Chapter 1 - Stitches in the Dark
The cold, metallic smell of fresh blood mixed with melted sleet filled the cramped living room of Apartment 2B.
The stranger’s hand remained locked around Sheree’s throat. His fingers were large, calloused, and bone-chillingly cold, pressing just firmly enough over her carotid artery for her to feel the frantic, heavy pounding of her own pulse against his skin.
Sheree didn't pull back. Six years as an ER trauma nurse in one of Chicago’s busiest hospitals had cured her of the instinct to panic when blood flew or people lashed out.
"If you press any harder on my throat," Sheree said, her voice dry, quiet, and completely steady, "my hand will slip, and I will poke this curved needle straight into your abdominal wall. Then we’ll both be having a very bad morning."
The stranger’s dark, bloodshot eyes narrowed. Under the dim, flickering yellow light of her kitchen floor lamp, his features were striking—sharp jawline, dark hair plastered against his forehead by frozen slush, and eyes as black and cold as the Lake Michigan deep water.
Slowly, his hand opened. His fingers slid off her neck, dropping heavily onto the arm of her cheap sofa.
"You're a nurse," he rasped, his voice rough as gravel.
"And you're bleeding on my good rug," Sheree replied, dipping a cotton pad into iodine. "Hold still. I'm on my twenty-second hour without sleep, and my mercy has a very strict expiration date."
She wiped away the dark blood pooling around his left flank. The wound was a clean, jagged tear—a deep knife slash that had narrowly missed his kidney but shredded muscle tissue. Whoever had ambushed him knew how to use a blade.
As Sheree drove the suture needle through his skin, pulling the black thread tight, the man’s entire body went rigid. A vein bulged along his neck, but he didn't make a sound. Not a groan. Not a hiss. He simply stared up at the cracked plaster ceiling, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the sofa cushion.
"No local anesthetic," Sheree noted, tying off the second knot. "You're either ridiculously stubborn, or you're used to being stabbed."
"Both," he grunted.
"Lovely." She pulled another length of suture thread. "I'm Sheree, by the way. Usually, I get a name before I start sewing people back together."
"Nicholas," he said after a long pause.
"Just Nicholas?"
"Just Nicholas."
Sheree finished the last of the twelve stitches, cleaned the wound with saline, and taped a thick layer of sterile gauze over his ribs. She reached down, picked up his discarded wool coat from the floor, and felt the unmistakable heavy, cold weight of a steel firearm tucked into an inner leather shoulder holster.
She set the coat on the coffee table, keeping her distance.
"Your blood pressure is dangerously low, Nicholas," she said, leaning against her small kitchen counter, her arms crossed over her green scrubs. "You lost at least two units of blood out in that alley. You need warmth, fluids, and about forty-eight hours of absolute quiet. If you try to stand up right now, you'll pass out and rip those stitches open."
Nicholas looked down at his neatly bandaged side, then raised his dark eyes to meet hers. There was a sudden, intense focus in his gaze—an intimidating, dangerous presence that filled her tiny apartment until the space felt suffocatingly small.
"Why didn't you call the police?" Nicholas asked softly.
Sheree looked at her small kitchen window, where the freezing rain rattled against the glass. "Because policemen ask fifty questions, fill out twenty forms, and bring news cameras. And frankly, I didn't want blood on my hallway stairs."
Nicholas stared at her for three long seconds. Then, the corner of his firm mouth twitched upward in a faint, fleeting ghost of a smile.
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"You have terrible survival instincts, Sheree Murphy."
"So my landlord tells me," she replied, throwing her bloody gloves into the trash bin. "Get some sleep, Nicholas. If you die on my sofa, I'm throwing you back behind the dumpster."
