Chapter 4
The guest room looked almost too perfect to have ever been used.
A platform bed.
Charcoal bedding pulled tight enough to look painted into place.
A glass carafe of water beside the prescription medication Dr. Evans had left.
Callum lowered Sadie onto the edge of the mattress.
His hands remained at her waist for 1 beat longer than necessary before he stepped away.
“You need dry clothes.”
He looked toward her still-damp blouse.
“Gabe will collect some of your things tomorrow.”
“For tonight, use what’s in the closet.”
Sadie held the mattress edge.
“What’s in there?”
“Sweaters.”
“Shirts.”
Callum’s voice remained neutral.
“Things left behind by people who didn’t stay.”
The implication landed.
Sadie was not the first person who had entered his orbit.
She suspected she was the first brought there injured after being targeted by his enemies.
“I’m not wearing another woman’s clothes.”
Callum looked back.
“They aren’t women’s clothes.”
His expression hardened.
“They’re mine.”
“New.”
“I keep extras because I don’t like running out when I work late.”
His hand rested on the brass door handle.
“Change.”
Then:
“The bathroom floor is heated.”
He closed the door.
Sadie sat alone for almost a minute.
The climate system hummed softly.
Her ankle throbbed in time with her heartbeat.
Eventually she moved carefully toward the closet.
It was larger than her kitchen in Logan Square.
Rows of charcoal, black, and navy suits hung in perfect order.
Below them were stacks of black shirts and thick gray cashmere sweaters.
Sadie selected 1 sweater.
It was enormous.
In the bathroom mirror, she barely recognized herself.
Pale.
Hollow-eyed.
A thin streak of dried blood marked her collarbone.
She removed it with a white washcloth and watched red diffuse through the fibers before disappearing down the drain.
Then she pulled Callum’s sweater over her head.
The hem fell below her thighs.
The sleeves covered her knuckles.
It was warm.
More important than warmth was its weight.
The fabric felt almost protective.
When she returned toward the bedroom, she heard Callum speaking in the living room.
Sadie moved closer to the door.
“I don’t care what meeting he’s in.”
His voice traveled through the wood.
“You find Declan O’Bannion.”
A pause.
“Tell him that if his boys want to play in my yard, they better be ready to lose their hands.”
Sadie became still.
“No negotiations.”
“No sit-down.”
Callum continued.
“They took something of mine.”
“I want it back tonight.”
Then:
“And I want the men who took it.”
Another pause followed.
“Yeah.”
“The papers too.”
Then, colder:
“But mostly I want the hands.”
Sadie stepped away.
He had not been speaking metaphorically.
She climbed back into bed and pulled the duvet toward her chin.
The cashmere sweater was warm.
She still could not stop shaking.
Hours passed.
Rain weakened into a freezing mist.
Sadie moved in and out of shallow sleep, repeatedly waking from fragments of wet alleys, footsteps, and cold steel against her skin.
May you like
Each time, she saw light beneath the bedroom door.
Callum remained awake.
