Chapter 2 - The Name on the Back of My Badge
I didn’t sleep.
Not really.
Dominic’s driver dropped me outside my apartment at 4:41 a.m., and by 4:47 I was sitting on my kitchen floor in wet clothes staring at three words.
WEBER KNOWS LUCA.
Dr. Jonathan Weber had been an attending physician at Lakeview Memorial for twelve years.
He wore expensive watches, corrected nurses in front of interns, and never remembered the names of environmental-services workers.
Yesterday afternoon, he had frozen while a patient’s oxygen saturation collapsed.
I had intervened.
Hours later, I was fired.
Hours after that, Luca Romano was shot.
Now someone had put Weber’s name on my badge.
Coincidence was possible.
But the older I got, the less I trusted coincidences that arrived carrying blood.
At 6:03 a.m., my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
A breath.
Then a distorted voice.
“You should have let him die.”
The line disconnected.
I remained still.
My kitchen suddenly felt too exposed.
I crossed to the window.
A dark sedan was parked across the street.
I couldn’t tell if anyone was inside.
My phone rang again.
This time it was Dominic.
“How did you get this number?” I demanded.
“Are you alone?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Clare.”
Something in his tone stopped me.
“Yes.”
“Lock your door.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“The man who shot Luca knows he survived.”
I looked toward the window again.
The sedan’s lights turned on.
“Dominic?”
“Yes?”
“I think someone’s outside my building.”
His voice changed instantly.
“Move away from the window.”
The sedan pulled from the curb.
I stepped back.
“Gray four-door.”
“Plate?”
“Couldn’t see it.”
“Stay inside.”
“I’m calling the police.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to tell me not to call the police.”
“If whoever is watching you has people inside the department, calling them tells them exactly where you are.”
I hated that he might be right.
“What exactly have you dragged me into?”
“I’m coming over.”
“No.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
Twenty minutes later, someone knocked.
Three precise knocks.
I stared through the peephole.
Dominic stood alone.
I opened the door but kept the chain on.
“No entourage?”
“They’re downstairs.”
“Of course they are.”
He looked exhausted.
Not weak.
Men like Dominic Romano probably considered sleep an optional hobby.
But there were shadows beneath his eyes I hadn’t noticed during the rain.
“May I come in?”
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“You had me kidnapped yesterday.”
“I asked you to come with me.”
“You arrived with five SUVs and armed men.”
“You still said no.”
“That should tell you something.”
To my surprise, he almost smiled.
Then his expression hardened.
“Someone called you.”
My grip tightened on the door.
“How do you know?”
“They called Mercer’s facility first.”
“What did they say?”
“That Luca should have died.”
I unlocked the chain.
Dominic stepped inside.
He looked completely wrong in my apartment.
My place was small, warm, cluttered with books and mismatched mugs.
Dominic looked like he belonged in marble lobbies guarded by men with earpieces.
His gaze landed on a framed photograph of my mother.
“That her?”
“My mom.”
“She passed?”
“Four years ago.”
He nodded once.
No fake sympathy.
I appreciated that.
“Tell me about Weber,” he said.
I folded my arms.
“You first.”
Dominic removed his coat.
“The bullet that hit Luca was meant for me.”
That got my attention.
“We were leaving a warehouse meeting. Someone fired from an elevated position. Luca pushed me aside.”
“Why?”
“He’s my brother.”
“That doesn’t explain why someone was shooting.”
His eyes cooled.
“You know what family I belong to.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know enough.”
“No. I know rumors.”
“They’re safer.”
“For you, maybe.”
Dominic walked to the small kitchen table.
“Three months ago, someone started redirecting freight contracts from companies connected to my family. Money disappeared. Construction bids we had already won were suddenly canceled. One of our accountants vanished.”
“And you think Weber is connected?”
“I didn’t until last night.”
He removed a photograph from inside his coat.
It showed Dr. Weber leaving a restaurant.
Beside him stood a man I recognized.
Kathryn Davis.
The HR director who fired me.
I stared at the photo.
“Why were you watching them?”
“We weren’t.”
“Then who took this?”
Dominic’s jaw shifted.
“My brother.”
“Luca?”
“Yes.”
“He was investigating them?”
“He was following someone else.”
“Who?”
Dominic hesitated.
Then he placed a second photograph on the table.
My throat tightened.
The man in the picture was the patient I had saved yesterday.
Mr. Elias Grant.
“He’s involved?”
“We believe he used to be.”
“In what?”
Dominic leaned against the counter.
“Financial laundering through medical supply contracts.”
I laughed once because the alternative was screaming.
“You’re telling me the man I saved was laundering money for organized crime?”
“I’m telling you he may know who is stealing millions from my family and possibly from Lakeview.”
“Why would Weber want him dead?”
“That’s what I need to know.”
I stared at the photographs.
Memories from the code returned.
Mr. Grant’s oxygen saturation falling.
Weber standing completely still.
Not confused.
Not panicked.
Still.
At the time I thought he’d frozen.
What if he hadn’t?
What if he had been waiting?
My skin went cold.
“No.”
Dominic watched me.
“What?”
“I thought Weber froze.”
“And now?”
“I think maybe he didn’t.”
Silence settled across the kitchen.
I sat down.
“If Grant had died, there wouldn’t have been an investigation. He was sick. Nobody would question it.”
“But you intervened.”
“And I got fired.”
Dominic’s gaze sharpened.
“Exactly.”
I looked at my badge.
“Someone wanted me out of the hospital.”
“Or wanted to scare you into silence.”
“Then why put the note on my badge?”
“That is what concerns me.”
“Why?”
“Because my people didn’t.”
My stomach dropped.
“You said you retrieved it.”
“One of my men did.”
“From where?”
“Your locker.”
“And the note?”
“Was already attached.”
I slowly stood.
Someone at Lakeview had known Dominic’s people would come for me.
Someone had expected my badge to leave the building.
Before I could speak, Dominic’s phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
His expression went flat.
“What?”
No answer.
“What happened?”
He held the phone toward me.
A photograph had been sent from an unknown number.
It showed Luca lying unconscious in Mercer’s medical facility.
The picture had clearly been taken after surgery.
Across the bottom, one sentence had been typed.
NEXT TIME, THE NURSE WON’T BE THERE.
My mouth went dry.
“Someone got inside.”
Dominic was already moving.
He called the scarred man.
“Rafael. Lock the building down. Nobody leaves.”
He headed for my door.
I followed.
“No.”
He turned.
“No?”
“I’m coming.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Someone photographed my patient.”
“He’s my brother.”
“And I kept him alive.”
His eyes flashed.
“This is not a hospital shift, Clare.”
“No. In a hospital, I’d at least know who was trying to kill the patient.”
That silenced him.
I grabbed my coat.
Dominic stared at me for a long second.
Then he opened the door.
“Stay beside me.”
“I don’t take orders well.”
“I noticed.”
When we reached the street, the black sedan was back.
This time it was parked directly across from my building.
Dominic stopped.
So did every one of his men.
The driver’s door opened.
A woman stepped out.
She wore blue hospital scrubs.
Lakeview Memorial identification hung from her neck.
I recognized her immediately.
Emily Shaw.
Night-shift nurse.
My closest friend at work for almost six years.
She looked at me.
Then she looked at Dominic.
May you like
And raised both hands.
“Clare,” she said, voice shaking, “you have to listen to me before they kill me.”
