Chapter 1 - The Eighth Nurse
The crystal water glass exploded against the bedroom wall thirty seconds after Claire Donovan walked into the Moretti mansion.
“GET HER OUT OF MY HOUSE!”
Eighty-year-old Victor Moretti’s roar carried through the second floor, down the marble staircase, and into the dining room where his son was meeting with three men who had once buried a federal informant beneath a construction site outside Boston.
Claire did not scream. She did not duck. She did not even look at the shattered glass.
Instead, she stared at the old man in the enormous carved bed and said, “Was that supposed to scare me, or are you just trying to make your son buy new wallpaper?”
One of the armed guards outside the bedroom coughed to hide a laugh.
Victor’s face turned crimson. “You think this is funny?”
“No.” Claire set her medical bag on the dresser. “I think throwing expensive things because you’re angry that your left hand doesn’t work properly is sad.”
The guard stopped smiling.
Victor stared at her. Everyone in Massachusetts who knew the Moretti name understood that Victor Moretti had spent four decades making grown men afraid to breathe incorrectly in his presence. His stroke had weakened one side of his body. It had not weakened his pride.
Six nurses had quit. The seventh had run crying from the mansion after Victor dumped an entire breakfast tray across the floor. Claire Donovan was number eight.
Victor raised his trembling left hand. “Get out.”
“All right.”
That response surprised him. No lecture. No gentle speech about medication. No patronizing smile. Claire picked up her bag and walked away.
Victor gave a bitter laugh. “Eight.”
But three minutes later, she returned carrying an old wooden chessboard from the library. She placed it on a table beside the windows overlooking the Atlantic.
Victor frowned. “I told you to leave.”
“You told me to get out of your bedroom.”
“You’re in my bedroom.”
“Technically, I’m sitting beside the window.”
Victor narrowed his eyes. Claire arranged the chess pieces. Then she poured herself coffee. Victor waited for her to explain. She didn’t.
Five minutes passed. Ten. Rain struck the windows of the sprawling North Shore estate.
Victor finally snapped, “Your knight is wrong.”
Claire glanced at the board. “No, it isn’t.”
“I have been playing chess since before your parents met.”
“Congratulations.”
Victor’s eyes flashed. “You put it in the wrong position.”
“Then come over here and fix it.”
Silence. Victor looked toward his cane. Claire didn’t help him. That offended him more than help would have. Slowly, stubbornly, he swung his legs over the side of the bed.
Outside the door, the guards straightened. Victor reached for his cane. One step. Then another. Claire kept drinking coffee. He reached the chair opposite her, lowered himself into it, and moved a pawn.
“Your move.”
Neither of them knew Dominic Moretti was watching.
Two floors below, thirty-nine-year-old Dominic stood before a wall of security monitors in a locked room behind his study. Six feet two. Black suit. No tie. Dark hair cut short. A thin scar near his right eyebrow that nobody alive dared ask about.
Dominic had inherited operational control of the Moretti organization after his father’s stroke. Victor had ruled through rage. Dominic ruled through silence. When Victor became angry, men prepared for violence. When Dominic became quiet, men prepared funerals.
But that night Dominic forgot about the frightened man waiting in the garage downstairs. He forgot about the shipment delayed in New York. He even forgot the meeting taking place in his dining room.
His father was playing chess. For the first time since the stroke.
“Who is she?” Dominic asked.
His father’s longtime adviser, Raymond DeLuca, stood behind him. “Claire Donovan. Thirty-one. Registered nurse. Emergency-room background. Four years in private care. Lives in Boston. No husband. No children.”
Dominic watched Claire make a move. Victor countered.
“Why did she come back?”
Raymond shrugged. “Maybe she needs the money.”
On the screen, Victor suddenly laughed.
Dominic went completely still. He had not heard that sound in nearly five months.
Raymond looked at him. “She’ll quit.”
“No.” Dominic continued watching. “She won’t.”
By Claire’s fifth shift, Victor had stopped throwing glasses. By the seventh, he began taking his medication without being asked. By the ninth, something stranger happened. At 9:50 every evening, Victor started looking toward the bedroom door. Claire’s shift began at ten. Dominic noticed. Dominic noticed everything.
Then came Sunday dinner. Victor insisted on leaving his room. The Moretti family gathered at the enormous dining table: Dominic, his widowed sister Sophia, her nineteen-year-old son Ethan, Raymond DeLuca, and three longtime family associates. Claire stood behind Victor’s chair.
Sophia smiled coldly. “So you’re the miracle worker.”
Claire shrugged. “I mostly annoy him until he forgets to be difficult.”
Victor grunted. Sophia’s smile disappeared. “My father doesn’t like strangers.”
“Neither do I.”
Sophia looked offended. Victor laughed again. Dominic watched his sister’s face tighten.
That was when the family drama turned ugly. Sophia placed her fork down. “Dad, you fired nurses who worked for this family for years. Now some woman you barely know walks in and suddenly she’s sitting at our table?”
“I invited her.”
“You don’t know her.”
Victor’s eyes hardened. “I know she speaks to me like I’m still a man instead of a corpse waiting for paperwork.”
The room went silent. Dominic looked at Sophia. “Enough.”
“No,” Sophia said. “Someone has to say it. Since the stroke, this family has lost its mind. Dominic controls the business. Doctors control Dad’s body. Guards follow him to the bathroom. Now a nurse decides when he eats.”
Claire stepped backward. “This is a family conversation.”
Victor slammed his good hand against the table. “That is exactly why she should hear it.”
Sophia stared at him. Victor pointed toward Dominic. “My son watches every camera in this house.” Then toward Raymond. “He measures every weakness.” Then toward Sophia. “And you visit because you’re terrified I’ll die before changing my will.”
Sophia went pale. “Dad—”
Victor’s voice cracked like thunder. “But that woman? She sat in my room for three hours and never once asked what I was leaving behind.”
Nobody moved. Claire felt Dominic watching her.
Victor looked around the table. “You all care whether I live. But half of you have forgotten how to let me live.”
He pushed his chair backward. Then his weakened hand slipped. The wineglass beside him crashed. Victor lost his balance. Claire caught him before he hit the floor.
For one terrible second, Victor’s entire body went rigid. Then he whispered into Claire’s ear: “Don’t let Dominic know.”
Claire froze. “Know what?”
May you like
Victor gripped her wrist with surprising strength. His eyes moved toward Raymond DeLuca. And for the first time since Claire entered the Moretti mansion, the old man looked genuinely afraid.
“I think someone in this family is trying to kill me.”
