Chapter 2 - The Medication That Shouldn't Exist
Alice should have gone home.
Her body begged her to.
Her apartment was twenty minutes away, her shoes were wet, and she had worked long enough that the hallway lights seemed to pulse whenever she blinked.
But she remained.
Partly because Stefano was still unstable.
Partly because Nero refused to leave her side.
Mostly because Alice couldn't forget the fear she had seen in Leonard Voss's eyes.
By sunrise, the private floor of the hospital looked less like a medical unit and more like a fortress.
Danny stationed men at both elevators.
Nobody entered Stefano's room without being searched.
Carmine spent most of the morning making phone calls.
Voss disappeared.
Alice noticed that before anyone mentioned it.
"Where's Dr. Voss?" she asked.
Danny looked toward the nurses' station.
"Thought he was here."
"He isn't."
Carmine approached.
"He's probably resting."
Alice looked at him.
"A patient he's treated for twenty years nearly died, we found an unexplained medication in his bloodstream, and his doctor went home to sleep?"
Carmine's polite expression disappeared.
"You ask many questions."
"Occupational hazard."
"Your occupation ended when you delivered Stefano."
Danny intervened.
"Enough."
Carmine turned on him.
"She doesn't belong here."
Nero rose.
The movement was quiet.
Still, Carmine stopped.
Alice looked down.
The dog hadn't growled.
He had simply positioned himself between her and Carmine.
Danny noticed too.
Something unreadable crossed his face.
Carmine backed away.
"Fine."
He walked toward the elevator.
Alice watched him leave.
"Your boss has interesting friends."
Danny's jaw tightened.
"Carmine isn't his friend."
"What is he?"
"Family without blood."
That answer bothered Alice more.
An hour later, Stefano woke.
He opened his eyes slowly.
Pain medication softened the edges of his awareness, but not enough to hide the instinctive calculation behind his stare.
First the ceiling.
Then monitors.
Then Danny.
Then Nero.
Finally Alice.
He frowned.
"You."
Alice was checking his IV.
"Disappointing, isn't it?"
His voice was rough.
"I thought I imagined you."
"You didn't."
"Nero let you touch me."
"He has questionable judgment."
Stefano's gaze shifted to the dog lying beside her chair.
"Nero."
The dog's head rose instantly.
Stefano's expression softened.
Only slightly.
But Alice saw it.
"You stayed."
Nero stood and placed his head against the mattress.
Stefano managed to move two fingers through the dog's fur.
For several seconds, the feared Stefano Marquetti disappeared.
There was only an injured man relieved that his dog was alive.
Then he noticed Danny's face.
"What happened?"
Danny closed the door.
Alice considered leaving.
Stefano saw the movement.
"Stay."
She stopped.
Danny explained the medication.
He explained Voss.
He explained the altered label.
Stefano listened without interruption.
When Danny finished, Stefano looked at Alice.
"You stopped him?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Alice almost laughed.
"Because you're my patient."
"I wasn't."
"You were bleeding in front of me. Close enough."
Stefano studied her.
"You didn't know who I was?"
"I knew."
"And you grabbed Leonard Voss by the wrist?"
"Yes."
A faint smile appeared.
"That must have irritated him."
"It did."
Stefano's smile vanished.
"Leonard doesn't make mistakes."
"That's what worries me."
Silence.
Danny pulled a chair closer.
"We're looking for him."
Stefano stared through the window.
"Find him alive."
Danny nodded.
Alice looked at Stefano.
"You're assuming someone ordered him."
"I know Leonard."
"People change."
"So do circumstances."
"You trust him?"
"For twenty years."
Alice folded her arms.
"And twenty minutes in an ambulance told me he was frightened."
Stefano looked back at her.
"Of me?"
"No."
That landed harder.
"Then who?"
"I don't know."
The answer remained between them.
Later that afternoon, Alice finally went home.
Her apartment sat above a laundromat and beside a building where someone played bass-heavy music at hours that suggested employment was optional.
She unlocked her door and found another envelope beneath it.
FINAL NOTICE.
Alice stared at it.
Then placed it beside two others.
Her mother had once said Alice's greatest talent was surviving catastrophes one bill at a time.
Three years after her mother's death, that talent was becoming exhausting.
Alice showered.
Changed clothes.
Collapsed onto her bed.
Her phone rang eleven minutes later.
Unknown number.
She ignored it.
It rang again.
"Hello?"
"Miss Brennan?"
"Who is this?"
"St. Joseph's administration."
Alice sat up.
"We need you to come in regarding last night's incident."
The meeting lasted fourteen minutes.
The hospital wasn't firing her.
Technically.
But the staffing agency had received a complaint regarding "scope of practice concerns" and "unprofessional confrontation with a private physician."
Dr. Leonard Voss had filed it.
Before disappearing.
Alice left the building without a shift.
Without agency placement.
And without enough money to cover the rent notice waiting at home.
She laughed once in the parking lot.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes reality became too ridiculous for any other reaction.
Her phone rang again.
Danny.
"Where are you?"
"Why?"
"Stefano asked."
"Tell Stefano I'm unemployed."
Pause.
"What?"
"Voss filed a complaint."
Silence.
Then Danny said, "Don't go home."
Alice stopped walking.
"What?"
"Don't go home."
Her skin went cold.
"Why?"
"We found Voss's car."
"And?"
"Empty."
"That doesn't explain why I can't go home."
Danny lowered his voice.
"Because your address was written on a piece of paper inside it."
Alice looked across the parking lot.
People moved normally.
A mother loaded groceries.
A teenager rode past on a bicycle.
A delivery truck turned onto the street.
Suddenly everything looked suspicious.
"How would he have my address?"
"I don't know."
A dark SUV turned into the parking lot.
Alice froze.
"Danny."
"I know. We see it."
She looked around.
"You see what?"
The SUV stopped twenty feet away.
The rear window lowered.
Nero's enormous head appeared.
Alice stared.
Danny was driving.
"You could have mentioned that was you."
"You hung up too fast."
She walked toward the vehicle.
The back door opened.
Stefano sat inside.
Alice stopped.
He should not have been discharged.
He looked pale beneath a black coat, and the stiffness in his posture revealed exactly how much pain he was hiding.
"What are you doing here?"
"Picking you up."
"You're supposed to be in a hospital."
"I own one."
"That is not an answer."
"It's the answer you're getting."
Alice looked at Danny.
"Take him back."
Danny stared forward.
"I enjoy being alive."
Stefano opened the door farther.
"Get in."
"No."
Nero moved over and created a space.
Alice pointed at him.
"Don't involve the dog."
Stefano's mouth twitched.
"Your address was in Voss's car."
"I heard."
"You cannot go home."
"I can make my own decisions."
"Excellent. Make the intelligent one."
Alice should have walked away.
Then she remembered the final notice beneath her door.
Her missing shifts.
Voss.
The altered medication.
And Nero choosing her in a room full of people who had known him for years.
She got inside.
Stefano took her to a secured penthouse overlooking Providence.
It looked nothing like a criminal hideout.
It looked like a billionaire had hired an architect who hated clutter.
Glass.
Stone.
Muted colors.
A private medical room.
Nero immediately walked inside and sat beside the bed.
Alice stared at Stefano.
"You planned this."
"I plan everything."
"Except getting poisoned."
Danny coughed to hide a laugh.
Stefano stared at him.
Danny left.
Alice checked Stefano's wound because somebody had to be responsible.
"You tore two sutures."
"I'm fine."
"People who say they're fine usually aren't."
He watched her work.
"What would it cost?"
Alice glanced up.
"What?"
"To hire you."
"I'm a nurse, not an employee you buy."
"That's not what I asked."
Alice continued examining the incision.
"I lost my agency position because of your doctor."
"Then work for me."
"I don't want mafia money."
Stefano's expression became unreadable.
"Do you believe everything you've heard about me?"
"I believe enough."
"And yet you saved me."
"Medicine doesn't come with a morality test."
He considered that.
"What if I hire you only until I'm stable?"
Alice shook her head.
"I shouldn't."
Nero rested his chin on her knee.
Stefano looked at the dog.
"He's manipulative."
"Runs in the family?"
That time Stefano genuinely smiled.
It transformed his face.
And Alice hated noticing.
That evening, Danny arrived with news.
They had found Voss.
Alive.
Terrified.
Hiding in a motel twenty-seven miles away.
Stefano's expression turned to ice.
"Bring him."
Alice stiffened.
"Here?"
"Yes."
"No."
Stefano looked at her.
"No?"
"If you're planning to hurt him, I'm leaving."
"This isn't your concern."
"If I'm working here, I'm not standing around while someone gets tortured."
"Who said anything about torture?"
"You have twelve armed men downstairs."
"Eleven."
"That's your defense?"
Something like amusement moved in his eyes.
"Leonard will talk."
"How?"
"Conversation."
Alice didn't believe him.
But when Voss arrived, nobody touched him.
He looked twenty years older than he had in the ambulance.
His hands shook.
He saw Alice.
Then Stefano.
"I'm sorry."
Stefano said nothing.
Voss's eyes filled.
"I didn't want this."
"Then explain."
Voss sank into a chair.
"They told me the first dose wouldn't kill you."
Alice's breath caught.
"The first dose?"
Voss nodded miserably.
"Something to weaken him. Make the wound look worse. Then I was supposed to give the second dose in the ambulance."
Stefano's face went completely still.
"Who?"
Voss closed his eyes.
"They have my daughter."
Danny stepped forward.
"Who?"
Voss began crying.
Stefano leaned toward him despite the pain.
"Leonard."
Voss opened his eyes.
"He's been beside you since your father died."
Nobody moved.
Stefano whispered, "Say the name."
Voss did.
"Carmine."
The room became silent.
Alice looked at Stefano.
For the first time since she had met him, fear appeared in his face.
Not fear of dying.
Fear that twenty years of his life had just become a lie.
And before anyone could ask another question, every light in the penthouse went out.
Then Nero began growling at the locked service elevator.
May you like
Someone was already inside.
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