CHAPTER 2: THE MAN WHOSE NAME MADE CHICAGO GO SILENT
The SUV door closed with a sound Clara would later remember as too final.
Not loud.
Not violent.
Final.
She sat inside leather that cost more than her monthly rent, wrapped in warmth that made her suddenly aware of how cold she had been surviving.
Matteo DeLuca sat across from her.
Still.
Watching.
Not like Blake.
Not like a man waiting to control her.
Like a man trying to understand a fracture before it became a collapse.
“Take the phone away from her,” Matteo said.
Dominic did.
Clara reached for it instinctively. “No—please—he’ll—”
Matteo interrupted softly.
“He already did enough.”
That sentence made her freeze.
Because he said it like he knew.
Not guessed.
Knew.
Outside, Chicago moved in streaks of rain and neon.
Inside the SUV, Clara felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time.
Not safety.
That would come later.
Something more dangerous.
Attention.
Matteo leaned forward slightly.
“Your name is Clara Whitman,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
She nodded cautiously.
“You’re a nurse at St. Catherine’s.”
Another nod.
“And the man texting you is Blake Mercer.”
Her stomach tightened.
“How do you—”
Matteo cut her off again.
“Because men like him leave patterns.”
Clara looked down at her hands.
Bruised.
Shaking.
Too small in a world that had stopped being gentle.
“I don’t want trouble,” she whispered.
Matteo studied her for a long moment.
Then said something she did not expect.
“You don’t get to choose trouble anymore.”
That should have frightened her.
May you like
But it didn’t.
Because for the first time, she believed someone might actually see what was happening to her.
