I don't look up. I can't look up. My hands are inside someone's arm, and looking up means stopping, and stopping means leaving the needle in place while I figure out who just walked in. So I keep working. Sixth stitch, knot. Seventh stitch, knot. The fishing line pulls through the skin with a sound that makes Dmitri's jaw clench, but he doesn't move.
"Good evening," says a voice I recognize.
Low. Rough. Familiar.
The suit.
I don't know his name yet—not the real one—but I know his voice, and I know the way it settles under my skin, and I know that my heart is beating faster than it should be for someone who's supposed to be focused on a wound.
"Evening," I say, not looking up. "I'm a little busy."
"I can see that."
He doesn't sit. I hear him move—the soft sound of expensive shoes on linoleum—and then he's standing beside me, close enough that I can smell cedar and smoke and somethingclean. He's looking at Dmitri's arm, at my hands, at the needle and the fishing line and the vodka bottle with its label half-peeled off.
"Dmitri," he says. "Report."
"Ambush," Dmitri says. His voice is strained, but steady. "Three men. Outside the warehouse on Grant. I didn't see their faces. They knew where I'd be."
"Knew or guessed?"
"Knew. They were waiting."
Suit is quiet for a moment. I finish the seventh stitch and start the eighth, and I can feel his eyes on my hands—watching the way I move, the way I tie the knots, the way I don't hesitate even when the fishing line pulls through flesh that's already starting to bruise.
"You came here," He says. It's not a question.
"Nearest place. And I knew—" Dmitri stops. Swallows. "I knew you'd come here."
"You knew she was here."
"Yes, sir."
Suit doesn't respond to that. But I feel the weight of his attention shift—from my hands to my face, from my face to the way I'm holding my breath. He knows what Dmitri meant. He knows that this diner has become something to his men. A place where the bleeding go, because the girl with steady hands will help them without asking questions.
I don't know how I feel about that. I don't have time to figure it out.
Eighth stitch. Knot. Ninth stitch, and the wound is closed—not beautiful, not the way a surgeon would close it, but closed. The edges are together. The bleeding has stopped. Dmitri will have a scar that looks like a railroad track, but he'll keep his arm, and that's what matters.
I cut the fishing line with my teeth—something I learned from my mother, something that always made my father wince—and reach for a clean towel. I press it against the stitches, wiping away the excess blood, and I don't look at Suits.
I don't look at him, but I feel him. The way you feel a storm before it breaks.
"Keep pressure on that for ten minutes," I tell Dmitri. "Don't get it wet for at least twenty-four hours. If it starts to swell or turn red around the edges, you need antibiotics, and I can't help you with that."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Don't call me ma'am. I'm younger than you."
Dmitri's mouth twitches again—that almost-smile—and I see something in his eyes that looks like gratitude. He stands up, holding the towel against his arm, and Aleksander puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Go to the house," Aleksander says. "Viktor will meet you there. Tell him I want a full accounting of everyone who knew your route tonight."
"Yes, sir."
Dmitri leaves. The door chimes behind him, and then it's just the two of us. Me and the suit. Me and the man who won't tell me his name, who comes to my diner every night, who watches me like I'm something he's trying to understand.
"You should have called me," he says.
