Chapter 2 - SIX WEEKS
“Six weeks,” Dominic repeated.
Isla stared at him.
Morning light had turned the hospital room almost painfully white. Outside the door, Dominic’s security team had begun preparing for his discharge. Carter Wynn, the broad-shouldered man who seemed to command the others, spoke quietly into a phone.
“Six weeks of what?”
“Private nursing.”
“No.”
“You haven’t heard the offer.”
“I heard fifty thousand dollars for one night. That was already insane.”
“Twenty thousand a week.”
Isla actually laughed.
Dominic didn’t.
Her laughter died.
“You’re serious.”
“I need wound care. Medication management. Someone who knows what internal bleeding looks like before it becomes a funeral.”
“Hire a private nursing agency.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“Someone gave my enemies my hospital room number.”
The words landed differently.
Isla looked toward the frosted glass.
Dominic lowered his voice.
“The shooting wasn’t random.”
“I assumed mafia bosses don’t usually get randomly shot three times.”
One corner of his mouth moved.
Then his expression hardened.
“The men who attacked me knew my route. They knew the security rotation. They knew which vehicle I would be in.”
“Someone betrayed you.”
“Yes.”
“And you think bringing me into your house is safer?”
“I think you’re outside my organization.”
Isla folded her arms.
“And when whoever shot you decides the nurse keeping you alive is inconvenient?”
Dominic said nothing.
That silence answered her.
“No.”
She grabbed her clipboard.
“Isla.”
She stopped.
It was the first time he had used her first name.
“Your eviction disappears today whether you accept or not.”
She turned slowly.
“What?”
“I bought the debt.”
Anger burned through her exhaustion.
“You had no right.”
“You were going to lose your apartment Friday.”
“That is my problem.”
“Marco’s too.”
“Do not say my brother’s name.”
Dominic went still.
For the first time, Isla saw the feared man recognize a boundary.
“You’re right,” he said.
No excuse.
No threat.
Just that.
It unsettled her more than arrogance would have.
“I won’t use your brother to persuade you.”
“Good.”
“The debt is cleared. No condition attached.”
“I don’t want charity.”
“Then consider it payment for last night.”
“You already paid me.”
“Consider me bad at arithmetic.”
Despite herself, Isla almost smiled.
She hated that.
By eight o’clock, Dominic Ashford left St. Mercy surrounded by enough security to escort a president.
Isla expected that to be the end.
It wasn’t.
At 4:20 that afternoon, she arrived at her apartment and found the front door open.
Her blood froze.
“Marco?”
She ran inside.
The living room had been destroyed.
Cushions slashed.
Drawers emptied.
Family photographs smashed.
Her mother’s old jewelry box lay upside down.
“Marco!”
“I’m here!”
Her brother emerged from the bathroom holding a baseball bat.
Isla nearly collapsed.
Marco was skinny, dark-haired, and trying desperately to look older than twelve.
“Someone came in,” he whispered.
She pulled him against her.
“Did they hurt you?”
“I was downstairs getting the mail.”
On the kitchen wall, written in black marker, were six words.
TELL ASHFORD THE NURSE SAW NOTHING.
Isla stopped breathing.
Marco followed her stare.
“Who’s Ashford?”
Three knocks sounded at the door.
Isla grabbed the baseball bat.
“Ms. Monroe?”
Carter Wynn stood in the hallway.
Two men waited behind him.
She tightened her grip.
“How did you know?”
Carter’s expression gave her the answer.
Dominic had been watching her building.
She should have been furious.
Instead, looking at the wreckage around Marco, she felt something worse.
Relief.
Twenty minutes later, Isla and Marco were inside a black SUV heading north along Lake Michigan.
Dominic’s residence occupied the upper floors of a limestone building in Gold Coast, though “residence” seemed absurdly modest once Isla entered.
The elevator opened directly into a vast apartment of dark wood, stone, glass, and enormous windows overlooking the lake.
Dominic stood near the fireplace.
He should have been in bed.
Isla immediately became angry.
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
His eyes moved to Marco.
Then to Isla.
Then to the scrape on her palm from broken glass.
“Were either of you hurt?”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
Carter handed him a photograph of the message.
Dominic studied it.
“Who knew I stayed with you?” Isla asked.
“Hospital staff. My guards. Surgical personnel.”
“That’s a lot of people.”
“Yes.”
Marco tugged Isla’s sleeve.
“Is he the guy from the newspapers?”
Dominic looked at him.
“Depends which newspaper.”
“The one Mrs. Ortiz says is run by liars.”
Carter coughed suspiciously.
Isla closed her eyes.
“Marco.”
“What?”
To her astonishment, Dominic smiled.
It changed his entire face.
For half a second he looked younger, almost ordinary.
Then Carter’s phone rang.
His expression changed as he listened.
“We found something.”
Dominic looked over.
“What?”
“The hospital security footage.”
Carter hesitated.
“Someone entered room 304 at 4:11 yesterday morning.”
Isla remembered.
She had been there.
Dominic had been asleep.
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“The camera shows them entering through the medication corridor.”
“Who?”
Carter turned his phone around.
The image was grainy but recognizable.
A woman wearing hospital scrubs.
Isla leaned closer.
Then her stomach dropped.
“That’s Nurse Patterson.”
Dominic’s gaze sharpened.
Isla shook her head.
“No. She died yesterday.”
Silence.
Dominic stared at her.
“What did you say?”
“Her car went off Lake Shore Drive after her shift.”
Carter immediately began typing.
Isla remembered Patterson laughing at the nurses’ station only hours earlier.
Now she understood why Dominic wasn’t resting.
His enemies weren’t outside the hospital.
They had been inside it.
Dominic looked at Carter.
“Lock the building down.”
Then he turned to Isla.
“You and Marco stay here tonight.”
“I didn’t agree to six weeks.”
“No.”
His eyes moved to the photograph.
“But whoever came into that room thinks you saw something.”
Isla’s mouth went dry.
“What exactly happened at 4:11?”
Dominic asked.
She searched her memory.
IV bag.
Monitor.
Rain.
A faint metallic sound behind her.
Then she remembered something else.
A reflection in the window.
A hand.
A syringe.
And a silver ring shaped like a serpent.
May you like
Isla looked at Dominic.
“I think,” she whispered, “someone tried to kill you while you were sleeping.”
