Chapter 1 - The Nurse They Threw Away
Three hours after I lost the nursing job I had sacrificed nine years of my life for, five black luxury SUVs trapped me against a warehouse in the pouring Chicago rain.
Six armed men stepped out.
The coldest-looking one stared straight at me and growled, “Where’s the nurse?”
Then I saw fresh blood on his cuff.
A second later, a bloody hand slammed weakly against the SUV window behind him.
For one terrifying second, getting fired seemed like the smallest problem I had.
Earlier that afternoon, I’d been sitting beneath the fluorescent lights of Lakeview Memorial while Human Resources calmly explained why saving a dying patient had somehow made me unemployable.
Kathryn Davis folded her hands across the desk.
“It’s a liability issue.”
“Dr. Weber froze,” I said. “The patient’s oxygen was crashing.”
“That’s your interpretation.”
“He was dying.”
Her expression barely moved.
“He survived.”
“Yes,” I said quietly. “That’s generally what I’m trying to accomplish.”
She pushed the termination papers toward me.
Nine years disappeared beneath my signature.
Nine years of Christmas mornings inside trauma rooms.
Missed family dinners.
Vending-machine Thanksgivings.
Birthday parties I’d watched through photos because someone had needed an emergency chest tube or transfusion.
Even my mother’s final birthday.
I’d spent that night treating victims from a twelve-car pileup on I-90 while Mom sat alone in her apartment with a grocery-store cake she had bought for herself.
She died four months later.
For years, I told myself the work had mattered enough to justify the sacrifices.
Apparently Lakeview Memorial disagreed.
I emptied my locker into a grocery bag and left my badge hanging behind.
My ten-year-old Ford was dead at the mechanic’s shop, so I stepped into the storm and started the thirty-eight-block walk home.
By the time I reached the warehouse district, water squished inside my sneakers with every step.
Then my grocery bag split open.
My battered stethoscope dropped straight into a filthy puddle.
I stared at it.
That stupid stethoscope had been with me through nursing school.
Through my first trauma code.
Through my mother’s illness.
Through nine years of believing I belonged somewhere.
I almost laughed.
Instead, I bent down to retrieve it.
That was when I heard the engines.
Five vehicles surrounded me with frightening precision, their headlights cutting through the rain.
The doors opened almost simultaneously.
Men in dark suits stepped onto the pavement.
I backed toward the warehouse wall.
The rear door of the lead SUV opened last.
A tall man with pale gray eyes approached me while another man, his face marked by an old scar, stared at his phone.
“Her signal stopped on this block,” the scarred man said.
“Where is she?” the tall man demanded.
My back touched brick.
“Who?”
“The trauma nurse from Lakeview. Clare Bennett.”
My heart lurched.
“You’re looking for me?”
His expression changed.
“You’re Bennett?”
I pulled my stethoscope from my wet jacket.
“I was.”
“Good. Come with me.”
“No.”
Every armed man around us went completely still.
The stranger slowly turned toward me.
Clearly, people didn’t tell him no often.
But my attention had already shifted to the dark red stain spreading across his sleeve.
“Whose blood is that?”
“My brother.”
“What happened?”
“That isn’t your concern.”
“Then I’m not moving.”
His jaw tightened.
Suddenly, a weak hand struck the SUV window behind him and slid downward, leaving a bloody smear across the glass.
Whatever fear I’d been feeling vanished beneath nine years of instinct.
“How old?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Gunshot?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Upper leg.”
“How long ago?”
“Eleven minutes.”
I pushed past him.
“Open the door.”
Nobody moved.
I snapped, “Now.”
The tall man jerked his chin.
One of his men opened the rear door.
Inside, a young man lay barely conscious.
His pants were saturated with blood.
A belt had been tied badly around his thigh.
His skin had the grayish pallor I had seen too many times in trauma bays.
His breathing was shallow.
Rapid.
Wrong.
“He needs an emergency room,” I said.
“He can’t go to one.”
I stared at the gray-eyed man.
“Then he dies.”
His gaze hardened.
“My name is Dominic Romano. I need you to make sure he doesn’t.”
The name hit me harder than the rain.
Romano.
Nightclubs.
Construction companies.
Freight yards.
Stories whispered by exhausted Chicago cops at two in the morning about a family nobody crossed twice.
I looked at the armed men.
Then at the injured young man.
Then back at Dominic.
“You’re insane.”
“Probably.”
“You think I can replace an entire trauma center in the back of an SUV?”
Dominic stepped closer until his voice was nearly swallowed by the storm.
“No, Nurse Bennett. I think you’re the only person in Chicago I can trust with his life.”
Behind him, the young man suddenly made a strange choking sound.
I turned.
His chest fell.
It didn’t rise again.
“He stopped breathing.”
Dominic went white.
“Luca!”
I climbed into the SUV.
“Everybody back.”
No one moved quickly enough.
I shouted, “If you want your brother alive, get out of my way!”
That worked.
I checked Luca’s airway.
No effective breaths.
Pulse weak.
Too weak.
“Do you have medical supplies?”
One of the men handed me a black trauma bag.
I opened it.
My eyes widened.
Oxygen.
IV tubing.
Saline.
Gauze.
Tourniquets.
Airway equipment.
Whoever these people were, they planned for bad nights.
Unfortunately, they didn’t know how to use most of it.
I replaced the belt with a proper tourniquet.
Blood loss slowed.
“Bag valve mask.”
The scarred man stared at me.
“The blue thing with the clear mask!”
He grabbed it.
I positioned Luca’s head and began ventilating him.
“Dominic, hold this seal exactly where my hand is.”
For the first time, his face showed something other than control.
Fear.
Not fear for himself.
Fear for his little brother.
He took my place immediately.
“Like this?”
“Exactly.”
I started an IV.
Luca’s pulse fluttered beneath my fingers.
Barely there.
“We need blood.”
Dominic’s eyes met mine.
“You can do that?”
“Not here.”
“Tell me what you need.”
“A hospital.”
“No.”
“Then somewhere with sterile equipment, monitoring, blood products, and preferably a surgeon.”
Dominic looked toward the scarred man.
“Call Mercer.”
The man stepped away.
I looked at Dominic.
“Who’s Mercer?”
“A doctor.”
“Licensed?”
His silence answered me.
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“He used to be a trauma surgeon.”
“Used to be?”
“He’ll help.”
I stared at the unconscious twenty-three-year-old.
“You’d better hope so.”
We drove.
I stayed beside Luca.
His blood pressure dropped.
I knew because one of Dominic’s men produced a portable monitor from another case.
Apparently this organization had better equipment than some ambulance companies.
Luca’s oxygen level climbed once we supported his breathing, but his pulse stayed dangerously fast.
He had lost too much blood.
“How far?” I demanded.
“Twelve minutes,” Dominic said.
“He may not have twelve.”
Dominic’s hand tightened around the leather seat.
“What do you need?”
“A miracle.”
“I don’t believe in them.”
“Tonight might be a good time to start.”
For the first time, his mouth almost moved into something resembling a smile.
Then Luca’s monitor alarmed.
His heart rhythm changed.
I grabbed his wrist.
“Come on, Luca.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“What’s happening?”
“Stay back.”
“What is happening?”
“He’s crashing.”
I worked while the SUV flew through the rain.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody threatened me.
Nobody told me what to do.
For the first time in hours, I wasn’t Clare Bennett, terminated employee.
I was a trauma nurse.
And a patient needed me.
When we finally reached an old private medical building near the river, two men were waiting with a stretcher.
One was in his sixties, silver-haired and exhausted-looking.
He took one look at Luca.
“What happened?”
“Femoral-area gunshot,” I said. “Severe blood loss, respiratory arrest en route, currently ventilating, pressure unstable.”
The older man’s eyebrows lifted.
“You’re the nurse?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Samuel Mercer.”
“Former surgeon?”
He looked at Dominic.
“He tells everyone that part?”
“Apparently.”
Mercer examined Luca’s wound.
His expression changed.
“We need to operate.”
Dominic grabbed his shoulder.
“Then operate.”
Mercer looked toward the makeshift surgical suite.
“I need another pair of hands.”
Everyone looked at me.
I slowly shook my head.
“I’m a nurse.”
“You’re also the reason he arrived alive.”
“I was fired today.”
Mercer paused.
“For what?”
“For treating a patient when a doctor froze.”
Something unreadable passed over his face.
Then he said, “Sounds like Lakeview’s loss.”
We took Luca inside.
For the next two hours, the outside world vanished.
I assisted Mercer as he controlled bleeding, repaired damaged tissue, and stabilized Luca.
When it was finally over, my arms were trembling.
Mercer pulled off his gloves.
“He has a chance.”
Dominic stood motionless near the doorway.
“A chance?”
“He survived surgery.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It’s the answer you’re getting.”
Dominic looked at me.
Rainwater had dried on my clothes.
Someone else’s blood covered my sleeves.
I probably looked half-dead.
He walked toward me.
“How much?”
I frowned.
“What?”
“For saving him.”
I stared at him.
“You think I did that for money?”
“Everyone wants something.”
“I wanted your brother to stay alive.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, as though the concept irritated him.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
I picked up my ruined grocery bag.
Dominic looked at it.
Then at me.
“You’re walking home?”
“I was.”
“It’s four in the morning.”
“I noticed.”
“I’ll have someone drive you.”
“No armed convoy.”
One corner of Mercer’s mouth twitched.
Dominic did not appear amused.
“One car.”
“Fine.”
I turned toward the door.
“Clare.”
Something about hearing my first name in his voice stopped me.
I looked back.
Dominic reached into his coat.
He placed something on the stainless-steel counter.
My old Lakeview employee badge.
I stared at it.
“You left this behind,” he said.
“How did you get it?”
“That’s not important.”
“It’s extremely important.”
“You’re going to need sleep.”
“Dominic.”
He ignored the question.
I picked up the badge.
Something was taped to the back.
A small folded piece of paper.
I opened it.
My stomach dropped.
Three handwritten words stared back at me.
WEBER KNOWS LUCA.
I looked up.
“Where did this come from?”
Dominic’s face changed.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
May you like
And in that moment, I realized Luca’s shooting and my firing might not have been two separate disasters.
They might have been the same story.
