I hated that the words found a place inside me.
“He’s my patient,” I said.
“And patients recover. Men like Vincent return.”
His gaze shifted to the bed.
“Isn’t that right, Vince?”
The nickname fell softly.
Vincent did not react.
Marco watched him for one breath, two, three.
Then he placed a hand on the bedrail.
“I know you’re in there,” he whispered.
My heart stopped.
The monitor betrayed nothing.
Vincent remained still.
Marco waited.
When no answer came, he sighed.
“You always were better at patience than me.”
He moved away from the bed and headed for the door.
At the threshold, he paused.
“Oh,” he said, glancing back. “One more thing. Dr. Mercer has been called into an emergency review with the board. Administrative concerns. Very dull. She may be away from this wing for a while.”
The door closed behind him.
For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe.
Then Vincent’s eyes opened.
“Claire,” he said.
His voice was calm, which frightened me more than panic would have.
“What?”
“Under the mattress.”
I stared at him.
“What now?”
“Left side. Near the rail.”
I slipped my hand carefully beneath the mattress, feeling along the seam until my fingers brushed paper. Not a memory card this time. An envelope.
It was thin, sealed, and old.
My name was written across the front.
CLAIRE BENNETT.
Not Nurse Bennett.
Claire.
The handwriting was strong, dark, and unmistakably Vincent’s.
My fingers went numb.
“You wrote this before the ambush,” I said.
Vincent looked at the envelope as if it pained him.
“Yes.”
I could barely hear myself.
“How did you know my name before I ever walked into this room?”
He closed his eyes.
Not from exhaustion.
From guilt.
The hallway outside filled with voices.
Marco’s voice among them.
Closer now.
Vincent opened his eyes again, and in them I saw the answer before he said a word.
The answer was going to change everything I thought I knew about why I had been hired, why I had stayed, and why a man everyone feared had been listening for my voice long before I ever began to read.
The moment Vincent Romano whispered those two words, my entire body forgot how to move.
Keep reading.
Not help me.
Not where am I.
Not who are you.
His hand remained locked around my wrist, his grip impossibly firm for a man who had spent six months trapped inside his own body. The storm hurled rain against the windows, and the emergency lights washed the room in a dim red glow, making his pale face look carved from shadow and flame.
“Vincent,” I breathed, though my voice barely sounded like my own. “You’re awake.”
His eyes moved slowly, struggling to focus. They were darker than I remembered, not empty now, but filled with something deep and exhausted. Confusion. Pain. Awareness.
And fear.
That last one startled me most.
The most feared man in Chicago was afraid.
His fingers tightened for a second, then loosened as if he realized he was hurting me. His gaze dropped to my wrist, and something like regret crossed his face.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped.
I should have hit the emergency button.
That was protocol. That was common sense. A coma patient opening his eyes after six months was not the sort of thing you handled alone in a storm-dark hospital room while his armed guards stood just beyond the door.
But my thumb hovered over the call button without pressing it.
Because Vincent Romano was not looking toward the door.
He was looking at me.
And there was a silent plea in his eyes.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
One word.
Small. Broken.
But it landed in my chest with the weight of a warning.
I swallowed. “You need a doctor.”
His breathing hitched, uneven and strained. “Not yet.”
“Vincent—”
“Claire.”
