Chapter 5 - The Trap is SetBy 6:00 AM, the cold autumn sunrise was bleeding pale orange light across the Chicago skyline as our armored van pulled back through the iron gates of the Gallagher estate.
My muscles ached, my nerves were fried, and my ribs throbbed where Desmond’s elbow had caught me the night before. But as I wheeled him through the double doors into the grand foyer, an electric hum of adrenaline still lingered in the air.
Frankie and two other guards immediately dispersed to secure the perimeter and brief the remaining loyalists on the new double-agent strategy.
I locked the heavy oak door of Desmond’s private study behind us, pulled out my medical bag, and dropped heavily into the leather armchair opposite his desk.
“Shirt off,” I commanded, popping open a bottle of antiseptic wash and grabbing a roll of medical tape.
Desmond raised an eyebrow, leaning back in his motorized chair. “Excuse me?”
“Your shirt, Desmond. You took a glancing blow to your left shoulder when that guard shoved you against the door frame in the warehouse. Let me look at it before it bruises into a golf ball.”
He hesitated for a second, then unbuttoned his custom silk shirt, sliding it off his broad, scarred shoulders. The pale moonlight from the large windows caught the intricate web of old surgical scars and taut muscle across his chest.
I stood up, walked over behind his chair, and began dabbing the antiseptic gently against the skin over his left shoulder blade.
He flinched slightly at the cold sting.
“You have a habit of inserting yourself into places you don’t belong, Harper,” he said quietly, his voice carrying a strange, contemplative tone.
“Someone has to keep you from blowing up your own empire,” I replied, smoothing a piece of medical tape across a small scrape. “If I hadn’t stopped you back there, you would have pulled the trigger, and federal agents would be kicking down these gates right now.”
He turned his chair slightly so he could look up at me. His slate-blue eyes were burning with an intensity that made my breath catch in my throat.
“You saved my life twice in three weeks,” Desmond said softly. “First from my own body, and then from my own temper. Most people run away from men like me. Why are you still standing here?”
I paused, the medical tape hovering between my fingers. I looked down into his face—hardened by a lifetime of violence, yet currently stripped of every defense mechanism he usually wore like armor.
“Because beneath all the money, the guns, and the mob boss theatrics, you’re just a man who had his life ripped out from under him six months ago,” I said softly, my voice dropping all its clinical professional detachment. “And nobody around you has the guts to tell you the truth: you can either spend the rest of your life trying to destroy everyone who wronged you, or you can start building something new.”
Desmond went completely still.
For a long moment, the only sound in the grand study was the ticking of the antique grandfather clock in the corner.
May you like
Then, slowly, a genuine, unguarded smile touched his lips—a smile that chased away the shadows and made him look, for the first time, like a man rather than a myth.
“Julian Vance thinks he’s hunting a crippled lion,” Desmond murmured, reaching up to gently catch my wrist with his warm, steady fingers. “He has no idea we’re building a trap.”
