Chapter 3 - The Capital R
Khloe slept with her head rested on her folded arms at the edge of the kitchen table. It was not a deep sleep, but a fitful, paranoid state filled with nightmares of flashing red lights, heavy boots kicking down her door, and the cold metal of a gun barrel pressing against her temple.
When she jolted awake, the morning sun was cutting sharp lines of dusty light through the cracks in the window shades.
She sat up instantly, her neck popping with a painful stiffness. "Dominic!"
The kitchen table was empty.
The white bedsheet she had draped over him was neatly folded and resting at the foot of the wooden table. The bloodied paper towels, the glass bowl, and the surgical tools she had used were gone from the counter.
Khloe scrambled to her feet, her heart leaping into her throat. "Dominic?"
She rushed out of the kitchen, her socks sliding on the linoleum. She checked her small living room—empty. She threw open the bathroom door—empty. The narrow hallway leading to the front door was quiet, and the heavy deadbolts she had locked the night before were silently disengaged.
He was gone. It was as if he had been a ghost born of her exhaustion and the midnight storm.
She hurried back into the kitchen, her eyes frantically sweeping the room.
The air still smelled faintly of iodine, bleach, and a distinct, lingering scent that wasn't hers—a rich, sophisticated mixture of expensive sandalwood cologne, leather, and smoke.
Then she saw it.
Sitting on the clean laminate counter, right beside her cheap, plastic coffee maker, was an unmarked, heavy manila envelope.
Resting directly on top of the envelope was a heavy, silver Zippo lighter.
Khloe walked slowly toward the counter, as if approaching a live explosive. She picked up the lighter first. It had a substantial weight, made of solid polished sterling silver. Engraved deep into the front surface was a crest: a Gothic, highly stylized capital R, surrounded by a subtle ring of silver thorned vines.
She set the lighter down and pulled the flap of the manila envelope open.
Inside were neat, thick stacks of crisp, uncirculated hundred-dollar bills, bound together with white paper bands bearing bank stamps.
Khloe’s breath caught in her throat. She tipped the envelope, sliding the money onto the counter. She began to count the bundles, her hands shaking worse than they had during the surgery.
Ten thousand. Twenty thousand. Thirty. Forty. Fifty thousand dollars.
Fifty thousand dollars in clean, untraceable cash.
It was enough to pay off more than half of her crushing student loan debt. It was enough to cover her rent for three years. It was more money than she made in a year of grueling double shifts at Mercy General.
"No, no, no..." Khloe whispered, stepping away from the counter as if the money might burn her skin.
This wasn't a tip; it was blood money. It was evidence. Accepting payment for performing an illegal, unreported surgery on a wounded criminal made her an accessory after the fact. If the Chicago Police Department found this cash in her apartment, no judge would believe she was just an innocent nurse acting under duress.
Panicking, Khloe grabbed a box of heavy trash bags, a bottle of concentrated bleach, and a scrub brush.
For the next two hours, she worked like a woman possessed. She scrubbed the kitchen table three times, scouring every inch of wood until the finish stripped away. She bleached the linoleum floor, wiped down the walls, and scrubbed the sink until the stainless steel gleamed.
She took the bloodied towels, her ruined raincoat, and the surgical packaging, sealed them into three separate black trash bags, and walked four blocks away to dump them in a commercial dumpster behind a grocery store.
When she returned, she stood in her bedroom, staring at the stack of cash resting on her bed.
She couldn't keep it in plain sight. She couldn't deposit it in a bank account without triggering an immediate IRS red flag. And she certainly couldn't throw fifty thousand dollars into the garbage.
Using a flathead screwdriver, Khloe pried up two loose oak floorboards beneath her bed—a hidden space she had used to store old childhood keep-sakes. She shoved the manila envelope and the silver Zippo lighter deep into the dark cavity, fitted the boards back into place, and dragged her heavy mattress back over the spot.
By the time she showered and changed into a clean set of scrubs, it was nearly 2:00 p.m. Her shift at Mercy General started at three.
When she walked through the sliding glass doors of the Emergency Department that evening, every sound seemed magnified ten times over. The screech of ambulance tires outside made her jump. The chime of the hospital intercom made her skin crawl. Every time two police officers walked through the waiting room to grab coffee or file a routine report, Khloe’s chest tightened so severely she could barely catch her breath.
She was convinced that everyone knew. She felt as though the word GUILTY was written across her forehead in bright neon letters.
"Khloe! Hey, Dempsey!"
Khloe jumped, almost dropping a tray of sterile IV start kits. She turned to see Dr. Mark Vance, an arrogant second-year surgical resident, leaning against the charting desk with a clipboard in hand.
"Are you even awake?" Vance asked, eyebrow raised. "You look like you saw a ghost. I called your name three times."
"Sorry, Dr. Vance," Khloe said quickly, lowering her eyes. "Just... tired. Double shifts catching up with me."
"Well, snap out of it. We’ve got a mess coming in," Vance said, flipping through his charts. "CPD just called in a major hit down in the Meatpacking District. Happened early this morning during that storm. Multiple fatalities, automatic weapon fire, expensive cars torched."
Khloe’s heart hammered against her ribs. She kept her expression completely blank. "Sounds terrible."
"Terrible? It’s a war," Vance muttered, lowering his voice as he stepped closer. "Word is, someone took a shot at Dominic Russo."
The name hit Khloe like a physical blow. She forced herself not to react. "Who?"
Vance scoffed softly. "Must be nice living in your quiet little bubble, Dempsey. Dominic Russo. He’s the head of the Russo Syndicate. They control half the docks, the distribution lines, and every underground operation from here to the North Shore. He’s the undisputed king of Chicago’s underworld."
Vance shook his head, looking out toward the ambulance bay. "Rumor is, his own lieutenant betrayed him. Caught his motorcade in an ambush last night. They found four of his bodyguards dead in an alley off Halsted. But Russo vanished into thin air. CPD is tearing the city apart looking for his body."
Khloe felt the blood drain entirely from her face.
Halsted Street. A charcoal suit. High cheekbones. Cold amber eyes.
May you like
The man she had pulled out of the mud, dragged up her stairs, and operated on with a cheap pair of surgical forceps on her kitchen table wasn't just a low-level criminal or a thug running from a robbery gone wrong.
She had saved the most dangerous, powerful man in the city of Chicago.
