Chapter 4
Liam, who supposedly had no hope left for himself, had given Tommy a future in a single sentence.
I looked down at the dressing.
“Thank you.”
His expression became uncomfortable.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Make it sentimental.”
“You just invited my sick brother to play with your antique car.”
“He can look at it.”
“You’re getting sentimental.”
“Anna.”
“Very dangerous.”
“Change the subject.”
I laughed.
For the next two days, recovery became routine.
Pain medication.
Antibiotics.
Meals.
Physical therapy exercises Liam hated and performed anyway.
Sometimes we spoke.
Sometimes we didn’t.
I learned that he drank coffee black but had secretly been putting sugar in it since he was a teenager.
He learned that I hated jazz.
He considered this a moral failing.
I learned that Leo had known him since they were boys.
“He’s family,” Liam said.
“Does Leo know that?”
“No.”
“Maybe tell him.”
“He’d become unbearable.”
I learned less about the woman and child in the photograph.
Whenever conversation came near the subject, Liam closed off.
So I stopped pushing.
Trust, I had learned through years of nursing, was not something you could drag from a person.
You could only create a place where it might decide to appear.
On Friday morning, exactly one week after my arrival, Leo entered carrying a thick envelope.
He placed it beside my coffee.
“Your pay.”
I stared at it.
Ten thousand dollars.
Cash.
Under normal circumstances, I would have counted it.
Instead, I pushed it back.
Leo raised an eyebrow.
“What’s wrong?”
“Tommy’s deposit.”
“That has nothing to do with your salary.”
“It has everything to do with my salary.”
“No.”
“I can’t take this too.”
“Yes, you can.”
I shook my head.
“I was hired to do a job.
Liam already paid more than—”
“Anna.”
Leo’s voice was patient.
“You performed the job.”
“I’m staying.”
He looked surprised.
I surprised myself too.
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“I know.”
“Your week is finished.”
“I know.”
“The next nurse is scheduled this afternoon.”
I looked toward Liam’s door.
“How long will she last?”
Leo gave me a dry look.
“Based on precedent?”
“Exactly.”
“Four hours.”
“Cancel her.”
He studied my face.
“Why?”
“Because his wound is improving but not healed.
His leg still needs monitoring.
And he has the emotional maturity of a badly socialized wolf.”
“I heard that.”
Liam’s voice came from behind the partially open door.
I called back, “Good.”
Leo looked amused.
“You’re sure?”
I nodded.
“One more week.”
From inside the room, Liam said, “No.”
I walked in.
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve done your week.”
“So?”
“You should go home.”
“Why?”
“Because your brother needs you.”
“My brother is being transferred into the trial Monday.
I spoke to him last night.
He told me to stay.”
Liam’s expression tightened.
“You told him where you are?”
“I told him I’m private nursing for a rich, unpleasant patient.”
“And?”
“He said that narrows it down to half of Illinois.”
Leo coughed into his fist.
I continued.
“I’m staying another week.”
“You’re not.”
“Is this about the blinds?”
“No.”
“Then why do you care?”
“I don’t.”
“That was almost convincing.”
His eyes hardened.
“Anna, go home.”
“No.”
For a moment, the old Liam returned.
Cold.
Commanding.
Untouchable.
“You work for me.”
“Correct.”
“Then I’m terminating your employment.”
“No.”
His brows lifted.
“I don’t think you understand how termination works.”
“I understand perfectly.
You’re firing me because you’re scared.”
The room became silent.
Leo quietly stepped backward.
Coward.
Liam’s voice dropped.
“Be very careful.”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Trying to scare people when they get too close.”
“I don’t need you close.”
“Then why did you choose me?”
His face went still.
I stepped toward the window.
Not touching the blinds.
Just standing near them.
“You told me you wanted someone who wouldn’t be afraid of you.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you wanted someone who wouldn’t leave.”
Something flickered in his eyes.
For the first time, I understood.
The nurses hadn’t merely quit.
Every departure had confirmed something Liam already believed.
People leave.
People always leave.
His sister.
The woman in the photograph?
The child?
Whoever else he had lost.
“You don’t get to push everyone out and then use their leaving as proof that nobody stays,” I said softly.
His expression turned unreadable.
“That sounds like something from a greeting card.”
“It probably is.”
“Go home, Anna.”
“I’ll leave if that’s genuinely what you want.”
“It is.”
I walked toward the door.
My hand reached the handle.
“Fine.”
I waited.
One second.
Two.
Three.
“Anna.”
I turned.
His eyes were on the blanket.
“One more week.”
I smiled.
“Thought so.”
“Don’t look pleased.”
“Impossible.”
Leo muttered from the hallway, “Badly socialized wolf was accurate.”
“Leo.”
“I’m leaving.”
The second week felt entirely different.
Not easy.
Liam Mercer was never easy.
But the mansion no longer felt like a fortress.
I began eating breakfast in the kitchen with Rosa, the housekeeper, who had worked for the Mercer family for thirty-two years.
Rosa knew everything.
She also shared almost nothing.
“He ate?” she asked every morning.
“Yes.”
“Complained?”
“Yes.”
“Good.
When he complains, he is himself.”
One morning, I asked, “Was Liam always like this?”
Rosa smiled over her coffee.
“No.”
“What was he like?”
“Trouble.”
“That sounds the same.”
“Different kind.”
She looked toward the window.
“When he was young, he climbed trees in expensive shoes.
Broke windows playing baseball.
Brought stray dogs home.”
I tried to picture it.
Failed.
“He smiled more?”
“All the time.”
“What happened?”
Rosa’s smile faded.
“Life.”
That was all she would say.
On Tuesday afternoon, Liam’s orthopedic surgeon arrived.
Dr.
Kaplan was in his sixties, impatient, brilliant, and apparently unimpressed by organized crime.
“You look terrible,” he told Liam.
“You say that every time.”
“Because every time, you look terrible.”
He examined the fixator.
“Swelling’s down.”
He inspected my notes.
“Antibiotics?”
“Completed tomorrow,” I said.
“Fever?”
“None for six days.”
Kaplan nodded.
“You might keep the leg.”
Liam looked at him.
“That was in question?”
“Everything is in question when patients refuse medical advice.”
Kaplan turned to me.
“Whatever you’re doing, continue.”
“Mostly insulting him.”
“Excellent.
Evidence-based medicine.”
When the doctor left, Liam looked offended.
“I’m surrounded by disrespect.”
“You cultivated it.”
That night, rain struck the windows.
A storm rolled over the estate.
Around midnight the power flickered.
I woke immediately.
Old nursing reflex.
I pulled on a sweater and walked down the hallway.
The mansion was illuminated by backup lights.
I checked Liam.
He was awake.
Not unusual.
What was unusual was where he was looking.
At the blinds.
Lightning flashed behind them.
For a second, white lines appeared around their edges.
“Can’t sleep?”
I asked.
“No.”
“Pain?”
“No.”
I checked anyway.
Pulse slightly elevated.
Breathing controlled.
Too controlled.
I sat in the chair.
“You’re scared of storms?”
“No.”
“Darkness?”
“No.”
“Windows?”
Silence.
I waited.
Rain tapped steadily.
Finally he said, “The accident happened in daylight.”
There it was.
A tiny opening in the wall.
I stayed quiet.
“We were driving back from Lake Geneva.”
The photograph.
My chest tightened.
“The woman and girl?”
His eyes moved to me.
“You saw the picture.”
“Leo dropped it.”
He didn’t seem angry.
Just tired.
“The woman was Elena.”
“Your wife?”
“My fiancée.”
“And the little girl?”
“Her daughter.
Sophie.”
I waited.
He looked toward the blinds.
“We were supposed to be married in October.”
“What happened?”
“The car went off the road.”
His voice remained even, but his fingers tightened on the sheet.
“I was driving.”
My stomach dropped.
“Liam…”
“Elena died.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
“Sophie?”
“She survived.”
Relief came too quickly.
Then I noticed his expression.
“Where is she?”
“With Elena’s sister.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where she belongs.”
“Does she?”
His gaze sharpened.
“Don’t.”
I leaned back.
“All right.”
He stared at the ceiling.
“Sophie was seven.”
“How old is she now?”
“Ten.”
Three years.
The dark room.
The sealed blinds.
A man staring toward every thread of sunlight while insisting he hated it.
“You haven’t seen her.”
It wasn’t a question.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the last time she saw me, she woke in a hospital asking where her mother was.”
His voice cracked almost imperceptibly.
“I was the one who told her.”
I said nothing.
“She looked at me…”
He stopped.
Rain filled the silence.
“What?”
“She looked at me like she wanted me to explain how the world could change in one afternoon.”
He turned toward the window.
“I couldn’t.”
“Liam, she was seven.”
“I was driving.”
“You said that.”
“I should have—”
“You should have what?”
His jaw tightened.
“Seen it coming.”
“What caused the crash?”
He looked at me.
Then away.
“I don’t remember.”
Something about the answer bothered me.
Not because I thought he was lying.
Because he sounded genuinely uncertain.
I thought about the photograph.
Leo’s reaction.
Rosa refusing to speak.
The rules.
The darkness.
And Liam’s injuries now, three years later, severe enough that someone had needed to hire round-the-clock nurses.
“How did you get these injuries?”
His expression changed.
“We’re done.”
“Was it another accident?”
“Anna.”
“You have surgical abdominal wounds and a fractured leg.
May you like
That doesn’t happen because you slipped in the shower.”
“Enough.”
