Chapter 1 - The Man Bleeding in the Rain
Forty minutes late, soaked in a stranger’s blood, and one mistake away from losing the job that kept my five-year-old son fed, there was only one thing I could say when my manager stared at me in disgust.
“He was dying. What was I supposed to do, leave him there?”
What I didn’t know was that the bleeding stranger I had just saved wasn’t an ordinary man.
And before the night was over, everyone in that restaurant would learn exactly who he was.
Rain mixed with engine oil always smelled like failure to me.
That afternoon, it poured over downtown Chicago while I hurried toward LaRue, the expensive French bistro where tiny plates and generous tips were the only reason my son and I still had an apartment.
My shift started at 4:30.
The cracked screen on my phone read 4:12.
If I made it on time, I could earn enough that night to buy the antibiotics my five-year-old, Leo, needed for his ear infection.
I had thirty-eight dollars in my checking account.
The prescription cost fifty-six.
Rent was due in nine days.
The electricity company had already sent me a final warning.
There were weeks when survival felt less like living and more like standing on a narrow ledge while someone slowly removed the bricks beneath my feet.
Still, I had become good at it.
I knew which grocery store marked down chicken after eight.
I knew which laundromat dryer gave you nine extra minutes if you hit the button twice.
I knew exactly how many days I could stretch Leo’s favorite cereal by mixing it with generic cornflakes.
Most importantly, I knew I could not be late for work again.
David Keller, LaRue’s general manager, had made that painfully clear three days earlier.
“One more problem, Natalie, and I replace you,” he had said. “There are fifty women in Chicago who would kill for your section.”
I believed him.
LaRue was the kind of restaurant where wealthy men ordered bottles of wine worth more than my monthly rent and barely looked at the total when signing the check.
A Friday night could mean three hundred dollars in tips.
Sometimes more.
For people like our guests, LaRue was dinner.
For me, it was Leo’s medicine, our heating bill, his winter shoes, and another month before the world caught us.
So when I heard someone choking in the alley behind a closed bakery, every practical thought in my head told me to keep walking.
Leo needed his medicine.
My manager hated tardiness.
Whatever was happening in that alley was not my problem.
Then came another gasp.
Followed by a heavy thud.
I stopped.
“Damn it.”
I turned around.
The alley was narrow and dark, trapped between an old brick bakery and a building being renovated into luxury apartments. Rainwater rushed along the gutters and gathered around overflowing garbage bags.
At first, I saw nothing.
Then lightning flashed.
A man was slumped beneath a rusted fire escape.
One hand was pressed against his abdomen.
Blood spread across a charcoal wool coat that probably cost more than everything in my closet combined.
I ran toward him.
“Sir?”
His head lifted.
He was somewhere in his late thirties, maybe forty. Dark hair plastered against his forehead. Strong jaw. Expensive watch. Broad shoulders.
And eyes unlike any I had ever seen.
Pale gray.
Cold even while his face was losing color.
“Do you need an ambulance?” I asked.
“Don’t.”
His voice was barely there.
I pulled out my phone.
The screen flickered once.
Then died.
Water had gotten inside the cracks.
“Great.”
“Walk away,” the stranger whispered.
“You’ve been stabbed.”
“I noticed.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
Then he moved his hand.
My stomach tightened.
The wound beneath his ribs was deep and jagged.
Whoever had stabbed him hadn’t simply pushed the knife in.
They had twisted it.
I knew enough first aid to understand that he could bleed out quickly.
My mother had been a nurse before cancer took her when I was twenty-three. She had taught me how to apply pressure, how to recognize shock, how not to panic simply because there was blood everywhere.
I ripped off my work apron.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving your life.”
“I said leave.”
“And I’m ignoring you.”
I folded the apron and pressed it firmly against his side.
His body arched.
A violent sound tore from his throat.
Then his hand shot up.
His fingers closed around my neck.
Hard.
My breath vanished.
For one terrifying second, I saw something in his expression that made me understand this was not an ordinary businessman who had wandered into the wrong alley.
This was a man accustomed to danger.
Maybe accustomed to causing it.
“Squeeze if you want,” I whispered, terrified but refusing to move. “If I let go, you’re going to bleed to death.”
His pale gray eyes locked onto mine.
Rain ran down both our faces.
Then his fingers loosened.
His hand fell.
“Name?” I asked.
Silence.
I pressed harder.
“Your name. Keep talking to me.”
“Roman.”
“I’m Natalie. Stay with me, Roman.”
His eyes closed.
I slapped his cheek.
“Absolutely not.”
One eye opened.
“You hit me?”
“Stay awake and I won’t have to.”
Something almost resembling amusement passed over his face.
Then it disappeared.
“You always this annoying?”
“Only with dying strangers.”
His lips moved faintly.
“Not dying.”
“Wonderful. Then this should be easy.”
I asked him questions to keep him conscious.
Favorite food.
He refused to answer.
Favorite baseball team.
He said he didn’t care about baseball.
That offended me enough to lecture him for thirty seconds about growing up in Chicago.
When that stopped working, I talked about Leo.
“My son is five,” I said. “He has an ear infection and thinks medicine tastes like melted tires.”
Roman’s eyelids fluttered.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re listening.”
“Against my will.”
“I’m okay with that.”
His hand moved toward the inside of his coat.
I tensed.
Instead of a weapon, he pulled out a phone.
The screen was shattered.
“I called someone before you arrived,” he murmured.
“An ambulance?”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
“They’re coming.”
“Who?”
“My people.”
That phrase made me look at him differently.
My people.
Not my brother.
Not my wife.
Not my driver.
My people.
I looked toward the entrance of the alley.
“Are these ‘people’ going to shoot me?”
“No.”
That answer came too quickly.
I narrowed my eyes.
“That was not reassuring.”
Roman actually smiled then.
Barely.
It transformed his face for half a second, making him look younger.
Human.
Then headlights flooded the alley.
A black SUV jumped the curb and stopped so violently that water sprayed across the brick wall.
Three men stepped out before the vehicle had fully stopped.
All three wore dark suits.
All three had guns.
I froze.
One of them immediately aimed at me.
“Move away from him!”
My hands lifted instinctively.
Roman raised a bloody hand.
“She helped.”
That was all he said.
The guns lowered.
The largest man rushed forward.
“Boss.”
Boss.
I stared at Roman.
He gave me one unreadable look.
I suddenly decided I had already learned more than I wanted to know.
“I have to go.”
The large man looked at my blood-soaked uniform.
“You kept pressure on the wound?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. Fifteen minutes.”
He gave me a surprised look.
“You probably saved his life.”
I glanced at the time on a wristwatch one of the men wore.
5:07.
My stomach dropped.
“Oh God.”
I grabbed my coat.
Roman’s voice followed me.
“Natalie.”
I turned.
“Thank you.”
It was the first thing he had said that sounded completely sincere.
Then I ran.
By the time I reached LaRue, it was 5:22.
The dinner rush had begun.
Crystal glasses shimmered beneath golden pendant lights.
A pianist played near the bar.
Men in tailored suits laughed over cocktails while women in designer dresses checked their phones.
I slipped through the kitchen entrance.
One of the cooks saw me and swore.
“Natalie, what happened?”
“Long story.”
I scrubbed Roman’s blood from my hands in the kitchen sink.
It clung beneath my fingernails.
My white blouse was destroyed.
My apron was gone.
A dark red stain covered my side where I had pressed against him.
“Natalie.”
I closed my eyes.
David Keller stood behind me.
He was forty-six, thin, perfectly groomed, and looked at service workers the way some people looked at insects crawling across their kitchen floor.
“You’re nearly an hour late.”
“There was an emergency.”
He stared at my clothes.
“A man had been stabbed. I found him in an alley and stopped the bleeding.”
David blinked.
Then laughed.
Actually laughed.
“Take off your coat.”
“David—”
“Take it off.”
I did.
His lip curled.
“This restaurant serves politicians, critics, and people who spend more on wine than you make in a year,” he said coldly. “We sell perfection. We do not employ waitresses who arrive late looking like a biohazard.”
My throat tightened.
“Please. My son is sick. Give me five minutes. Sophie keeps an extra blouse in her locker. I can change.”
“You were warned.”
“I know.”
“One more problem.”
“I saved someone’s life.”
“You abandoned your job.”
“A man was bleeding to death.”
“And somehow that becomes my staffing issue?”
Something inside me snapped.
“What was I supposed to do? Leave him there?”
Several kitchen employees had stopped working.
David stepped closer.
“You were supposed to understand that your personal decisions have consequences.”
“Personal decision?”
“Yes.”
“He had a knife wound.”
“And you are a waitress, Natalie. Not a doctor. Not a police officer. Not some heroic little character in a movie.”
His voice lowered.
“You are an employee who was scheduled at 4:30.”
My hands trembled.
I thought of Leo lying on the couch under his dinosaur blanket.
I thought of the prescription waiting at the pharmacy.
I swallowed every angry thing I wanted to say.
“I’m sorry.”
David smiled.
That was the worst part.
He liked hearing me say it.
“I can still work.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“You’re fired.”
My chest hollowed out.
“David.”
“Clean out your locker.”
“Please. My son—”
“I’m not interested in your domestic problems.”
Headlights swept across the restaurant windows.
At first, nobody paid attention.
Then a black SUV stopped outside.
My blood went cold.
Another SUV pulled in behind it.
And another.
The restaurant host stared through the glass.
The rear door of the first vehicle opened.
A man stepped out.
Roman.
He had changed clothes.
His charcoal coat was gone, replaced by a black suit and dark overcoat. His face was still pale, and beneath the coat I could see the outline of fresh medical bandaging around his abdomen.
But he was standing.
Two men walked beside him.
The same large man from the alley was among them.
David looked toward the dining room.
Then his expression changed completely.
The arrogance vanished.
He adjusted his tie.
“Oh.”
I stared at him.
“You know him?”
David ignored me.
He hurried into the dining room.
Roman entered LaRue.
Conversation quieted almost instantly.
That was when I understood.
People recognized him.
A city councilman near the window lowered his wineglass.
An older man at the bar stood.
The maître d’ went pale.
Roman moved through the restaurant with the calm certainty of someone who never needed to ask permission to enter a room.
David practically rushed toward him.
“Mr. DeLuca.”
DeLuca.
The name hit me.
Everyone in Chicago knew the DeLuca name.
Roman DeLuca.
Shipping.
Real estate.
Construction.
Private security.
Restaurants.
And, depending on which rumors you believed, half of Chicago’s criminal underworld.
David extended his hand.
Roman looked at it.
David slowly lowered it.
“Mr. DeLuca, we weren’t expecting you tonight.”
“I know.”
Roman scanned the room.
His eyes found me through the kitchen doorway.
“Natalie.”
Every employee turned toward me.
I wanted the floor to open.
Roman approached.
David looked between us.
“You know Natalie?”
Roman stopped in front of me.
“You changed clothes,” I said before I could stop myself.
The corner of his mouth moved.
“So did you.”
I looked down at my bloodstained blouse.
“Not yet.”
He glanced at David.
“Why?”
David cleared his throat.
“There was an employment issue.”
“What issue?”
“Natalie arrived nearly an hour late.”
Roman’s gaze returned to me.
“Because?”
David hesitated.
Roman waited.
The silence became unbearable.
“Because she claims she stopped to assist an injured man.”
“Claims?”
Roman’s voice was quiet.
That was somehow worse than shouting.
David swallowed.
“She arrived covered in blood. Obviously I couldn’t allow her onto the floor.”
Roman nodded slowly.
“What did you do?”
“I terminated her employment.”
The large man behind Roman looked away as though hiding a smile.
Roman stared at David.
Then he asked one question.
“Who owns this restaurant?”
David’s face changed.
“Excuse me?”
“Who owns LaRue?”
David looked around nervously.
“LaRue Hospitality Group.”
“And who owns LaRue Hospitality Group?”
David said nothing.
Roman stepped closer.
“I do.”
My mouth opened.
David’s face drained of color.
Roman’s voice remained perfectly controlled.
“You fired the woman who kept me alive because she was late saving my life.”
“Mr. DeLuca, I didn’t know—”
“That is the problem.”
David swallowed.
“I’m sorry.”
Roman glanced toward the servers, cooks, hosts, and bartenders watching us.
“If she had saved a homeless man, would you still have fired her?”
David said nothing.
“If she had saved a dishwasher?”
Silence.
“A delivery driver?”
Nothing.
Roman looked disgusted.
“You’re not sorry you fired her. You’re sorry the bleeding man happened to own the building.”
David’s mouth moved.
No words came out.
Roman turned to the large man.
“Marcus.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Call corporate.”
David’s eyes widened.
“Mr. DeLuca, please.”
“You are suspended effective immediately pending a full review of every complaint ever filed against you.”
“Roman—”
The room seemed to freeze at the use of his first name.
Roman looked at him.
David corrected himself instantly.
“Mr. DeLuca.”
“Leave.”
David’s face burned.
“This is my restaurant.”
“No,” Roman said. “It never was.”
Security escorted David toward the office.
I stood motionless.
Everyone stared at me.
Roman looked at the blood on my blouse.
“Did you buy your son’s medicine?”
I stiffened.
“How do you remember that?”
“You talked for fifteen minutes without taking a breath.”
“I was keeping you conscious.”
“It worked.”
I looked away.
“No. I haven’t bought it.”
Roman turned to Marcus.
“Pharmacy?”
“I can handle it.”
“No.”
I stepped between them.
Roman lifted an eyebrow.
“I don’t need you paying for anything.”
“You need antibiotics.”
“My son needs antibiotics. And I’ll buy them.”
“With what money?”
The question stung.
My face hardened.
“That is none of your business.”
Something shifted in Roman’s expression.
Not anger.
Respect.
“Fair.”
He reached into his coat.
I tensed automatically.
He noticed.
Instead, he pulled out a business card.
Plain black.
Roman DeLuca.
One phone number.
No title.
He held it toward me.
“I owe you.”
“No.”
“Natalie.”
“You thanked me. Debt paid.”
His eyes narrowed.
“People usually want something from me.”
“Then today must be exciting.”
Marcus coughed, clearly hiding another laugh.
Roman studied me for several seconds.
“Go home.”
“I need my shift.”
“You still have your job.”
“I need the tips.”
Roman looked toward the dining room.
Then back at me.
“You are covered in my blood.”
“I noticed.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m angry.”
“You’re exhausted.”
“I’m poor. Exhausted is normal.”
That silenced him.
For the first time, the intimidating Roman DeLuca seemed to have no immediate reply.
Then a man hurried through the front door.
He whispered something to Marcus.
Marcus’s expression changed.
Roman noticed.
“What?”
Marcus hesitated.
Roman’s gaze hardened.
“Say it.”
“We found the weapon.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Where?”
“In the alley.”
“And?”
Marcus looked toward me.
That made my skin crawl.
“And we pulled security footage from the bakery across the street.”
Roman’s eyes remained on Marcus.
“Did you see his face?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Marcus slowly looked at David’s office.
“The attacker came out of LaRue twenty-three minutes before you were stabbed.”
Silence.
I stared at him.
Roman turned toward the office where David had disappeared.
Then Marcus said the words that would pull me into a world I had spent my entire life trying to avoid.
“And whoever stabbed you used an employee entrance code.”
Roman’s pale eyes moved to mine.
Somewhere behind us, my manager was shouting at security.
Outside, the rain hammered Chicago.
And I realized the stranger I had saved had not come back simply to thank me.
May you like
Someone inside my restaurant had tried to murder Roman DeLuca.
And now they knew I had kept him alive.
