Chapter 5 - The Shadow of St. Anne’s
Forty-eight hours had passed since the night that shook St. Anne’s Medical Center to its foundations, but the shockwaves were still rippling through the Chicago medical establishment.
Dr. Alistair Sterling was gone. His office had been cleared out by men in dark suits before sunrise on Wednesday, his mahogany-framed degrees replaced with blank drywall. The official hospital report, rubber-stamped by a terrified board of directors, cited “unforeseen administrative restructuring and medical protocol modernization.” No one mentioned the gun. No one mentioned the near-fatal batch of defective IV tubing that St. Anne’s had secretly purchased from a disreputable supplier to shave three percent off their quarterly supply budget.
And Claire Bennett was no longer emptying biohazard containers.
Her new office on the fourth floor was larger than her entire apartment. It had floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the skyline, a leather desk chair that felt like sitting on a cloud, and a private restroom with a marble sink. But Claire hadn’t sat at the desk once. She was standing by the window in her crisp, newly tailored white lab coat, staring down at the street below where a black town car idling at the curb had been parked for the last three hours.
Dominic Moretti’s car.
A soft knock sounded at the door. Before she could answer, the door swung open, and Marcus, one of Dominic’s primary enforcers—a man built like a brick wall who had spent the last two days standing outside her office like a gothic gargoyle—stepped inside.
“Mr. Moretti is downstairs in the private foyer,” Marcus said, his voice entirely devoid of inflection. “He’d like a word.”
Claire turned from the window, crossing her arms. “Tell him I’m busy. I have three neonatal chart audits to finish before shift change, and the new supply inventory just arrived.”
Marcus didn’t blink. “He knows about the audits, Ms. Bennett. He also knows you haven’t eaten anything other than vending machine cheese crackers for thirty-six hours because you’ve been too stubborn to leave the floor.”
Claire flushed, caught red-handed. “That is none of his business.”
“Mr. Moretti considers anything affecting your health to be very much his business,” Marcus replied smoothly, gesturing toward the door. “After you.”
Defeated and starving, Claire grabbed her stethoscope, locked her office, and followed the giant down to the ground floor.
The private foyer had been closed off to the public. In the center of the polished marble room sat a small table covered with white linen, lit by silver candlesticks. Dominic Moretti was sitting there alone, reading a leather-bound ledger. When Claire walked in, he stood up, smoothing the lapels of his jacket.
“You look tired, Claire,” Dominic said, his tone lacking the icy menace of their first meeting, replaced instead by a strange, quiet warmth.
“I’m fine,” Claire said, sitting down uninvited across from him. She looked at the silver trays piled high with warm food from one of the city’s most exclusive Italian restaurants. Her stomach gave an embarrassing, audible rumble.
Dominic smiled—a genuine, rare expression that softened the hard angles of his face. “Eat first. We talk business after.”
Claire didn’t argue. She picked up a fork and dug into the truffle risotto as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks because, essentially, she hadn’t. Dominic watched her quietly, pouring a glass of sparkling water and pushing it across the table.
“How is Leonardo?” Claire asked between bites, unable to suppress her professional concern.
“He went home this morning,” Dominic said, his eyes darkening with a sudden, fierce protectiveness. “Sophia is resting. The doctors—the new doctors you approved—say his lungs are clear, his heart is strong, and there is no permanent damage.”
Claire let out a long breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “Good.”
“Because of you,” Dominic said softly.
“I told you, I just did what any nurse would do.”
“No,” Dominic leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “Fifteen doctors stood around that incubator and watched him die while they calculated their liability. You were the only one who saw the truth and had the courage to act. That makes you different, Claire. And in my world, people like you are exceptionally rare.”
Claire stopped eating, her fork hovering halfway to her mouth. The compliment sent a strange, shivering sensation down her spine—part fear, part exhilaration.
“Mr. Moretti… Dominic,” she corrected herself hesitantly. “What happens now? Do I just… work here forever under your protection?”
“Protection?” Dominic tilted his head. “Is that what you think this is?”
“I don’t know what this is,” Claire admitted honestly. “One day I’m drowning in debt and hiding behind a supply cart, and the next I’m running a hospital department with your private security guards standing outside my door.”
Dominic reached into his coat pocket and slid a thick manila envelope across the table. Claire looked down at it suspiciously.
“Open it,” he said.
Claire picked up the envelope, pulled the tab, and slid out a stack of papers. Her eyes scanned the first page, and her breath hitched.
It was a bank settlement clearing every single one of her father’s medical debts, discharging her student loans in full, and transferring the deed to her apartment building directly into her name, free and clear of her abusive landlord.
“I can’t accept this,” Claire whispered, her hands shaking as she dropped the papers back onto the table. “This is too much. I didn’t save your nephew to get rich.”
“I know you didn’t,” Dominic said, his voice steady and unyielding. “That is why I am doing it. My family honors its debts, Claire. And a life for a life—or in this case, a life restored for a debt paid—is the only currency that matters to me.”
May you like
Before Claire could find her voice to argue, the heavy glass doors of the foyer burst open.
And the past walked in, holding a knife.
