Chapter 3 - Blood on the Kitchen Floor and a Dying Billionaire Waking in a Run-Down Studio
The fourth-floor walk-up on 8th Street had never felt so steep.
By the time Leah managed to drag the massive stranger up the squeaking wooden stairs and through her apartment door, her knees buckled. They collapsed together onto the worn linoleum of her tiny kitchen, sending an empty cereal bowl clattering across the floor.
"Shh, shh," Leah breathed, terrified of waking elderly Mr. Alvarez in the next room who was watching Matteo.
She quickly locked the deadbolt, threw the chain across the latch, and leaned back against the wood, gasping for air. The man lay motionless beside her dining table, his tailored Italian wool suit ruined by grease, rainwater, and chemical residue from the laundry cart.
Leah crawled over to him. His pulse was thready, erratic. The skin around his neck where the needle had penetrated was turning a bruised, necrotic purple.
"They poisoned you," she muttered.
Growing up in a clinic run by her late mother, Leah knew basic emergency care. She ripped open his collar, exposing broad, muscular collarbones marred by old scars—faded lines that spoke of knives and gunshots, things an ordinary businessman never had.
She ran to the tiny bathroom, grabbing vinegar, saline solution, activated charcoal tablets from Matteo's medicine drawer, and a handful of clean dish towels.
"This is going to hurt," she whispered.
Working by the faint yellow glow of the stove light, Leah forced his mouth open, crushing charcoal in water and coaxing the liquid down his throat to absorb whatever residual toxin lingered in his stomach. Then she cleaned the puncture wound with hot saline and antiseptic, bandaging it with medical tape.
Hours ticked by. Rain continued to drum against the cracked windowpane.
Leah sat on the floor with her back against the kitchen cabinets, wrapped in a faded cardigan, keeping watch over him. She counted his breaths, checking his forehead every fifteen minutes. At 4:00 AM, the fever broke.
The man’s eyes snapped open.
There was no confusion in his awakening. It was instant, deadly, and precise. In a fraction of a second, he rolled across the floor, his massive arm snaking around Leah's neck from behind, pinning her against the cabinet.
"Where is Sable?" he demanded, his voice a low, lethal purr against her ear. "Speak, or I'll snap your neck before you hit the floor."
"I... I don't know who Sable is!" Leah choked out, clawing at his forearm. "I'm Leah! The waitress from the Aurelia! Look around you... this is my kitchen!"
Julian Vance froze.
He blinked against the dim light, taking in the small, cramped studio. Faded floral wallpaper peeling at the edges. A tiny plastic refrigerator humming unevenly. A shelf with children's books and a row of cheap prescription bottles.
And the woman in his arms—soft, trembling, smelling of lavender soap and hotel bleach, her dark curls tangled with rainwater.
Julian released her immediately, staggering back against the kitchen counter, his hand flying to the neat bandage on his neck.
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"You brought me here?" he asked, his dark eyes scanning her face with an intensity that made her skin prickle.
"I didn't have anywhere else to take you," she coughed, rubbing her throat. "And you were dying."
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