His Christmas Savior

Chapter 3

ODESSA

Of course, the pharmacy two blocks away was closed.

I stood in front of its dark windows like an i***t, my breath fogging the glass, praying, actually, hoping that someone might magically appear inside and flip the sign from CLOSED to OPEN. But the only thing reflected back at me was my own exhausted face, framed by the streetlight’s dull glow. There was Christmas cheer all over the town, while the rest of the street was asleep.

“Great. Just perfect,” I muttered.

I should’ve turned around and gone back home. I should’ve told myself that I’d already done enough by dragging a bleeding stranger up three flights of stairs and using my embarrassingly basic first-aid kit to keep him from dying on my couch.

But something pulled me forward, down the block and around the corner. Maybe it was obligation or guilt, or attraction. Maybe the memory of his eyes, of those dark, relentless orbs, and the way he hadn’t made a single sound while I poured disinfectant straight into an open wound.

Who reacts like that? Not normal people, and definitely not harmless ones.

Still, his pain had been real. And despite every rational warning echoing in my brain, I couldn’t leave him there without at least trying to get him a painkiller.

The only pharmacy open after midnight was six blocks away. My toes were numb by the time I found it, and the shopkeeper looked like he wanted to bite my head off for interrupting his solitude. But I got what I came for. It wasn’t much, just some generic pills and antiseptic wipes, but it was something.

Thirty minutes later, I trudged back into my apartment building, with tired legs and my overworked body craving for the bed. I was hungry, but now the hunger had died down, too. I just wanted this day to get over.

When I unlocked the door, the apartment was exactly as I left it. The faint smell of antiseptic lingered in the air, and due to the lack of a heater, it was cold as well.

And he—he was still there, passed out on my couch, his long body draped awkwardly, with one arm hanging off the edge, the bandages on his side stark white against his skin. His chest rose and fell slowly, a little too slowly, but steadily enough to ease the panic tightening in my ribs.

I stepped closer, unable to stop myself. Just… making sure he was alive, that was all. The apartment was cold, and his skin looked pale beneath the light. I lifted two fingers and brushed them against his wrist. It was warm, solid…and strangely comforting.

My fingertips lingered a little longer than necessary, not because I was checking his pulse, but because there was something magnetic about him. The sharpness of his jaw, the shadow of stubble, and that faint scent of expensive cologne still clinging to him even after everything.

I dropped my hand immediately, embarrassed by myself.

“Get it together, Odessa,” I whispered.

Right. Focus.

I placed the pharmacy bag on the coffee table beside him, along with a bottle of water and the one packaged meal I had left: instant ramen in a cup. It was not exactly gourmet care, but I figured someone who nearly bled out on my living room floor couldn’t be picky.

“I hope you can make noodles,” I muttered as I set everything down.

Not that he could hear me. He didn’t stir or flinch. In fact, he didn’t give any sign that he was aware of me hovering near him like a fool.

At this point, exhaustion finally hit me like a wave. My entire body ached, my mind foggy from adrenaline wearing off as I staggered into my tiny bedroom, shed my clothes, and fell face-first onto the bed.

I don’t even remember closing my eyes.

✧✦✧✦✧

The next morning, harsh sunlight over my eyes dragged me back to consciousness. I blinked at the ceiling for a full minute, trying to piece together reality. The night before felt like a dream, a feverish one with too much blood and far too much adrenaline.

But the second I stepped out of my room, I knew it wasn’t a dream at all.

The couch was empty. The blanket I’d tossed over him lay in a messy heap on the floor. And on the table where I’d left the noodles and the pills was a thick, tidy bundle of hundred-dollar bills.

At that moment, I did not know whether to be disappointed or relieved.

He was gone, and he’d left money. A lot of it.

“What the hell…” I whispered, touching the top bill with the tip of my finger.

There had to be at least a couple thousand dollars there. Maybe more, and it was enough to cover a month’s rent. In fact, it was enough to make me wonder what kind of man casually left that lying around. But also enough to make me realize he was definitely, absolutely hiding something.

People don’t bleed like that without a reason. They don’t carry that kind of cash unless that reason is dark. And people definitely don’t disappear without a sound after being half-dead hours earlier.

My stomach twisted with unknown. I pushed the money into the drawer under the coffee table, washed my face, threw on my work uniform, and rushed out the door.

✧✦✧✦✧

Betty’s Diner was already buzzing by the time I got there. I was late by seven minutes, but still I knew I’d have to face the heat with Mr Hubert. I could already hear the customers chattering loudly, and as I tied my apron and stepped onto the floor, I tried not to think about the stranger, about the money, and about the fact that a man I knew nothing about had bled all over my couch and left without a trace.

But the universe clearly had other plans.

“Did you hear?” my coworker Jenna whispered loudly near the register, leaning in with that gleeful, hungry expression she wore whenever gossip fell into her lap. “There was a shootout last night. A big one.”

“That so?” I asked, sliding a tray onto the counter and avoiding eye contact.

“Oh yeah! It’s in the paper. Apparently, the police and some mafia guys got into a gunfight near Pier 12.” Her voice dropped into a conspiratorial hiss. “The mafia kingpin himself was injured.”

My lungs froze, and my hands stilled.

Jenna grabbed the folded newspaper off the counter and opened it dramatically. “Look! They even got a picture.”

I didn’t want to look, but I looked anyway. And my world tilted. There, on the front page, glaring in grainy black-and-white, was his face.

The man who had collapsed in my arms. The man whose pulse I’d checked with trembling fingers. The man who’d slept on my couch while I hovered like a fool.

His expression in the photo was icy, dangerous, unmistakable.

Emerson Fox.

A name I’d heard whispered around town. He was feared and revered in equal measure. It was always spoken in the same breath as blood and crime and danger.

My heartbeat thundered in my ears as I skimmed over the news article.

Jenna kept rambling about the incident, but her voice faded into static. I folded the paper back and set it down as casually as I could, forcing my face into something neutral.

“Wow,” I managed. “Crazy.” Crazy didn’t even begin to cover it.

I had saved a mafia kingpin, cleaned his wound, and let him into my home. That explains why he wanted no cops or no hospitals involved.

“I gotta get back to the tables,” I muttered.

I’d just picked up my tray when a deep, grating voice cut through the diner.

“Odessa!” I winced.

Mr. Hubert, my sleazy excuse of a boss, stood by his office door. His comb-over was sleeker than usual, and his tie hung crooked, stained with what looked like mustard.

He jerked his thumb toward his office. “In here. Now.”

I swallowed hard. After the night I’d had, the last thing I needed was whatever trouble Hubert thought he could throw at me. But with Emerson Fox’s face burned into my mind, and the bundle of cash hidden in my drawer at home, something told me this day was only beginning.

And nothing about it was going to be simple.