Chapter 3 - Six Stitches in the Penthouse
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Ten minutes later, Tessa sat on the edge of a cognac-leather chesterfield sofa inside Roman Vane’s private sixty-fifth-floor penthouse suite, staring out the floor-to-ceiling bulletproof glass as snow began to swirl across the glittering diamond grid of downtown Chicago.
Her knees were still knocking together underneath her black uniform skirt.
An older Italian gentleman with a silver medical bag—Dr. Rossini—finished tying off the sixth tiny nylon suture across the palm of her right hand, wrapped it neatly in sterile white gauze, and set a small bottle of antibiotics on the glass coffee table.
"Keep it dry for forty-eight hours, signorina," Dr. Rossini said kindly, snapping his bag shut as Roman walked into the living room from the private elevator foyer. "No lifting heavy trays and definitely no wringing out mop buckets for a week, Boss."
"She won't be touching a mop bucket again, Doctor. Thank you," Roman said, nodding the physician out the door where Matteo stood watch.
Once the heavy oak door clicked shut, Tessa tried to stand up immediately, smoothing her apron with her uninjured left hand.
"Mr. Vane, I don't know how to thank you for what you said to Mr. Sterling downstairs, or for the doctor," she said quickly, her gaze dropping respectfully to the Persian rug. "I’ll pay back the cost of the broken crystal out of my next two checks—if Mr. Henderson lets me keep my shift on the fourteenth floor."
"Sit down, Tessa," Roman said.
He had removed his charcoal suit jacket and loosened his silk tie, leaving the top button of his crisp white shirt undone at his throat. Rolling his sleeves up over his lean, heavily muscled forearms, he walked over to the wet bar and poured two glasses of amber bourbon—then paused, set one down, and poured a tall glass of sparkling water with lime instead, carrying both over to the sofa.
He handed her the water and sat down in the leather armchair directly across from her, leaning forward with his forearms braced on his knees.
"Henderson doesn't decide who works in this building. I do," Roman said, his gunmetal eyes studying her pale face, taking in the dark circles of chronic exhaustion beneath her hazel lashes and the way her cheap black uniform hung slightly loose on her slender frame. "How many hours have you worked today?"
Tessa blinked, thrown off balance by the question. "Since six this morning, sir. I picked up a double shift in housekeeping after my morning classes at UIC went online, and then Mr. Henderson pulled me into banquet service at seven."
"That’s sixteen hours on your feet," Roman noted quietly. "When was the last time you ate a meal that wasn't broken crackers out of the staff breakroom?"
A hot flush crept up Tessa’s neck. "I'm fine, Mr. Vane. Really. Once Chloe has her valve surgery on Friday and gets discharged next month, things will calm down."
Roman didn't smile. Instead, his dark brows drew together slightly as he reached for a sleek silver tablet sitting on the coffee table and tapped the screen twice.
"While Dr. Rossini was numbing your hand," Roman said evenly, "I had my chief counsel call the night administrator at Mercy General to make sure Chloe’s surgical slot for Friday morning was locked in under my mother’s foundation trust—zero balance owed, private recovery suite, twenty-four-hour nursing care."
Tessa’s breath caught in her throat. Tears sprang hot and sudden into her eyes before she could blink them back. "Zero balance... Mr. Vane, the co-pay lien alone was a hundred and forty thousand dollars! I can't let you pay that—"
"It’s already paid," Roman cut in smoothly, though his voice gentled by a fraction of an octave when he saw the tears trembling on her lashes. "What interests me much more than the hospital bill, Tessa, is what the night administrator told my lawyer five minutes ago."
Tessa froze, a cold knot tightening in her stomach. "What did they say?"
"Arthur Sterling didn't just look up your sister’s room number this afternoon to bully you at dinner," Roman said, leaning an inch closer and turning the tablet screen toward her. "Look at the visitor log for the fifth-floor pediatric ICU from 6:30 PM tonight—thirty minutes before Arthur arrived at my hotel."
Tessa looked down at the digital security log from Mercy General.
Signed in at the fifth-floor reception desk under the authorization of Foundation Trustee Arthur Sterling were two men from Sterling Private Security—and attached to the log was a request filed with the hospital legal department at five o’clock that afternoon by Child Protective Services for an emergency temporary custody hold on Chloe Cole, citing her twenty-three-year-old guardian’s "financial insolvency and inability to provide safe housing following an electrical fire at her Pilsen apartment at 5:45 PM today!"
"An electrical fire at my apartment?!" Tessa gasped, jumping to her feet so fast the glass of water tipped over on the tray. She fumbled in her apron pocket for her cracked smartphone—which had been switched onto airplane mode since six-thirty per Mr. Henderson’s strict banquet rules!
The moment she turned off airplane mode, nineteen missed calls from her landlord and two voicemails from a social worker flooded the screen.
"My dad’s files!" Tessa cried, her face going white with sheer terror. "Mr. Sterling wasn't just trying to scare me at that table tonight—he set fire to my apartment while I was locked up here without a phone so he could burn my dad’s structural inspection notebooks and use CPS to take Chloe as hostage if I still had a backup copy!"
Roman stood up in a single fluid motion, already pulling his black suit jacket back on over his shoulder holster and reaching for his encrypted phone.
"Matteo!" Roman barked as the hallway door flew open. "Bring the armored Maybach to the basement freight bay in ninety seconds, and send four men from the South Side crew straight to the fifth floor of Mercy General. Nobody takes that kid out of her room without stepping over four dead bodies."
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Roman looked down at Tessa, his gunmetal eyes blazing like cold fire. "Where did your father hide the backup copy of the Wacker Drive inspection?"
"He didn't leave it in the apartment," Tessa breathed, her heart racing at a hundred miles an hour. "He hid it in Chloe’s stuffed bear—inside her hospital room right now!"
