Chapter 4 - Damian Cross’s Only Rule
Everyone reached for a weapon except me.
I reached for the nearest emergency flashlight.
Old habits.
Luca and two security men moved toward the sound.
Damian didn’t.
He stood in front of the computer as though eight years had collapsed into one line of text.
“Your brother?” I asked.
“Not now.”
His voice was quiet.
That meant the subject was closed.
At least to everyone else.
The security team returned seven minutes later.
An open service door.
No intruder.
No footprints worth trusting.
Whoever had been inside Crosswell knew its layout.
I hated what that implied.
Damian ordered the entire clinic shut down until morning.
“Patients upstairs?” I asked.
“Transferred to the hospital.”
“Some aren’t stable enough.”
“Then you stay with them until transport.”
I stared at him.
“You just told me to leave.”
“And you just reminded me you’re a nurse.”
“Convenient.”
His mouth almost moved.
Almost.
We spent the next hour preparing two private patients for transfer.
Damian stayed.
That surprised me.
He could have sent Luca.
Instead, the most powerful man in the building carried an oxygen tank when an orderly needed help and stood silently while Nora stabilized an elderly businessman with arrhythmia.
He never complained.
Never demanded attention.
When the patient was finally transferred, I found Damian alone in the staff kitchen staring at a terrible cup of vending-machine coffee.
“You know there’s real coffee upstairs.”
“This was closer.”
“That may be the saddest thing you’ve ever said.”
He looked at me.
“You know very little about the sad things I’ve said.”
I sat across from him.
“Tell me about Michael.”
“No.”
“Then tell me why somebody wants you thinking about him.”
“No.”
I waited.
Nurses become experts at silence.
People hate silence.
Eventually they fill it.
Damian lasted twenty-three seconds.
“My brother was twenty-six.”
I didn’t move.
“He was older?”
“Younger.”
That surprised me.
“He managed waterfront operations. Too trusting. Too convinced people could be reasoned with.”
“What happened?”
“Warehouse fire.”
His eyes remained on the coffee.
“Officially.”
“And unofficially?”
“He was found outside after the fire.”
I frowned.
“Then the fire didn’t kill him?”
“No.”
“What did?”
Damian’s jaw flexed.
“He had been injured before it started.”
He didn’t describe how.
I was grateful.
“Who was blamed?”
“Mercer.”
“Did you believe that?”
“For eight years.”
“And now?”
He looked toward the corridor where the anonymous file waited.
“Now someone wants me not to.”
I thought of the message.
Who really left Michael Cross to die.
“Did Michael have enemies inside your organization?”
Damian gave me a look.
“You ask dangerous questions.”
“I work in a clinic owned by a suspected organized-crime boss.”
“Suspected?”
“That’s the part you object to?”
That time, he actually smiled.
It vanished quickly.
“You should have chosen another job.”
“I almost did.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Money.”
He looked amused.
“What?”
“You’re the first person employed by me who admits that immediately.”
“Should I pretend it was your charming reputation?”
“No.”
“Good.”
The smile faded from his face.
“There’s one rule at Crosswell.”
“I know. No police unless a patient requests them.”
“Not that one.”
He leaned forward.
“No business follows a patient through those doors.”
I studied him.
“What does that mean?”
“No arguments. No revenge. No weapons in treatment rooms. No collecting debts. No one touches a doctor, a nurse, or a patient.”
“You really enforce that?”
“Always.”
“Why?”
He glanced toward the ceiling.
“Michael.”
I understood.
“Was he denied medical care?”
“Not exactly.”
The pain in Damian’s eyes told me there was more.
He wasn’t ready.
“After he died,” Damian continued, “I bought the building that became Crosswell. I wanted one place where whatever happened outside stopped at the door.”
“And tonight someone broke your rule.”
“Yes.”
The words were simple.
The meaning wasn’t.
Someone had used my identity.
Someone had entered confidential records.
Someone had turned the clinic into part of a war Damian had deliberately kept outside it.
For him, that wasn’t merely betrayal.
It was sacrilege.
The staff-kitchen door opened.
Luca entered.
“We traced the fake access badge.”
“To whom?” Damian asked.
“It was printed from an internal terminal.”
“Which?”
“Administration.”
Nora stood behind him.
Her face had gone pale.
“There are four terminals in administration.”
“Only one was active at the time,” Luca said.
“Whose office?”
He looked uncomfortable.
“Julian Vance.”
Damian said nothing.
Nora whispered, “Julian doesn’t work at the clinic.”
“He has executive access,” Luca replied.
My stomach tightened.
Damian rose.
“Where is he?”
“Home, supposedly.”
“Supposedly?”
“His driver says he dropped Julian off at eleven.”
“And security?”
“No record of him entering his residence.”
Damian walked toward the door.
I followed.
He stopped.
“You’re staying.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Mara.”
“If Julian had access to my credentials, I want to know why.”
“This isn’t a negotiation.”
“Then stop pretending it is.”
Luca abruptly became fascinated by the floor.
Damian looked at me for a long moment.
Finally he sighed.
“Stay beside Luca.”
“I thought I was staying beside you.”
“You are making me reconsider every decision I’ve made tonight.”
“Good.”
We left Crosswell at 2:47 a.m.
But before reaching the SUV, my phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One text.
DON’T TRUST THE MAN WHO TELLS YOU HE BUILT CROSSWELL FOR HIS BROTHER. ASK WHO PAID YOUR MOTHER’S HOSPITAL BILL.
I stopped walking.
Damian noticed.
“What is it?”
I locked the screen.
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed.
For the first time that night, I lied to Damian Cross.
May you like
And I knew immediately he could tell.
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