Chapter 1 - The Man Who Wouldn’t Sit Down
Nobody wanted to get close to Rafe Calder.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Not the expensive black SUVs blocking half of Hawthorne Street. Not the shattered glass glittering under the hotel lights. Not the men in tailored suits spreading across the sidewalk with one hand near their jackets and their eyes constantly moving.
I noticed the empty space around him.
People were afraid of getting too close.
Rafe Calder stood beneath the gold awning of Boston’s Grand Hawthorne Hotel with blood soaking through the right side of his white shirt.
He was six-foot-six, close to three hundred pounds, and built like somebody had taken a professional linebacker and taught him how to wear a five-thousand-dollar suit.
One of the paramedics had already tried to convince him to sit.
“Mr. Calder, we need to examine you.”
Rafe barely looked at him.
“My sister first.”
Twenty feet away, a young woman sat against the rear wheel of a black SUV while another medic examined a cut above her eyebrow.
June Calder looked furious rather than frightened.
“Rafe, I’m fine.”
“You were ten feet from gunfire.”
“So were you.”
“I noticed.”
Even wounded, the man sounded bored.
That annoyed me.
I had spent four years working trauma units attached to military field hospitals overseas. I had treated frightened teenagers, angry soldiers, stubborn officers, civilians who screamed, men who prayed, and men who insisted they were perfectly fine while actively losing consciousness.
Ego had no useful medical function.
So I pushed through the circle of Rafe’s men carrying my trauma bag.
“Everybody stop moving.”
Four men turned at once.
The one closest to me was maybe thirty-five, broad-shouldered, with a shaved head and the calm expression of someone who had been trained not to panic.
His hand hovered near the inside of his jacket.
“Back up.”
“No.”
His eyebrows moved slightly.
I pointed at his hand.
“If you pull anything resembling a weapon while I’m treating someone, I leave.”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly. Your boss is bleeding, and you’re standing between him and the person carrying gauze.”
Behind him, June laughed.
It was one quick burst before she winced and touched her forehead.
The guard looked over his shoulder.
Rafe was watching me.
His face revealed almost nothing.
“Move, Malcolm,” he said.
So the guard had a name.
Malcolm stepped aside.
I walked directly toward Rafe.
Up close, he was even larger.
Dark hair. Short beard. Gray eyes that didn’t seem to miss much. Tattoos disappeared beneath the open collar of his ruined shirt, and there was a controlled stillness to him that felt more dangerous than shouting ever would.
I looked at the stain spreading across his shirt.
Then I looked at him.
“Sit down.”
Everything around us seemed to stop.
Rafe glanced toward the ambulance behind me.
Then back to my face.
“You know who I am?”
“Right now?”
I opened the trauma bag and pulled out my shears.
“You’re roughly two hundred eighty pounds of patient making my job unnecessarily difficult.”
June laughed again.
This time, even Malcolm lowered his head, pretending he had suddenly become interested in the pavement.
Rafe stared at me for another second.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, he sat on the rear step of the ambulance.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I cut through the damaged section of his shirt.
When the fabric caught near the wound, Rafe’s hand closed around my wrist.
Every man surrounding us moved.
I didn’t.
I looked at his hand.
Then at him.
“If you’re stopping treatment, say so.”
His gaze narrowed.
“If you’re not, let go.”
For the first time, genuine surprise crossed Rafe Calder’s face.
His fingers loosened.
I continued working.
“Good decision.”
“You speak to every patient this way?”
“Only the ones bleeding on my shoes.”
Another faint reaction crossed Malcolm’s face.
I inspected the injury.
“Entrance and exit. No obvious arterial involvement. You’re lucky.”
“I don’t believe in luck.”
“Then believe in anatomy.”
I pressed fresh gauze against his side.
His jaw tightened but he didn’t make a sound.
That told me more about him than the armed men did.
He had experienced pain before.
Probably a lot of it.
Suddenly, an engine roared somewhere around the corner.
Every trace of humor disappeared.
Rafe changed instantly.
“Malcolm.”
“Covered.”
Three men moved toward the street.
Two turned toward the hotel entrance.
No shouting.
No confusion.
No unnecessary movement.
That was when I understood something about Rafe Calder.
His power wasn’t based only on fear.
It was based on discipline.
He started to rise.
I planted my palm in the center of his chest.
“Sit.”
He froze.
Physically, I couldn’t have stopped him.
If Rafe wanted to stand, I would have been moved aside without effort.
But something in my voice made him hesitate.
Our eyes met.
His expression shifted.
Not anger.
Surprise.
“Dizzy?” I asked.
“No.”
“Difficulty breathing?”
“No.”
“Then stay seated.”
“I need to know what’s happening.”
“That’s what all those expensive-looking men are for.”
His mouth almost moved.
Almost.
“I’m going with June.”
“You’re going to Massachusetts General.”
“My sister first.”
“She’s stable.”
“I stay until she leaves.”
There it was.
Not control.
Fear.
I lowered my voice.
“Mr. Calder.”
“Rafe.”
“Fine. Rafe.”
I glanced toward June.
“She needs to see her brother survive more than your men need to see their boss standing.”
That reached him.
His eyes moved to June.
For the first time since I had approached him, the infamous Rafe Calder didn’t look dangerous.
He looked like an older brother.
June caught him watching.
“I’m okay,” she said quietly.
Rafe looked back at me.
“Fine.”
Inside the ambulance, he transformed the compartment into a command center.
“June goes with Malcolm. Lock down the hotel cameras. Nobody questions staff until we know what happened.”
“Hold still.”
“Get the guest list from—”
“Rafe.”
He looked at me.
“You move that arm one more time and I restart this IV.”
Malcolm, standing outside the open ambulance doors, turned away.
His shoulders moved once.
He was laughing.
I secured the line.
“Thank you.”
Rafe studied me.
“You threaten all your patients?”
“Frequently.”
“What’s your name?”
“Elena Ward.”
He repeated it once.
“Elena.”
I didn’t know why hearing my name in his voice made me uncomfortable.
Probably because Rafe Calder didn’t sound like a man who forgot things.
The ambulance doors were about to close when June appeared beside Malcolm.
She held something between two fingers.
A small black object.
“What’s that?” Rafe asked.
June’s expression had changed.
The humor was gone.
“I found it under the SUV.”
Malcolm took it from her.
His face hardened.
It looked like a wireless transmitter.
Rafe’s eyes immediately found his security chief.
“Tracking device?”
“Could be.”
“Was it there before tonight?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer clearly bothered Malcolm.
Rafe’s gaze went cold.
Someone had known exactly where the Calders would be.
This had not been random gunfire.
I checked the monitor and tried to focus on my job.
But June looked toward me.
“Elena?”
“Yes?”
“You said he was lucky.”
“So far.”
She swallowed.
“What if whoever did this tries again?”
Before I could answer, Rafe did.
“They won’t.”
There was nothing loud about the words.
That made them worse.
I tightened the blood-pressure cuff around his arm.
“You’re not chasing anyone tonight.”
His gaze returned to me.
“Elena.”
“What?”
“We need to talk when we reach the hospital.”
“About your injury?”
“No.”
A pause.
“About what you saw.”
I frowned.
“I saw a shooting victim.”
Rafe’s expression remained still.
“No.”
His gray eyes held mine.
“You saw somebody leave the hotel thirty seconds before the shooting.”
My hands stopped.
Because he was right.
I had seen someone.
A woman.
Dark coat.
Silver hotel badge.
Moving quickly through the service entrance.
At the time, I hadn’t thought anything of it.
Now I remembered something else.
She hadn’t been running away from the gunfire.
She had left before it began.
And suddenly, the most dangerous man in Boston was no longer the thing that worried me.
May you like
The woman I had barely noticed was.
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