of color.
Roman folded the document.
"Call the owner."
David's voice trembled.
"You are the owner."
Roman smiled for the first time.
It wasn't kind.
"No."
He stepped closer.
"I'm the reason your owner still has a business."
Then one of the armed men whispered something into Roman's ear.
Roman's expression changed.
"Say that again."
The man leaned closer.
Roman slowly turned toward me.
"What is your son's full name?"
My blood ran cold.
Why would a man I had met forty-five minutes ago care about my five-year-old son?
"Leo Bennett."
Roman stared at me.
For the first time since I had met him, he looked genuinely shaken.
"That's impossible."
"What?"
He looked at one of his men.
"Get the file."
"Which one?"
Roman didn't answer immediately.
Then he said:
"All of them."
May you like
He looked back at me.
"Someone has been looking for your son."
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