Chapter 2 - The Silent Ward
The private floor of Rhode Island Hospital had been turned into a fortress. Four armed men in dark charcoal suits stood posted at every stairwell, and two more flanked Stefano Marchetti’s door like gargoyles in Italian wool.
When I stepped off the elevator at six in the morning for my first shift as his private nurse, Nero was lying flat on his belly in the middle of the hallway. The moment his golden eyes locked onto me, his heavy tail thudded once against the linoleum. The guards flinched, but Nero simply stood up, trotted over, and rested his cold nose against my wrist.
"He hasn't moved for anyone else," one guard muttered, his hand resting nervously on his jacket lapel. "Dr. Voss tried to change the dressing an hour ago, and the dog almost took his arm off."
"Animals don't like arrogance," I said smoothly, stepping past them and opening the heavy door.
Inside, Stefano was sitting upright, his bare chest wrapped in tight white bandages. Even wounded, pale, and hooked up to a saline drip, the man radiated an unsettling amount of power. He had dark, sharp features, a jawline carved from granite, and eyes so dark they looked black under the harsh fluorescent lights.
"Alice," he said softly. His voice sounded like gravel being turned in a cement mixer.
"Mr. Marchetti," I replied, setting my bag on the bedside table. "Your vitals were unstable three hours ago. You shouldn't be sitting up."
"I don't spend my life lying down, nurse," he countered, though a sharp wince betrayed his stoic face as he shifted. He watched me prepare a fresh bag of intravenous antibiotics. "Danny told me what you did in the ambulance."
I paused, checking the drip rate. "I just did my job. Dr. Voss was about to administer fifty milligrams of propofol to a patient in cardiogenic shock. It was reckless."
"Voss has been on my payroll for twenty years," Stefano said, his gaze drilling into me. "He tells people what they want to hear. You stopped him. Most people don't stop men with doctorates—or men with guns."
"I don't work for your payroll, Mr. Marchetti. I work for my license, and right now, my patient needs rest, not politics."
A tiny, almost imperceptible twitch formed at the corner of Stefano's mouth. "You're a strange woman, Alice Brennan. You walk into a room filled with killers, ignore the men with machine guns, manage my dog, and put my doctor in his place."
"I grew up in a house with three older brothers and a stray pit bull we pulled out of a ditch," I shrugged, taking his blood pressure cuff. "Guns don't impress me. Bad medicine frustrates me."
As I wrapped the black fabric around his arm, our fingers brushed. A sudden, strange heat flared through my skin. Stefano didn't pull away. He looked up at me, his gaze dropping to my lips before rising back to my eyes.
Before either of us could say anything, the door clicked open.
Carmine Baldi walked in, flanked by two lower-level associates. Carmine was Stefano’s underboss—a smooth-talking man in his late fifties with slicked-back hair and a gold ring on his pinky finger. His eyes darted around the room, landing heavily on Nero, who had instantly placed himself between Carmine and the bed, his hackles rising slightly.
"Stefano," Carmine said, keeping his distance. "The captains are getting restless. The attack on the mansion was orchestrated from the inside. We need to clear the perimeter and find who leaked the security codes."
"The perimeter is fine, Carmine," Stefano replied coldly, his demeanor instantly turning into hardened steel. "Danny is handling the investigation."
Carmine’s eyes flicked to me, narrowing with obvious contempt. "And who is this? The agency girl? Stefano, with all due respect, we have private security. We don't need outsiders lingering around your bed while the business is vulnerable."
"Alice stays," Stefano snapped, his tone leaving no room for argument. "She saved my life in the courtyard, and she kept Voss from killing me in the rig."
Carmine smiled, but it didn't reach his cold eyes. "Of course. If that's what you want, Boss." He turned toward the door, pausing just before leaving. "Dr. Voss mentioned he wanted to review your medication chart this afternoon. Just to be sure."
"Tell Voss he can review it from the hallway," Stefano said.
When the door closed, I looked down at my hands. They were shaking slightly. Not from fear of Carmine, but from the realization of what kind of viper's nest I had just stepped into.
"Carmine doesn't like me," I noted quietly, pumping the cuff.
May you like
"Carmine doesn't like anyone he can't control," Stefano replied, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous register. "Which means you need to be careful, Alice. In my world, saving the wrong man makes you an enemy to the right ones."
"I'm not in your world," I reminded him firmly, though as Nero rested his heavy head on my knee, the lie felt thinner than ever.
