Chapter 2
Not a word.
A growl.
Nora turned.
Gabriel Moretti was awake.
Photographs had not prepared her for him.
He was built like a man who had spent years treating his own body as a weapon—wide shoulders, thick arms, scarred knuckles, black hair damp with sweat. A tattoo disappeared from his right shoulder beneath the sheets.
But his face was gray.
Not pale.
Gray.
His pupils were too wide.
His breathing too shallow.
And when his dark eyes found Nora, there was no recognition in them.
Only animal panic.
His hand shot out.
Nora barely had time to move before his fingers closed around her wrist.
Luca reached inside his jacket.
“Don’t,” Nora snapped.
Gabriel’s grip tightened.
Pain shot through her arm.
“Who sent you?” he rasped.
“My agency.”
“Who?”
“Midwest Private Care.”
“You’re lying.”
“Mr. Moretti, you’re delirious.”
His fingers dug harder.
“You smell like antiseptic.”
“I’m a nurse. It would be concerning if I smelled like gasoline.”
For half a second, confusion broke through his fever.
Luca almost smiled.
Gabriel didn’t.
“I asked you who sent you.”
Nora leaned closer.
“Listen carefully. Your pulse is around one-forty. You’re sweating through your sheets, your breathing is depressed, and your temperature is high enough to cook whatever good judgment you have left. You can crush my wrist if that makes you feel powerful, or you can let go and give me ten minutes to figure out why you’re dying.”
Something changed in his eyes.
Not trust.
Gabriel Moretti probably did not trust his own shadow.
But curiosity had survived the fever.
His fingers loosened.
Nora pulled her wrist free.
Red marks circled the skin.
Luca stared.
“He usually doesn’t let go.”
“Everybody lets go eventually.”
She checked Gabriel’s pupils, pulse and oxygen saturation.
Eighty-six.
Too low.
She adjusted the oxygen.
Gabriel grimaced.
“My back.”
Nora looked at him.
“Your shoulder?”
“My back.”
“Where?”
His jaw tightened.
“Lower.”
Luca frowned.
“He’s been complaining about that since the clinic.”
“What clinic?”
“The private surgical center that removed the bullet fragments.”
Nora slowly straightened.
“Your report says the bullet passed through.”
Luca hesitated.
“A fragment stayed near the wound. They cleaned it.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“Dr. Adrian Vale.”
Gabriel’s younger cousin, Vincent Moretti, had arranged the procedure.
That was in the agency file too.
Nora pulled the sheet down to Gabriel’s waist.
“Roll him.”
Luca took one step backward.
“No.”
“What?”
“He hates being moved.”
“Wonderful. Roll him.”
“Nurse—”
“His legs stopped working after a shoulder injury. Unless human anatomy has been redesigned since nursing school, I need to see his spine.”
May you like
Gabriel’s eyes opened again.
“Do it.”
