Chapter 3 - The Darkest Stitch
They didn't go to a hospital. In Roman’s world, hospitals meant police, and police meant vulnerability. Instead, Sal drove the bullet-riddled town car frantically to a heavily guarded penthouse overlooking the Brooklyn bridge.
Roman was bleeding heavily, his black dress shirt soaked through with dark, sticky red. He was pale and sweating, but he refused to let anyone but Evelyn touch him as he collapsed onto the massive leather sofa in the living room.
“I need a doctor, Sal!” Evelyn panicked, pressing one of her clean cloth napkins—which she had shoved in her purse from dinner—against Roman’s waist.
“Our doc is two hours out in Jersey,” Sal cursed, tossing a medical kit onto the glass coffee table. “Boss, it went straight through the side, but it’s deep. It needs closing now.”
Roman groaned, his head falling back against the cushions. He looked at Evelyn, his chest heaving. “You... you sew, right?”
Evelyn stared at him in horror. “I tailor suits, Roman! I don’t sew human beings back together!”
“Skin is just... stubborn fabric,” Roman rasped, a weak smirk playing on his lips. “Do it, Evelyn. I trust you.”
Her hands shook violently as she opened the medical kit, finding the sterilized needle and surgical thread. She had to cut away the expensive silk lining of his shirt, exposing the hard, tattooed muscle of his torso. The bullet had grazed the obliques, tearing a deep gash that poured blood.
“Hold him down, Sal,” she ordered, her tailor instincts suddenly kicking in. Focus on the seam. Focus on the thread.
She cleaned the wound with alcohol, Roman biting back a guttural scream that made her heart ache. Then, with trembling fingers, she pierced the skin. One stitch. Two. Three. She tied them off with the precision of a master craftsman, her face pale, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She hated seeing him hurt. The realization hit her like a freight train—she cared about this dangerous, impossible man.
When she finally snipped the thread, Roman was breathing shallowly, his eyes locked onto her face. Sal silently slipped out of the room to secure the perimeter, leaving them entirely alone in the dim light of the penthouse.
Evelyn dropped the scissors, her hands covered in his blood. She let out a shaky sob. Roman reached up with a heavy hand, wrapping his fingers around the back of her neck and pulling her down until her forehead rested against his.
“You did beautifully, mia sarta (my tailor),” he whispered, his breath warm against her lips.
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“You’re an idiot,” she cried softly. “You could have died.”
“I’d die for you, Evelyn,” he confessed, the mafia mask completely stripped away, leaving only raw, unfiltered truth. He tilted her chin up, and despite the blood, the pain, and the terror, he kissed her. It wasn’t a gentle kiss; it was desperate, claiming, and fueled by the adrenaline of survival. Evelyn kissed him back with equal ferocity, her hands tangling in his dark hair, entirely surrendering to the pull she had been fighting since the day he walked into her shop.
