PART 1
Four nurses had already fled the penthouse by midnight, and the fifth was stuffing medical supplies into her bag when security warned me that Chicago’s most feared mafia boss might attack me the moment he woke.
But when Gabriel Moretti finally grabbed my wrist hard enough to leave a bruise, I noticed something every doctor before me had missed.
And the scar on his back suggested that someone inside his own family wanted him dead.
“You have five minutes to leave before he wakes up.”
The warning came from a broad-shouldered man with a broken nose, a tailored black suit, and one hand hidden beneath his jacket.
I continued washing my hands.
Behind me, another private nurse hurriedly packed gauze into her medical bag.
“The last nurse lasted nine hours,” the man said.
“The one before her lasted six. Mr. Moretti threw a lamp through a window because she touched his shoulder.”
The nurse looked me over and shook her head.
“Let her stay. Maybe she’ll have better luck.”
I ignored her.
My name is Elena Rossi. At thirty-six, I stood five-foot-six with an athletic build, dark hair, and the kind of steady hands that had carried me through enough emergencies that I no longer cared whether strangers underestimated me.
Years earlier, I had wasted too much time trying to soften my voice, smile at the right moments, and make myself appear less intimidating. Life eventually taught me that survival required the opposite.
“What’s his temperature?”
The security chief blinked.
“What?”
“Gabriel Moretti. His temperature.”
“103.8.”
“How long?”
“Since this afternoon.”
“And nobody sent him to a hospital?”
He laughed without humor.
“You know who he is?”
“I know he’s a patient with a fever.”
“He’s Gabriel Moretti.”
“Then Gabriel Moretti is a patient with a fever.”
For the first time, Luca Ferraro truly studied me.
Chief of security. Forty-one. Former amateur boxer. No medical authority.
That last part mattered most.
“He won’t go to a hospital,” Luca said.
“Then he can die here with a spectacular view.”
Chicago glittered fifty-eight stories beneath us.
Three weeks earlier, Gabriel had been shot outside a private restaurant. The bullet reportedly entered near his left shoulder and exited without touching bone.
He should have recovered quickly.
Instead, his legs became weak. Then they stopped working entirely. Then came the fever. The confusion. The rage.
The elevator swallowed the departing nurse, leaving me alone with Luca.
“I offered to double her pay,” he muttered.
“Triple mine.”
“You haven’t survived an hour.”
“Then you can save the money.”
A growl came from the bedroom.
Gabriel Moretti was awake.
Photographs had not prepared me for him.
He was thirty-nine, powerfully built, with broad shoulders, scarred knuckles, sweat-soaked black hair, and the body of a man accustomed to violence.
But his face was gray. His pupils were too wide. His breathing was dangerously shallow.
Then his hand shot forward, and his fingers clamped around my wrist.
Luca reached beneath his jacket.
“Don’t,” I snapped.
Gabriel squeezed harder.
“Who sent you?”
“My agency.”
“Who?”
“Midwest Private Care.”
“You’re lying.”
“You’re delirious.”
His fingers pressed into my skin.
“You smell like antiseptic.”
“I’m a nurse. It would be concerning if I smelled like gasoline.”
For a moment, confusion broke through his fury.
“Listen carefully,” I continued.
“Your pulse is around 140, your oxygen is dangerously low, and your temperature is cooking whatever judgment you have left. You can crush my wrist, or give me ten minutes to figure out why you’re dying.”
Something changed in his eyes.
Not trust. Curiosity.
He released me.
Luca stared.
“He usually doesn’t let go.”
“Everybody lets go eventually.”
I checked Gabriel’s oxygen saturation.
Eighty-six. Far too low.
I adjusted his oxygen, but Gabriel suddenly grimaced.
“My back.”
“Your shoulder?”
“My back.”
“Where?”
“Lower.”
Luca frowned.
“He’s complained about that since the clinic.”
I froze.
“What clinic?”
“The private surgical center that removed the bullet fragment.”
My eyes narrowed.
“The report says the bullet passed through.”
Luca hesitated.
“A fragment remained near the wound. Dr. Adrian Vale removed it.”
I remembered the agency file. Gabriel’s younger cousin, Vincent Moretti, had arranged the procedure.
I pulled the sheet down to Gabriel’s waist.
“Roll him.”
Luca stepped back.
“No.”
“What?”
His expression hardened.
“Nobody touches his back.”
I looked at Gabriel. Even through the fever, something resembling fear flickered in his eyes.
“Why?”
Neither man answered.
So I carefully slid my hands beneath Gabriel and helped turn him.
That was when I saw it.
Not one surgical scar. Two.
The second incision was several inches below the gunshot wound. It was small, freshly stitched, and intentionally concealed in a place where no bullet fragment could possibly have been.
My stomach dropped.
“Luca.”
His face turned white.
“What?”
I stared at the forbidden scar.
“Someone operated on him twice.”
Gabriel’s eyes opened.
And in a voice barely above a whisper, he spoke the one name nobody in that penthouse expected.
“Vincent.”
Then he passed out.
For five seconds, Luca said nothing.
Then he pulled his phone from his pocket.
I caught his wrist.
“Who are you calling?”
“Vincent.”
“No.”
His eyes hardened.
“He just named him.”
“He said a name while delirious. That is not a confession.”
“You don’t understand this family.”
“And you don’t understand sepsis.”
I pressed two fingers lightly beside the lower incision.
Gabriel’s body jerked even while unconscious.
The skin was hot. Too hot. There was swelling beneath the sutures.
Something was wrong under that scar. Something serious.
“What exactly did Dr. Vale do?”
I asked.
Luca rubbed his jaw.
“He removed a bullet fragment.”
“From his lower spine?”
“No.”
“Then why is there an incision there?”
“I told you. I don’t know.”
“Who brought Gabriel to the clinic?”
“Vincent.”
“Who signed the papers?”
“Vincent.”
“Who chose Dr. Vale?”
Luca hesitated.
“Vincent.”
That looked bad. Almost deliberately bad.
I leaned closer to the incision.
Beneath the swollen skin was a tiny, unnatural bump. Not tissue. Not bone. Something hard.
“Get me the surgical records.”
“You already have them.”
“No. I have the records someone wanted the agency to see.”
His expression changed.
I held out my hand.
“Real ones.”
Luca disappeared.
Gabriel muttered something behind me.
I turned. His eyes were still closed.
“Don’t let her…”
I moved closer.
“Don’t let who?”
His lips barely moved.
“…touch the line.”
My gaze dropped to the IV running into his arm.
A clear bag hung beside the bed. Nothing unusual. Normal saline, at least according to the label.
I followed the tubing. Halfway down was an injection port. And on the clear plastic beside it, almost invisible beneath the room’s warm lighting, was a faint blue stain.
I stared at it.
Someone had recently injected something into that line.
“Gabriel?”
No answer.
I clamped it immediately.
Luca returned with a leather folder.
“What are you doing?”
“Who accessed his IV?”
“Doctors. Nurses.”
“Tonight.”
He thought.
“Vale came by at seven.”
“What did he give him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t.”
I opened the folder.
The first pages matched the file I had already read. Gunshot. Minor surgery. No bone damage. No neurological complications.
Then I reached the consent forms. The final page stopped me cold.
Beneath the fragment removal, a second procedure was listed.
Lumbar intrathecal catheter placement.
My pulse jumped.
“Luca.”
“What?”
I turned the paper toward him.
“What is that?”
He read it twice. His expression emptied.
“I’ve never seen this.”
Gabriel had been shot in the shoulder. Yet someone had placed a catheter near his spinal canal.
I scanned the signature line.
Authorized by: Vincent Moretti.
Luca swore.
“He did this.”
“Maybe.”
“You still think maybe?”
“I think whoever did this wanted the paperwork found eventually.”
He stared at me.
I pointed to the form.
“No one trying to secretly murder Gabriel Moretti leaves their own signature in perfect handwriting.”
“Unless they believed Gabriel would never live long enough for anyone to question it.”
That was possible. I hated that it was possible.
Then the elevator doors slid open.
Three armed men stepped into the penthouse. Between them walked a tall, silver-haired physician carrying a black medical case.
Dr. Adrian Vale.
He smiled when he saw me.
“You must be the new nurse.”
“I must be.”
His gaze moved toward Gabriel.
“What happened?”
“His fever climbed.”
“That’s expected.”
“No, it isn’t.”
His smile thinned.
“He’s recovering from surgery.”
“He’s becoming paralyzed.”
“He suffered a traumatic injury.”
“Not to his spine.”
Vale looked at Luca.
“You hired her?”
“The agency sent her.”
“How unfortunate.”
I raised the consent form.
“What was the catheter for?”
For the first time, his composure slipped. Only slightly, but I noticed it.
“What catheter?”
“The one you inserted into a man whose chart says you operated near his shoulder.”
Vale snapped his medical case shut.
“That information is above your level of involvement.”
I actually laughed.
“That sentence usually means somebody is hiding malpractice.”
Two of the armed guards looked away.
Vale stepped closer.
“You’re in a dangerous house, Ms. Rossi.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“You should be very careful whom you accuse.”
“I haven’t accused anyone.”
I lowered the paper.
“I’m asking why my patient has an unexplained surgical incision near his spine, progressive paralysis, respiratory depression, a 104-degree fever, and an intrathecal catheter nobody mentioned.”
Silence filled the room.
Vale’s eyes hardened. Then he pulled a syringe from his case.
“Move.”
“What is that?”
“Midazolam.”
“For what?”
“Agitation.”
“He’s unconscious.”
“He wakes violently.”
“So your solution is to sedate a man with respiratory depression?”
Vale’s jaw tightened.
“Move aside.”
“No.”
Luca looked between us.
Vale raised his voice.
“Mr. Ferraro.”
I pulled the syringe straight from Vale’s hand.
He froze.
I held it beneath the light. There was a label, but it had been placed crookedly over another one. I peeled back the corner. Beneath it was a different medication name.
Vale lunged for it.
I stepped back.
And every gun in the room came out.
Luca aimed at Vale. The other guards aimed at Luca. Nobody breathed.
Then Gabriel spoke from the bed.
“Enough.”
It was barely a whisper. But everyone obeyed.
