“The safe house.”
“Arthur, your shoulder is still bleeding!”
“It can wait.”
“No, it can’t!” she yelled, stopping in the service corridor.
The metal walls bounced her sharp voice back at them.
“You’re losing blood, you have glass in your muscle, and I am not riding in a car with an unconscious mobster.”
Arthur turned to look at her.
For the first time since she met him two years ago, his expression softened.
“You really aren’t afraid of me, are you?”
“I’m terrified of your driving when you pass out from shock.”
He stared at her for three seconds.
Then, slowly, he took the keys to the armored SUV from his pocket.
He pressed them into her palm.
“Then you drive, Miss Gallagher.”
The safe house was a converted brick warehouse in Fulton Market.
Unmarked steel doors.
Reinforced ballistic glass.
Inside, the space was sleek, minimalist, and dead quiet.
Beatrice dumped her purse onto the kitchen island.
“Sit,” she ordered, pointing at a high leather barstool.
Arthur obeyed without a word.
He stripped off his ruined tuxedo jacket and tore away his bloody dress shirt.
His torso was mapped with old scars—knife wounds, bullet grazes, and taut muscle.
Beatrice swallowed hard, trying to keep her hands steady.
“First aid kit is under the sink,” he said.
She grabbed the metal box and a bottle of high-proof bourbon from the shelf.
She poured a generous splash onto a clean towel.
“This is going to hurt.”
“I’ve had worse,” Arthur said.
She approached him with the medical tweezers.
Her fingers brushed his bare shoulder.
His skin was burning hot.
Carefully, holding her breath, she clamped the edge of the crystal shard.
With one quick, decisive pull, she extracted the glass.
Arthur didn’t flinch.
Only his jaw clenched until the muscles knotted like cords.
A fresh wave of crimson welled up from the cut.
“You’re remarkably steady with those,” he remarked, watching her face closely.
“My father was a butcher,” she said, soaking gauze in antiseptic.
“I know how flesh cuts.”
“And how money moves.”
“Both leave a trail.”
She began stitching the wound with a curved suture needle from the kit.
Her forehead almost touched his shoulder as she concentrated.
She smelled the copper of his blood and the vanilla cream on her own skin.
“Why did you choose me for tonight, Arthur?”
“Really?”
Arthur went very still beneath her hands.
“Richard Spatafora was planning to make a move tonight.”
“I needed someone who understood the ledgers.”
“Someone who wouldn’t run when the shooting started.”
“You put me in danger.”
“I kept you where I could see you.”
He turned his head slightly.
His lips were inches from her ear.
“If you had stayed in your apartment tonight, Liam O’Malley would have used you as leverage.”
Beatrice paused her needlework.
“Liam works for Spatafora?”
“Liam is Spatafora’s attack dog.”
“And Tommy?”
Arthur’s voice dropped lower.
“Tommy stole a ledger from Liam’s desk.”
“He didn’t borrow money, Beatrice.”
“Your brother tried to protect you.”
“He found out they were planning to frame you for the three-million-dollar deficit.”
Beatrice dropped the needle into the metal tray.
Her breath hitched in her throat.
“Tommy did that for me?”
“He loves you,” Arthur said softly.
“He is reckless, but he isn’t corrupt.”
Beatrice felt a hot tear escape her eye.
Before it could fall, Arthur’s thumb reached up.
He wiped the tear away with surprising gentleness.
His thumb lingered against her cheekbone.
“I won’t let them touch him, Beatrice.”
“And I won’t let them touch you.”
Their eyes locked in the dim kitchen light.
The tension between them shifted, thickening into something dangerously electric.
Arthur leaned forward.
His hand slid up into her auburn hair, loosening the remaining pins.
The curls tumbled over her bare shoulders.
“Arthur…” she whispered.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmured against her lips.
She didn’t speak.
His mouth crashed down onto hers.
