Chapter 5
She heard his voice periodically.
His footsteps moving across slate.
A sentinel inside his own home.
The sky turned the color of dirty snow before dawn.
Sadie woke to coffee.
Strong and dark.
Her body felt heavy and sore.
When she sat up, pain moved sharply through the ankle.
She used the wall to make her way into the main room.
Callum sat at the kitchen island with a laptop open.
He had changed clothes.
A clean black shirt.
Sleeves pushed toward his elbows.
Coffee steamed beside 1 hand.
He did not look up.
“You’re moving too much.”
“The doctor said no weight.”
“I have to use the bathroom, Callum.”
Sadie’s voice was dry.
“I can’t float.”
Callum closed the laptop.
He walked to her.
Before she could protest, he lifted her again.
The motion was so practiced and easy that Sadie felt almost weightless.
He carried her to a bar stool beside the kitchen island and arranged the injured leg across another stool.
“Eat.”
He gestured toward dry toast and poached eggs.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You lost blood.”
“You were in shock.”
Then:
“Eat the eggs, Sadie, or I’ll feed them to you.”
She searched his expression for humor.
There was none.
Sadie picked up the fork.
After 1 bite, she realized how hungry she actually was.
Callum watched in silence.
His fingers tapped irregularly against the coffee mug.
Then Sadie saw his right hand.
3 knuckles were split open.
The skin was swollen.
Dark dried blood covered the cuts.
A bruise ran toward his wrist.
Sadie stopped eating.
“What happened?”
Callum looked toward his own hand as though he had forgotten it.
He flexed the fingers.
Pain tightened his eyes for an instant.
“I had a conversation.”
“With Declan’s people.”
“The men who…”
Sadie could not finish.
“They won’t use those hands to hold a knife again.”
Callum took a drink of coffee.
“And they won’t kick anybody either.”
Sadie looked down.
“Did you kill them?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
Her voice cracked with exhaustion.
“Of course it matters.”
“I’m an art historian.”
“I write about brushwork and provenance.”
She looked toward him.
“I don’t want people dead because of me.”
“They didn’t die because of you.”
Callum leaned across the counter.
His shadow fell across her.
“They died because they forgot who controls this city.”
“They believed they could use a woman to get to me.”
His voice became frighteningly calm.
“They made a calculation.”
Then:
“They got the math wrong.”
He reached into his pocket.
Something landed on the marble.
Sadie’s portfolio.
The leather was wet and stained.
The strap had nearly torn through.
But it was intact.
Sadie opened it.
Inside, the heavy cream-colored provenance documents were dry.
Untouched.
She looked toward the papers.
Then toward Callum’s bloody knuckles.
“You went back for it.”
“You said you needed the documents.”
Callum turned toward the sink.
“The Russo family doesn’t lose assets.”
He rinsed his coffee mug.
“We don’t lose paperwork.”
Then:
“And we don’t let people take what belongs to us.”
Belongs to us.
Sadie did not know whether he meant the documents or her.
The distinction felt dangerously small.
She slid from the stool and moved toward him, ignoring the pain.
Sadie caught his wrist.
Callum froze.
“Let me.”
He turned slowly.
“Let you what?”
“Your hand.”
She looked at the split skin.
“It’s dirty.”
“It will get infected.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“I’m sure.”
Sadie reached toward the first-aid supplies Dr. Evans left behind.
Then she pointed toward the stool.
“Sit.”
For a moment, Callum simply stared.
Callum Russo did not accept orders from women who spent their working hours in museum basements.
Then he exhaled and sat.
Sadie stood between his knees, balancing on her good leg.
She poured antiseptic over gauze.
“This will sting.”
“I know.”
She pressed it against his knuckles.
He did not flinch.
He only watched her.
Her nose.
Her pale forehead.
The lower lip she had bitten raw.
“You’re quiet.”
“I’m concentrating.”
She removed the dried blood and exposed the jagged cuts.
“You have terrible hands.”
Her voice softened.
“They’re too big.”
“Too hard.”
“They work.”
“Your work is horrible.”
“It’s the only work I have.”
Sadie looked up.
The distance between them had disappeared.
She could see a small silver scar near his temple and the roughness of his jaw.
The realization came quietly.
This was the trap.
The O’Bannions were not the only danger.
The real danger was that the man with the bloody hands and cold penthouse was the only person making her feel safe.
She bandaged his knuckles.
Her fingers remained against his palm.
Callum closed his hand around them.
Slowly.
Firmly.
He did not squeeze.
The message required no words.
Sadie was inside his world now.
And Callum had made himself the strongest protection available inside it.
By Wednesday afternoon, Sadie had stopped pretending she was not effectively a hostage.
The penthouse was a gilded cage approximately 50 stories above a city that seemed to be tearing itself apart around the consequences of what had happened in the alley.
Callum did not explain the violence.
Sadie saw it on television.
2 bodies pulled from the Chicago River.
Unidentified.
The news anchor mentioned severe trauma to the hands and faces.
Sadie muted the television.
Then she stared at the darkened screen for approximately 1 hour.
Dr. Evans sent an orthopedic boot.
She was permitted to walk short distances.
Most of her time was still spent on the charcoal sofa wearing Callum’s oversized sweater and watching rain cross the windows.
Callum came and went like a ghost.
He often left before sunrise.
The deadbolt closed behind him.
He returned long after dark.
When home, he seemed permanently attached to his phone.
His low voice traveled from the office as he discussed shipping manifests, port authority bribes, and violence with the same clinical tone.
Thursday morning changed the pattern.
Sadie was at the kitchen island preparing tea when the front door opened.
Callum entered looking exhausted.
His face was drawn.
Stubble darkened his jaw.
He dropped a leather briefcase onto the slate floor, removed his coat, and walked directly toward the bar.
He poured bourbon.
It was 10:00 a.m.
“I need to leave today.”
May you like
Callum stopped with the glass near his mouth.
He drank.
