Chapter 1 - Eleven Minutes
Adrien Moretti entered my tailoring shop at 2:48 on a Tuesday afternoon with two men behind him and the unmistakable expectation that the room would rearrange itself.
It did not.
I was on my knees in front of Mrs. Henderson, pinning the hem of a navy church dress while she explained for the third time that her left knee had somehow become lower than her right one during the previous winter.
“I’m telling you, Claire,” she said, staring down at me through oversized glasses, “gravity has picked a favorite side.”
“I’ve heard it can be vindictive.”
The bell above the front door had already chimed.
I knew someone had entered.
I also knew Mrs. Henderson had been standing on my fitting platform for thirty-seven minutes, and nobody—Chicago royalty, actual royalty, or whatever category Adrien Moretti belonged in—was going to make me send a seventy-six-year-old woman home with a crooked hem.
“I’ll be with you in twelve minutes,” I said without looking behind me.
The shop went silent.
Not normal silence.
Expensive silence.
The kind that followed a sentence everyone else in the room apparently believed should not have been spoken.
A male voice behind me said, “Twelve?”
I pushed another pin through the fabric.
“Eleven if nobody interrupts me.”
Mrs. Henderson’s mouth twitched.
I heard someone choke back a laugh.
Later, I would learn that was Niko Moretti, Adrien’s cousin.
At that moment, I only knew I had three dresses due before six, a bride coming for a final fitting at five-thirty, a delivery that had gone missing somewhere between Milwaukee and Chicago, and exactly fourteen dollars in petty cash because my assistant Emma kept forgetting to refill the envelope.
Dangerous men ranked surprisingly low on my Tuesday problems.
Exactly eleven minutes later, Mrs. Henderson stepped off the platform.
I zipped the garment bag around her dress and walked her to the door.
“You behave yourself,” she told me.
“I always do.”
She glanced over my shoulder toward Adrien.
“No, you don’t.”
Then she left.
I finally turned.
Adrien Moretti was taller than I expected.
Forty-four, according to the newspapers.
Dark hair.
Short beard.
Expression controlled enough to make you wonder what it cost him to keep it that way.
His charcoal suit was beautiful.
Probably handmade.
Probably Italian.
Probably worth more than the used Honda I had driven to work that morning.
It was also completely wrong.
His cousin Niko leaned against a display cabinet, looking entertained.
A second man stood near the door.
Security, judging by the way he watched reflections instead of people.
I looked at Adrien.
“You’re Niko’s emergency?”
His eyebrow moved.
“I need a new tailor.”
“Apparently.”
Niko turned his face toward a rack of jackets so Adrien wouldn’t see him smile.
I gestured toward the fitting platform.
“Jacket off.”
The security man straightened.
Adrien looked at me for a long moment.
Then he removed the jacket.
I took it.
The wool was exceptional.
The hand stitching was nearly flawless.
Whoever had made it possessed skill.
They had also possessed fear.
“Stand naturally,” I said.
Adrien did.
I stared.
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“No?”
“That is how you stand when you expect someone to shoot at you.”
Silence fell again.
Niko’s eyebrows climbed toward his hairline.
I looked at him.
“That was a joke.”
“Absolutely,” he said quickly.
Adrien did not smile.
But something shifted around his eyes.
I circled him once.
Then twice.
The problem was everywhere.
His shoulders were already broad, but the jacket exaggerated them.
The chest had been reinforced until it resembled armor.
The waist had been cut sharply enough to force his posture.
His sleeves restricted natural movement.
Every design choice announced the same thing before Adrien ever opened his mouth.
Power.
Danger.
Do not approach.
“Who made this?” I asked.
“My former tailor.”
“He was terrified of you.”
Adrien’s gaze shifted toward the mirror.
“You determined that from a jacket?”
“Twenty-seven seconds.”
I pinched the shoulder seam.
“He didn’t fit your body.”
I moved to his other side.
“He fitted your reputation.”
For the first time since entering, Adrien went completely still.
Not threateningly.
Thoughtfully.
That interested me more.
I had spent most of my adult life looking at people through clothing.
Not fashion.
People.
A nervous bride tugged at her sleeves.
A recently divorced woman suddenly wanted red.
A man promoted too quickly kept buying jackets one size too large because he had not yet grown into the room he occupied.
Fabric told the truth long before most customers did.
Adrien’s clothing was shouting.
I stepped away.
“You know who I am?” he asked.
“I know enough.”
“And you aren’t concerned about offending me?”
“If you wanted compliments, you could hire somebody cheaper.”
Niko coughed into his fist.
Adrien looked toward him.
Niko suddenly found the ceiling fascinating.
I picked up my measuring tape.
Then put it down again.
“I’m not taking the job.”
That got Adrien’s attention.
“Why?”
“Because you don’t want a tailor.”
“I came into a tailoring shop.”
“You want someone who will produce exactly what you order and be too intimidated to tell you when you’re wrong.”
“I usually know what I want.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“That sounded insulting.”
“It was observational.”
Niko actually laughed.
Adrien slowly looked at him.
“Sorry,” Niko said.
He was not sorry.
Adrien returned his attention to me.
“What would you make?”
I looked at him through the mirror.
“A suit that fits the man instead of the mythology.”
His gaze sharpened.
“You intend to make me look less powerful?”
“No.”
I stepped onto the platform behind him and straightened the collar of his shirt.
“I intend to stop your clothes from trying so hard to prove that you are.”
Adrien stared at his reflection.
For once, Chicago’s most feared man appeared to have absolutely nothing to say.
I had expected anger.
Instead, curiosity moved across his face.
It was subtle.
Most people would have missed it.
I didn’t.
“One suit,” he finally said.
“My way.”
His eyes met mine in the mirror.
“How much?”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Another pause.
Then Adrien Moretti said something that, according to Niko’s expression, he did not say often.
“Your way.”
I measured him for forty-three minutes.
Shoulders.
Chest.
Waist.
Sleeves.
Posture.
Natural stance.
Range of motion.
He asked almost no questions.
At the end, I wrote the final number in my notebook.
“Come back Friday.”
“I have a dinner Thursday.”
“Then wear the suit that lies about you.”
Niko made a strangled noise.
Adrien put his jacket back on.
“Friday.”
Then he left.
Emma emerged from the workroom approximately three seconds after the door closed.
“Claire.”
“Yes?”
“That was Adrien Moretti.”
“I gathered.”
“The Adrien Moretti.”
“Are there several?”
She stared at me.
“You told him his clothes were lying.”
“They are.”
“You refused to take him as a client.”
“Initially.”
“You told him to take his jacket off like he was somebody’s middle-school son.”
“Emma.”
“What?”
“Breathe.”
She pressed both hands over her face.
“I am breathing. I’m just doing it badly.”
I laughed and went back to my cutting table.
But later that evening, after Emma left and the city outside my windows turned dark, I unfolded the charcoal wool I had selected for Adrien.
Softer construction.
Natural shoulders.
No excessive padding.
Enough room through the arms that he could move without announcing aggression in every gesture.
Elegant.
Controlled.
Powerful without demanding anyone notice.
I chalked the first line.
Then the second.
I thought about what I had seen in the mirror.
The strangest thing about Adrien Moretti wasn’t that he frightened people.
It was that some part of him seemed tired of it.
Three days later, he returned.
And when Adrien stepped in front of my mirror wearing the first suit I made for him, the room changed.
Not because he looked more dangerous.
Because, for the first time, he didn’t.
May you like
And neither of us understood yet what that would cost him.
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