Chapter 4 - THE SAFE HOUSE
The alley was a labyrinth of dumpsters and frozen puddles. The bitter wind sliced through Evelyn's thin cotton uniform, but adrenaline kept her blood boiling. They didn't stop running until they reached an unmarked, armored SUV parked three blocks away, hidden in an abandoned warehouse district. Lorenzo shoved her into the passenger seat, jumped behind the wheel, and peeled out into the desolate streets, leaving the fiery glow of The Obsidian behind them.
The silence in the car was suffocating. Evelyn hugged her knees to her chest, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. She had just saved the life of a monster, and in doing so, became a target for whoever had the money and power to buy off Celeste Vane.
"You're shaking," Lorenzo observed, his eyes glued to the rearview mirror. He tossed a heavy cashmere overcoat into her lap. "Put that on."
"Where are we going?" she managed to whisper.
"Somewhere they can't find us. You're dead if you go home. The Vane family doesn't leave loose ends, and you just ruined a fifty-million-dollar hostile takeover of my territory."
They arrived at a sleek, minimalist penthouse overlooking the dark waters of Lake Michigan. It wasn't one of his known properties; it was a ghost pad. Once inside, Lorenzo locked the reinforced steel door and turned to her. In the harsh fluorescent light of the entryway, he looked less like a mob boss and more like a wounded predator. A patch of crimson was spreading across the left shoulder of his white dress shirt.
"You're shot," Evelyn gasped.
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"Graze," he grunted, shrugging off his jacket. "First aid kit is under the kitchen sink. You're going to patch me up, Evelyn." He knew her name. He had read her nametag. As she pressed gauze to his bleeding shoulder, the sheer intimacy and terror of the moment bound them together. He watched her face, his cold eyes softening slightly. "Why did you do it? You could have walked away."
"I don't like bullies," she lied, her voice shaking. "And I hate bad tippers." A faint, dark chuckle rumbled in his chest, signaling a shift in the air between them.
