"Four nurses fled Chicago’s most feared mafia boss before midnight—then I examined a hidden scar on his back and uncovered his cousin’s lethal plot."

Without general anesthesia, every movement of the scalpel required absolute precision. Gabriel gritted his teeth against a rolled towel, sweat pouring off his forehead, refusing to lose consciousness even as I carefully snipped the black silk sutures.

"Hold him steady, Luca," I commanded as I gently retracted the inflamed skin.

Beneath the second incision, tucked deep within the paravertebral muscle tissue right above the L4 vertebra, sat a tiny, metallic cylinder—no larger than a pushpin—surrounded by a pocket of purulent fluid.

"There," I whispered, using my dressing forceps to clamp around the cylinder.

With a soft click, I pulled the object out and dropped it into a stainless-steel basin. It clinked sharply against the metal.

"What the hell is that?" Luca breathed, staring into the bowl.

"A surgical micro-drain stuffed with a slow-release inflammatory toxin," I said, immediately flushing the open wound with sterile saline. "It was positioned to create severe swelling around his spinal nerves. It caused the paralysis and the blood infection, but it was designed to look like delayed neurological trauma from the shooting."

Gabriel’s breathing gradually deepened as the localized pressure on his nerves began to ease. The sheer willpower of the man was staggering. Most patients would have passed out from the shock, but Gabriel remained alert, his gray eyes tracking my every movement as I cleaned, packed, and neatly dressed the wound.

I administered a broad-spectrum IV antibiotic from my personal medical kit—the one I always carried, untainted by the penthouse pharmacy.

Within twenty minutes, Gabriel’s pulse dropped from 140 to 105. His oxygen saturation climbed to 93 percent.

"He's stabilizing," I reported, wiping my hands and pulling off my gloves.

Gabriel lay back against the pillows, his face still pale, but the deadly gray shadow had lifted from his features. He looked at me, his gaze heavy, unreadable, and intensely focused.

"What is your name?" Gabriel asked, his voice low and gravelly.

"Claire," I replied, standing at the foot of his bed. "Claire Bennett."

"Claire," he repeated, testing the sound of it on his tongue. "You just saved my life."

"I did my job," I corrected him flatly. "And right now, your job is to figure out how to survive the next two hours, because when Dr. Vale realizes his little gift didn't kill you tonight, he's going to check the monitors."

Before Luca could respond, the private line on the bedside table rang.

The screen displayed a single name: VINCENT MORETTI.

The room went completely still.

Gabriel looked at the phone, then slowly lifted his head, nodding toward Luca. "Answer it. Put it on speaker. Pretend the fifth nurse just fled."

Luca swallowed hard, picked up the receiver, and hit the speaker button.

"Luca," a smooth, arrogant voice echoed through the room. "Is the nurse still there? Has Gabriel’s fever broken?"

Luca looked at Gabriel, who gave a sharp, imperceptible gesture.

"No, Vincent," Luca said, pitching his voice to sound stressed and exhausted. "The fifth nurse packed her bags ten minutes ago. Gabriel's condition is worsening. His fever is spiking, and he's completely uncommunicative."

A quiet, satisfied pause stretched across the line.

"Shame," Vincent said, his tone dripping with fake sorrow. "I'll bring Dr. Vale up right now to evaluate him personally. Keep the guards outside the door."

The line went dead.