A Bleeding Mafia Boss Showed Up at My Door at 2 AM—And Revealed He Secretly Paid Off My Debts Months Ago!
My Drunk Mafia Boss Collapsed at My Door and Woke Up Claiming I Was the Only Thing He Would Never Let Go
The most dangerous man in San Francisco knocked on my apartment door at 2:14 in the morning, bleeding through a five-thousand-dollar suit and holding an empty whiskey bottle like it was the only friend he had left.
When I opened the door, Roman Bianchi looked straight into my eyes and said four words that destroyed my life.
“I need you, Nora.”
Then he collapsed on my welcome mat.
For ten full seconds, I stood there barefoot in gray sweatpants, staring at the man every bartender, banker, cop, and criminal south of Market Street knew by reputation.
Roman owned half the buildings along the waterfront, including the one where I worked. Officially, he was a real estate investor. Unofficially, men who crossed him tended to vanish, retire suddenly, or discover an urgent desire to move to another continent.
I had spoken to him exactly once.
Three months earlier, while serving his usual club soda at the Lantern Room, I had spilled a drop on the cuff of his white shirt.
I expected to be fired before the glass hit the table.
Instead, Roman had looked at my trembling hands and quietly said, “Breathe.”
That was all.
Now he lay facedown outside Apartment 4B, blood spreading beneath his ribs.
My first instinct was to call 911.
My second was to remember whose blood was staining my carpet.
You did not summon police officers to deal with Roman Bianchi. Half of them would apologize for disturbing him. The other half would report my address to whoever had put the knife in his side.
I crouched beside him.
“Roman?”
He did not move.
I slapped his cheek.
“Wake up. You cannot die here. My landlord already hates me.”
A low groan came from somewhere deep in his chest.
I grabbed his shoulders and dragged him into my apartment. He weighed more than two hundred pounds, most of it muscle and bad decisions. By the time I kicked the door closed, my back was screaming and my hands were red.
I had completed two years of nursing school before my father’s gambling debts forced me to quit. I had never worked in an emergency room, but I knew enough to recognize shock.
Roman’s skin was cold. His pulse was fast and weak.
His expensive black shirt was soaked along his left side.
I cut it open with kitchen scissors.
The wound beneath his ribs was deep, jagged, and still bleeding.
“A knife,” I whispered.
Not a distant gunshot. Not an anonymous attack.
Someone had gotten close enough to Roman Bianchi to drive steel into his body.
Someone he had trusted.
I ran to the bathroom and returned with gauze, saline, medical adhesive, and the emergency supplies I kept because my neighborhood treated sirens as background noise.
The instant the saline touched the wound, Roman woke with an animal roar.
His hand shot up and closed around my throat.
My back struck the floor.
For one terrifying second, his dark eyes held no recognition, only violence.
“You,” he rasped.
“Let go,” I choked. “I’m trying to save your miserable life.”
Recognition flickered across his face.
“The waitress.”
“My name is Nora.”
His grip weakened. His eyes rolled back, and his hand dropped.
I coughed until my lungs burned, then considered letting him bleed to death.
It would have been easy.
I could have stepped over him, opened my door, and allowed nature to correct one of the city’s more dangerous mistakes.
But I was not a murderer.
Not even by omission.
I packed the wound, pressed until my arms shook, and sealed what I could. It was ugly work, but the bleeding slowed.
When I finished, my living room looked like a crime scene. Bloody towels covered the floor. Saline bottles rolled beneath the coffee table. Roman lay beneath the bright yellow blanket my grandmother had crocheted before she died.
A mafia boss wrapped in daisies.
I sat in a kitchen chair with a mug of black coffee and watched him until dawn.
At seven thirty, Roman opened his eyes.
He did not panic.
That was the first truly frightening thing he did.
He woke in a strange apartment, gravely injured and almost naked, yet remained perfectly still while his gaze moved over the room. He noticed the blood, the medical supplies, the locked door, the unpaid bills on my counter, and finally me.
Then he sat up.
“You should not move,” I said.
“You did this?”
“I stopped the bleeding.”
“You did not call a doctor.”
“Doctors ask questions.”
His gaze dropped to the bandages.
“So do you.”
“I have one question. How soon can you leave?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“Nora Hale.”
A chill moved through me.
“I never told you my last name.”
“I know everyone who works in my buildings.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“I also know you left nursing school two years ago and have been working double shifts to cover debts your father disappeared without paying.”
I tightened my hands around the coffee mug.
“You investigate waitresses?”
“I investigate everyone who comes near me.”
“Apparently not well enough.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“You have a sharp tongue for someone sitting ten feet from a man she just called incompetent.”
“You are welcome for not dying.”
May you like
The smile vanished.
“Why did you save me?”
