Chapter 1 - The Coffee Incident
The second floor of St. Vincent Medical Center normally smelled of floor wax, industrial bleach, and lukewarm soup. By Friday afternoon, however, the floor smelled faintly of leather, high-end aftershave, and an suffocating amount of quiet panic.
Six men in tailored suits stood at equal intervals along the corridor leading to ICU Room 204. They did not slouch. They did not look at their phones. Their hands remained rested neatly at their waists, holding heavy coats over arms that were clearly carrying concealed firepower.
Hospital staff gave the hallway a fifty-foot berth.
Beatrice Gallagher walked down the middle of the floor carrying a wooden tray holding two oversized ceramic mugs of scalding black coffee. Her scrubs were a faded plum color today, her dark hair pinned into a high, messy bun held together by two ballpoint pens. Her left knee gave a dull thud with every second step—a lingering souvenir from a dusty road outside Kandahar—but her posture was as solid as an iron beam.
Cynthia Mercer peeked out from behind the nurse's station, mouthing frantically: “Bea! No! Don’t go in there!”
Beatrice ignored her.
She reached Room 204 and pushed the heavy door open with her elbow.
Inside, the scarred man from the night before—whose name Beatrice had since learned was Marco Vance, Leonardo’s chief enforcer—was standing near the window. He was whispering into an encrypted satellite phone while two other men stood near the bed.
On the bed sat Leonardo Castellano.
He was propped up at a forty-five-degree angle. The hospital gown looked absurdly small across his broad chest, which was tightly wrapped in white surgical bandages. Despite the pale tint to his skin and the IV line running into his forearm, his blue eyes were sharp, cold, and entirely aware.
He was listening to a young lieutenant report on a shipping dispute at the Detroit riverfront.
When Beatrice entered, the room went dead silent.
"Out," Marco ordered, pointing a heavy finger at Beatrice without looking up from his phone. "He's resting."
Beatrice didn't stop. She walked straight toward the bedside table. "He's not resting. He's raising his heart rate, which is currently sitting at 102 beats per minute on my monitor because he's surrounding himself with cheap cologne and loud breathing."
The lieutenant's jaw dropped. Marco froze, slowly lowering his phone.
Leonardo didn't speak. He simply watched her. His blue eyes tracked her every movement—the heavy, rhythmic sway of her hips, the slight limp in her left leg, the resolute set of her jaw.
"I said out, nurse," Marco repeated, stepping into her path. He was six-foot-two and built like a brick wall. He placed a hand directly against Beatrice’s shoulder to physically block her.
Beatrice stopped. She looked down at the large, scarred hand resting on her plum scrubs.
Then she looked up into Marco's eyes.
"You have two options," Beatrice said, her voice dropping into the flat, deadly pitch she used when a triage patient tried to bite her. "You take your hand off my shoulder, or I spill these two cups of two-hundred-degree diner coffee straight down your boss's freshly bandaged chest."
Marco sneered. "You wouldn't dare—"
Beatrice didn't argue. She didn't flinch.
She simply tilted her wrists.
The two heavy mugs tipped. A dark, steaming cascade of boiling coffee poured off the tray, splashing directly across the front of Leonardo’s gown and dripping onto his bare, bandaged sternum.
"Jesus!" the lieutenant yelled, jumping back.
Marco lunged forward, reaching beneath his jacket for his shoulder holster. "You crazy bitch—"
The sound of a heavy metallic click cut through the room.
It didn't come from Marco. It came from the bed.
Leonardo had reached onto the bedside table, picked up Marco's spare piece—a heavy matte-black semi-automatic—and was holding it pointed directly at Marco’s chest.
The air sucked out of the room.
Leonardo wasn't looking at Marco. He was looking at Beatrice. A slow, terrifyingly dark smirk was spreading across his pale lips, despite the steam still rising from his damp bandages.
"Marco," Leonardo rasped, his voice raw from the breathing tube he’d pulled out four hours earlier. "Step back."
"Boss! She just scalded your incision!" Marco barked, his face red with fury.
"She gave me a warning. You ignored it," Leonardo said smoothly. He lowered the gun onto the blanket, his blue eyes never leaving Beatrice's face. "And if you draw a weapon in front of the woman who dug a bullet out of my subclavian artery, I will shoot you in the foot myself."
Marco swallowed hard, his face turning from red to pale. He slowly withdrew his hand from his suit jacket and backed away toward the door.
Leonardo shifted on the bed, wincing slightly as the movement pulled at his stitches. He looked down at the dark brown coffee stain spreading across his chest, then looked up at Beatrice.
"It's cold," he remarked quietly.
"It’s not cold," Beatrice said, setting the empty mugs down on the tray with a crisp clack. "It was lukewarm. I tested the pot in the breakroom before I brought it up. I am an emergency nurse, Mr. Castellano, not a sadist. If I wanted to burn you, you’d be screaming."
Leonardo let out a low, gravelly laugh that turned into a short cough. He winced, placing a hand over his bandage.
"You're unbelievable," he murmured.
"I'm efficient," Beatrice corrected. She stepped closer, pulled a pair of trauma shears from her pocket, and casually sniped the damp bandage off his chest with three swift cuts. She reached for a clean dressing from her cart. "Now stop talking so I can clean this before you develop a staph infection and ruin my shift."
From the doorway, Marco took a cautious step forward, his hand twitching near his belt. "Boss... she's dangerous. Let me take her down to the basement. We can make sure she keeps her mouth shut about what she saw last night."
Leonardo didn't answer right away.
He leaned back against his pillows, watching Beatrice gently wipe the skin around his wound with iodine. Her hands were broad, firm, and astonishingly gentle. She didn't flinch at his tattoos, she didn't shiver at the gun resting on his blanket, and she certainly didn't look at him with the sniveling terror he had spent forty years inspiring in everyone else.
He smiled. A slow, genuine smile that made him look less like a monster and more like a man who had finally found something worth looking at.
He looked past Beatrice toward Marco standing at the door.
Two words left his mouth. They were quiet, carried on a low exhale, but they possessed a density that seemed to crush the room.
"She's mine."
The entire hallway outside seemed to freeze. Cynthia, who was eavesdropping near the door frame, let out a tiny squeak.
May you like
Beatrice didn't pause her work. She slapped a fresh square of sterile gauze over his wound, pressed the tape down firmly enough to pull his body hair, and looked him dead in the eye.
"I am absolutely not."
