Chapter 10 - The Last Stitch
The morning sun broke through the heavy Chicago cloud cover, casting a warm, pale gold light across the hardwood floors of Jones Custom Tailoring.
The front window had already been replaced. The new glass was clean, clear, and perfectly transparent, free of cracks or brick marks.
Outside, the neighborhood was waking up normally. Mrs. Rossi’s grocery store across the street was open, the bell above her door chiming as a regular customer walked in to buy fresh bread. The threat of the bulldozers, the shadowy shell corporations, and Senator Callahan’s political machine had evaporated overnight, replaced by a front-page headline in the morning paper announcing the senator's sudden, shock resignation due to "undisclosed medical reasons."
Inside the shop, Caroline stood behind the cutting table, wearing her familiar denim apron.
The black canvas ledger sat closed on the shelf behind her, tucked safely away.
The bell above the door chimed.
Caroline looked up, expecting Mrs. Rossi with a tray of espresso.
Instead, Dante Baker walked in.
He wasn't wearing his overcoat today. Just a crisp, charcoal-gray bespoke suit.
The suit.
The one she had measured him for three weeks ago, before the broken measuring tape, before the dinner with Greg the accountant, before the midnight confrontation in the Gold Coast penthouse.
He stopped a few feet from the cutting table, looking down at his jacket sleeves. The drape was immaculate. The shoulders fit with razor-sharp precision.
"How is it?" Dante asked.
Caroline stepped out from behind the table, walking around to inspect his work. She reached out, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle over his left lapel with her thumb, her fingers brushing against the fine Italian wool.
"The shoulders are forty-six," Caroline said softly. "Just like you insisted."
Dante looked down into her eyes, the dark, flat intensity of his gaze softening just enough for the ghost of a real, genuine smile to touch his lips.
"You ruined my favorite measuring tape," Dante reminded her.
"You broke it," Caroline corrected, a faint smile pulling at the corner of her own mouth. "I bill clients who break tools."
"Send me the invoice." Dante reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a heavy, cream-colored envelope, placing it gently on the wooden cutting table.
Caroline looked down at it. "What’s this?"
"The deed to the entire building," Dante said quietly. "Signed over from Vanguard Holdings to Caroline Jones, sole proprietor. Unencumbered. Free and clear."
Caroline stared at the envelope. For a long moment, the shop was entirely silent, save for the faint hum of the radiator in the corner. Five years of debt, of sleepless nights, of running from ghosts and fighting a rigged game—ended by a stroke of a pen.
She looked back up at him. "You didn't have to buy the whole block."
"I told you before," Dante said, his voice dropping into that low, magnetic register that made her skin prickle. "I don't buy things I can't protect."
He turned toward the door, his hand reaching for the brass handle.
"Dante," Caroline said.
He paused, looking back over his shoulder.
"Greg called this morning," Caroline said, leaning against the cutting table with a small, knowing smirk. "He asked if I wanted to grab coffee and talk about fantasy football."
Dante’s jaw tightened. A familiar, dark flash of possessive friction flickered behind his dark eyes.
"And what did you say?" Dante asked, his voice dangerously low.
Caroline looked him straight in the eyes, her heart beating a steady, rhythmic cadence against her ribs.
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"I told him," Caroline smiled, "that I was already seeing someone who knows how to handle a suit."
Dante didn't answer with words. He just let go of the door handle, walked back across the hardwood floor, and pulled her into his arms.
