For a moment, I couldn’t move.
Vincent Romano’s hand was wrapped around my wrist, his fingers cold and impossibly strong for a man who had spent half a year lying motionless beneath hospital sheets. His eyes were open, but not truly seeing. They moved through the dim red emergency light as if he were looking for something in a room that no longer existed.
My pulse thundered so loudly I almost missed the second wordless movement of his mouth.
I leaned closer despite every instinct warning me to step back.
“Mr. Romano?” I whispered. “Vincent, can you hear me?”
His grip tightened.
Not enough to hurt.
Enough to answer.
The heart monitor was still racing, sharp alarms cutting into the storm-heavy silence. In the hallway outside, footsteps shifted. One of the guards must have heard the monitor, because a shadow crossed the narrow strip of glass beside the door.
I pulled gently at my wrist.
“Vincent, I need to check you.”
His eyes moved toward my face.
Really moved.
This time, his gaze focused.
I had seen men wake after surgery confused and frightened. I had seen patients cry because they didn’t recognize their own families. But there was something different in Vincent’s stare. Confusion was there, yes, but underneath it was discipline. He was gathering himself piece by piece, forcing his mind through the fog by sheer will.
His lips parted again.
“Door,” he rasped.
The word was barely sound.
“What?”
His eyes flicked toward the hallway.
“Don’t.”
The door handle turned.
I had no idea why I listened.
Maybe it was the urgency in his face. Maybe it was the strange intimacy of being the first person he had spoken to after six silent months. Or maybe, after all that time alone with him, some part of me had begun to believe I knew the rhythm of that room better than anyone else.
I reached over and silenced the monitor alarm, then quickly adjusted the sensor on his finger as if it had slipped. The numbers were still high, but no longer screaming.
A guard opened the door halfway.
His name was Matteo, though he had never told me that himself. I had learned it from overheard conversations and the embroidered tag inside his suit jacket when he once bent to pick up a dropped phone. He was broad-shouldered, dark-haired, and had the kind of stillness that made him seem more like a locked door than a person.
“Everything all right?” he asked.
My wrist was still trapped beneath the blanket.
Vincent’s hand remained around it.
I stepped slightly to the side, hiding the angle of his arm with my body.
“The storm caused interference,” I said, surprised by how steady my voice sounded. “His pulse spiked for a moment, but it’s settling.”
Matteo’s eyes moved past me.
Vincent’s face had gone slack again. His eyelids were lowered, his mouth still, his expression unreadable.
If I hadn’t felt his fingers pressing into my skin, I would have believed the impossible had already ended.
Matteo watched him for a few seconds too long.
Then he looked back at me.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Another flicker of lightning washed the hallway white behind him. For one second, I saw two other men waiting beyond the door.
Not hospital security.
Vincent’s men.
Matteo nodded once and closed the door.
I stood there, frozen, listening until the footsteps outside faded.
Only then did Vincent open his eyes again.
His grip loosened.
I pulled my wrist free and stared at the red marks his fingers had left behind.
“You’re awake,” I breathed.
He blinked slowly.
It seemed to take him great effort.
“Water.”
I grabbed the small sponge swabs from the bedside tray, dipped one into a cup of water, and touched it carefully to his cracked lips.
“Not too much,” I said, the nurse in me taking over because panic was useless. “You’ve been unconscious a long time. Your throat may not work the way you expect.”
A faint crease appeared between his brows.
