Chapter 4
His right hand disappeared beneath his jacket.
Vincent glanced at it.
“Careful.”
“Who cut his back open?”
Vincent sighed.
“Luca, don’t be dramatic.”
“He never consented to spinal surgery.”
“There were complications during the procedure.”
“What complications?”
“Ask Dr. Vale.”
“I’m asking you.”
Behind them, Gabriel tried to lift himself.
His arms trembled.
“Vincent.”
His cousin turned.
Gabriel’s face was soaked in sweat.
His voice barely carried.
“What did you put inside me?”
For the first time, Vincent’s composure cracked.
Only slightly.
But Nora saw it.
Then the heart monitor screamed.
Gabriel’s body arched violently.
His hands locked.
His eyes rolled upward.
Nora lunged toward him.
“He’s seizing!”
Luca moved.
Vincent moved too.
Nora shoved him away with her shoulder.
“Don’t touch him!”
She pulled a syringe from her kit.
Gabriel convulsed hard enough to shake the mattress.
The hidden spinal wound began bleeding.
Nora injected the medication through his IV.
“Come on.”
Ten seconds.
Fifteen.
Gabriel’s body slowly relaxed.
His breathing returned in ragged gasps.
Nora looked at the monitor.
Then at Vincent.
“Get out.”
His expression hardened.
“This is my family’s home.”
“And this is my patient.”
“You work for an agency.”
“Tonight I work for the man dying in that bed.”
Vincent laughed softly.
“You have no idea whose room you’re standing in.”
Nora stepped closer.
“No. You have no idea who you insulted when you decided I was too fat to recognize an infected surgical incision.”
Silence.
Behind her, Gabriel whispered one word.
“Luca.”
Luca drew his weapon.
The two men behind Vincent did the same.
Nora closed her eyes for half a heartbeat.
Men.
Always turning rooms into battlefields when conversation stopped being convenient.
Gabriel forced his head toward Vincent.
“If anybody fires,” he whispered, “she walks away.”
Vincent stared at him.
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’m thinking clearly enough.”
“She’s a stranger.”
Gabriel’s gaze moved to Nora.
“No.”
His breathing shook.
“She’s the first person in three weeks who looked at me and saw a sick man instead of a throne.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
Gabriel looked back at him.
“Leave.”
For ten long seconds, no one moved.
Then Vincent smiled again.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Probably.”
His gaze hardened.
“But it’ll be mine.”
Vincent turned.
His men followed.
The elevator swallowed them.
Luca locked it remotely.
Then he looked at Nora.
“You really think something is inside his spine?”
Nora stared at the small infected incision.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you need?”
“A hospital.”
“Impossible.”
“Then an operating room.”
Luca’s expression shifted.
“There’s one upstairs.”
Nora looked at him.
“What kind of person has an operating room upstairs?”
Luca glanced at Gabriel.
“The kind who expected one day to need a doctor who couldn’t ask questions.”
Gabriel’s eyes closed.
May you like
Nora gathered her equipment.
“Tonight he got one who asks too many.”
