Chapter 7
The confrontation came at the Castellan Hotel.
Not the ballroom this time — a private function room on the fourth floor, where Damian was meeting with a group of investors that included two men who were working for Vasquez. Evelyn was not supposed to be there. She had come to deliver a sample swatch for a client who was at the event, and she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
She came out of the elevator and into the corridor and found it blocked by two men she recognized from the alley.
They recognized her too.
“Well, well.” The scarred man. “Look who wandered in.”
She did not run. She did not back up to the elevator. She stood where she was, her bag over her shoulder, her hand inside it finding the weight she had been carrying for three weeks.
“Mr. Vascari is in a meeting,” she said. “I suggest you inform him I am here.”
“You suggest —” The man laughed. “You think you get to suggest things?”
“I think you made a mistake when you broke into my shop. And I think you are about to make a second one.”
The scarred man stepped toward her. She pulled the gun from her bag and held it at her side — not raised, not threatening, but visible.
“I know how to use this now.” Her voice was flat. “I spent three evenings learning. I am not an expert, but at this distance, I do not need to be.”
The man stopped.
The door behind him opened. Damian stepped out. He took in the scene in a single glance — the two men, the gun in Evelyn’s hand, her position in the corridor.
“Evelyn.”
“Your friend here was about to make a decision.”
Damian looked at the scarred man. The quality of his stillness was different now — colder, more focused.
“Vasquez’s men,” he said. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“I thought we had identified all of them.”
“You missed two.”
His eyes moved to her. “You found them.”
“They found me. I decided to be prepared.”
He turned to the men. “You have five seconds to leave this floor before I reconsider the terms of our conversation.”
The men left. The corridor was quiet.
Damian crossed to her and looked at the gun in her hand.
“You pulled a gun on two armed men in a hotel corridor.”
“Yes.”
“That was reckless.”
“I know.”
“You did it anyway.”
“Because I did not want to be the leverage again.” She met his eyes. “I am not going to be the thing someone uses to hurt you. Not again.”
He looked at her for a long moment. The tension in his shoulders eased a fraction.
“You are the most stubborn person I have ever met.”
“I am a seamstress. I have been making things hold together my entire life. I am not going to stop now.”
That night, in the back seat of his car, with the city lights moving past the windows, he took her hand.
“I should send you away. For your safety.”
“You should stop telling me what to do for my own good.”
“We are not even.”
“I know.”
“Someday, I am going to have to find a way to repay you.”
She looked at him. “You already did. The safety pin.”
He almost smiled. “A safety pin is not repayment for pulling a gun on two of my enemies.”
“It is not about the gun. It is about the pin.”
“The pin.”
“The pin meant you saw me. On the terrace. When my dress was falling apart and everyone else was looking away. You saw me, and you gave me what you had, and you did not ask for anything in return.”
She turned to face him fully.
“I have spent my whole life being invisible. Being careful. Being the person who held things together and never asked anyone to hold anything together for me. And then you walked into my shop with a jacket that did not need repair, and you sat in my green chair, and you stayed.”
May you like
“I stayed.”
“You stayed.” She held his gaze. “That is the repayment. You stayed, and you kept staying, and you made me believe that being seen was not the most dangerous thing in the world.”
