“At first, I thought I was dreaming you. You read a poem about winter. Then a story about a lighthouse. You told me your grandmother smelled like lavender and burned toast.”
My eyes stung unexpectedly.
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
“I held onto what I could.”
The words were quiet.
They landed heavily.
I looked down at my hands.
“My grandmother raised me,” I said, though he already knew pieces of it. “After my mom left. She used to read to me when I couldn’t sleep. I think that’s why I started reading to you.”
Vincent watched me.
“You said she died in April.”
I nodded.
It had happened two months into my assignment. I had come to work because I needed the money and because grief felt worse in an empty apartment. That night, I had read him the same poem my grandmother loved. I thought no one heard me cry afterward.
“You heard that too?”
“Yes.”
Embarrassment rose fast, followed by something more vulnerable.
“I’m sorry.”
His brow furrowed.
“For what?”
“For crying on a patient.”
“You weren’t crying on me.”
“I was sitting beside you.”
“Then I was honored.”
I looked up.
He seemed almost as surprised by the words as I was.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
Outside, the hallway remained guarded. Inside, the machines hummed and breathed. The city beyond the windows glowed in distant gold and white, indifferent to the quiet shift happening between a nurse and a man who should have been unreachable.
The next afternoon, Marco Romano arrived early.
I was at the nurses’ station reviewing medication records when the elevator doors opened. He stepped out wearing a navy suit and a camel-colored coat, carrying a small white box tied with string. He looked handsome, composed, and concerned in the effortless way certain men learned to wear expressions like cufflinks.
Matteo straightened when he saw him.
Something passed between them.
Not a greeting.
Not warmth.
Recognition edged with tension.
“Matteo,” Marco said.
“Mr. Romano.”
“I’m here to see my brother.”
“Dr. Mercer restricted visitors.”
Marco’s smile didn’t move.
“I’m his next of kin.”
“Still restricted.”
The air changed.
I stood behind the desk, suddenly aware of how alone the private wing felt despite all the people in it.
Marco’s gaze drifted to me.
“Nurse Bennett,” he said warmly. “Perhaps you can help clear up this confusion.”
I had spoken to him only a handful of times before. He had always been polite. He remembered my name, thanked me for my care, once sent pastries for the entire staff.
Now, his politeness felt like a hand resting lightly on the back of my neck.
“Dr. Mercer is handling visitation,” I said.
“I see.” He looked toward Vincent’s door. “And how is my brother today?”
“Stable.”
“A beautifully useless word.”
“It’s the accurate one.”
Marco’s eyes sharpened with interest.
Then Dr. Mercer appeared from the stairwell, as if summoned by the strain in the air.
“Mr. Romano,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you until Sunday.”
“I’m told I need permission now to sit beside my own brother.”
“For today, yes.”
“I assume there’s a medical reason.”
“There is.”
“And I assume you’ll tell me what it is.”
“I’ll tell you that his condition requires limited stimulation.”
Marco’s gaze moved slowly from her face to mine.
“Limited stimulation,” he repeated.
He held up the white box.
“I brought sfogliatelle from the bakery he likes. Obviously not for him in his current state.” His smile returned, softer now. “For the staff. You’ve all been very dedicated.”
No one reached for the box.
After a long second, Marco placed it on the counter.
“Please let me know when the doctor’s restrictions change.”
He turned to leave, then paused beside me.
“I imagine this assignment has been difficult,” he said quietly. “My brother inspires unusual loyalty. Even unconscious.”
I said nothing.
His smile deepened by a fraction.
“Take care of yourself, Nurse Bennett.”
Then he walked back to the elevator.
Only when the doors closed did I realize my hands were cold.
Dr. Mercer took the pastry box and dropped it unopened into the trash.
I stared at her.
“That seems wasteful.”
“I don’t eat gifts from worried relatives who make my staff go pale.”
Matteo, still standing near Vincent’s door, gave the smallest nod of approval.
That night, Vincent was waiting when I entered.
His eyes were open.
“You saw him,” he said.
I set down my bag.
“News travels fast in this wing.”
“Your face.”
I touched my cheek self-consciously.
“What about it?”
“You look like someone handed you a puzzle piece you didn’t want.”
I sat beside him.
“Marco came early. Dr. Mercer wouldn’t let him in.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
A tired breath left him.
“He knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That something changed.”
The room seemed to tilt around that sentence.
“How could he know?”
Vincent opened his eyes again.
“Because Marco doesn’t visit. He inspects.”
I thought of the flowers he brought every week. The careful questions. The hand on Vincent’s shoulder.
“He seemed devoted.”
“He is,” Vincent said. “To outcomes.”
I hated how plausible that sounded.
“What happened the night you were shot?”
His gaze moved to the window.
For a long moment, he was silent.
When he spoke, his voice had lost all trace of humor.
“There was supposed to be a meeting. Private. A man wanted out of a bad agreement. I went because my father made promises before he died, and some debts aren’t written down.”
He paused, gathering strength.
“Marco knew the route. Only Marco.”
The storm from the night he woke felt suddenly present again, though the sky outside was clear.
“You think he gave it to someone?”
“I know he did.”
“Why?”
Vincent’s mouth tightened.
“Because I was leaving.”
The answer surprised me.
“Leaving what?”
He looked at me then.
“All of it.”
I didn’t speak.
The infamous Vincent Romano, feared boss of Chicago, lying in a hospital bed too weak to sit without help, telling me he had been trying to walk away.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“No one did.”
“From the business?”
“From the part of it that made men whisper in hallways.” His eyes held mine. “My father built something ugly and called it protection. I inherited it before I was old enough to know inheritance can be a cage.”
There was no self-pity in his voice.
Only exhaustion.
“I spent years making it quieter,” he continued. “Moving money into legal companies. Cutting ties. Buying people out instead of burying them in debt. Some men liked the old ways. Marco most of all.”
“But he’s your brother.”
Vincent looked away.
“That never stopped anyone from wanting a crown.”
The words settled between us.
I wanted to know how much was true. I wanted to ask what he had done, what he regretted, what kind of man tries to leave darkness only after learning how to survive inside it.
But his face had gone pale.
“That’s enough for tonight,” I said.
“No.”
“Yes.”
He gave me a look that probably once made grown men reconsider their life choices.
From a hospital bed, it only made him look stubborn and tired.
“You need rest.”
“I need a phone.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Claire.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what’s happening.”
“I know you can barely hold a cup for ten seconds. You are not orchestrating anything from this bed.”
His eyebrows rose slightly.
“Orchestrating?”
“You seem like an orchestrating kind of man.”
For one second, amusement warmed his eyes.
Then it faded.
“If Marco gains control before I can speak to the right people, others get hurt.”
“Then tell the police.”
He stared at me.
Right.
