"Four nurses had already fled the Chicago penthouse before midnight, and the fifth was packing her bags when security warned me that the most feared mafia boss in the city might kill me the moment he woke up. But when Gabriel Moretti grabbed my wrist with bone-crushing force, I noticed something every doctor before me had missed—a hidden second incision on his back that revealed someone inside his own family wanted him dead."

He wore a charcoal Brioni suit that probably cost more than my apartment building, his blond hair perfectly styled, his features sharp and aristocratic. He looked nothing like the rough-around-the-edges mobsters I had imagined; he looked like a Wall Street investment banker or a Silicon Valley CEO.

Vincent Moretti.

He stopped a few feet from the bed, holding a silver briefcase in his left hand. His eyes scanned the room, lingering on the empty whiskey glass, the IV pole, and finally, on me.

“And who might you be?” Vincent asked, his voice smooth, cultured, and dripping with condescension. “Another agency nurse? Let me guess... your predecessor lasted about four hours before she broke down crying and took the service elevator?”

I kept my hands steady, pressing the diaphragm of the stethoscope against Gabriel’s chest as if I were entirely absorbed in monitoring his heartbeat.

“I’m the nurse who is currently keeping your cousin alive,” I replied evenly, not looking up. “Though judging by the state of his chart, you seem remarkably unconcerned about his recovery.”

Vincent let out a soft, amused chuckle, walking closer to the bed. He stopped on the opposite side, looking down at Gabriel’s pale, sweat-soaked face with an expression that combined clinical detachment and pure, unadulterated contempt.

“Gabriel was always too stubborn to die easily,” Vincent murmured, setting his silver briefcase down on the edge of the dresser. “Stubbornness is a fatal flaw in our line of work, Nurse... what did the agency call you? Clara, right?”

“Clara,” I confirmed, straightening up and facing him directly.

Vincent smiled, though his eyes remained as cold as Arctic ice. “Clara. You have a very dangerous habit of asking questions that don’t concern you. I spoke with Dr. Adrian Vale an hour ago. He mentioned that the new nurse was asking unusual questions about the surgical margins of the initial wound.”

“Dr. Vale must be very observant for a man who missed a secondary micro-incision,” I retorted, my voice dropping any pretense of subservience.

Vincent’s smile vanished. The temperature in the room dropped sharply.

“You’re remarkably brave for someone standing fifty-eight stories above the ground with no witnesses,” Vincent said softly, his hand sliding slowly toward the side pocket of his tailored jacket. “People who look too closely at family matters in this city tend to develop sudden, fatal medical complications. Ask any doctor at St. Jude’s.”

“Is that what happened to the surgeon who assisted Dr. Vale?” I asked, taking a subtle step to my left, placing the heavy steel IV pole between us. “Did he develop a sudden complication before he could talk about what was really in that briefcase?”

Vincent’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. He snapped his jacket open, his hand closing around a silenced Walther PPK.

“End of the line, nurse,” Vincent whispered.

Before he could raise the barrel, the bathroom door behind him exploded outward with the force of a battering ram.

Luca Ferraro crossed the distance between the bathroom and the dresser in two monstrous strides. His fist connected with the side of Vincent’s jaw with a sickening crack, sending the younger Moretti crashing into the mahogany desk, scattering medical charts and glass ampoules across the floor.

The silver briefcase flew open, spilling thick stacks of hundred-dollar bills and a small, sterile metal case containing three pre-loaded syringes filled with a clear, viscous fluid.

Luca stood over Vincent, his chest heaving, his pistol pressed directly against the center of Vincent’s forehead.

“You son of a bitch,” Luca growled, spittle flying from his lips. “You poisoned him.”

Vincent spat a mouthful of blood onto the Persian rug, wiping his lip with the back of his hand. Despite having a gun barrel pointed at his brain, he didn’t flinch. Instead, a twisted, bloody grin spread across his face.

“You’re too late, Luca,” Vincent laughed weakly, his voice echoing off the high ceilings. “The third dose is already in his bloodstream. Even if you shoot me, Gabriel is dead by morning. And when the board finds out the great Gabriel Moretti was taken down by a slow-acting neurotoxin, they’ll hand the syndicate to me on a silver platter.”

Luca cocked the hammer of his gun. “I’ll bury you right here in the foundation.”

“Wait,” a gravelly, subterranean voice echoed from the bed.

We all froze.

Gabriel Moretti’s eyes were open.

The feverish haze was gone, replaced by a cold, murderous fury so intense that even Vincent flinched. Gabriel slowly pushed himself up on one elbow, his massive shoulders straining against the sheets, his gaze locked entirely on his cousin.

“Gabriel,” Vincent choked out, panic finally breaking through his arrogant facade. “Gabriel, listen to me, Luca is losing his mind—.”

“Shut your mouth, Vincent,” Gabriel whispered, his voice like grinding stones. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, the raw power of the man defying the poison still lingering in his veins. He stood up, swaying slightly, towering over Vincent as he crumpled against the desk.

Gabriel looked down at his cousin, then shifted his gaze toward the open metal case on the floor containing the syringes.

“Clara,” Gabriel said without turning around.

“I see them,” I said, immediately stepping forward and picking up one of the pre-loaded syringes, examining the label on the glass barrel. My eyes widened. “My God... this isn't a neurotoxin. It’s a synthetic metabolic blocker combined with a massive dose of insulin.”

Luca stared at me. “Insulin? For a non-diabetic?”

“In a massive dose, injected directly into the lumbar plexus, it causes catastrophic, rapid hypoglycemia and systemic cellular collapse,” I explained, my hands moving with surgical precision as I grabbed a second empty syringe from the tray. “It mimics a massive stroke or natural organ failure. Dr. Vale didn't just operate once; he was setting up a slow execution.”

Gabriel looked down at Vincent, whose face had turned the color of ash.

“Eleven years,” Gabriel said softly, stepping closer until his shadow completely enveloped his cousin. “Eleven years I kept you out of federal prison, gave you an empire, treated you like a brother. And you tried to put me in the ground like a dog.”

“Gabriel—please—family—,” Vincent stammered, raising his hands defensively.

Gabriel didn’t punch him. He didn’t shoot him.

Instead, he looked at Luca. “Take him down to the basement vault. Lock him in the secure holding cell. And make sure Dr. Adrian Vale is picked up before sunrise. I want him brought here. Alive.”

Luca holstered his pistol, grabbed Vincent by the collar of his ruined Brioni suit, and hauled him off the floor like a ragdoll. As Luca dragged him toward the private elevator, Vincent’s muffled screams echoed down the marble hallway until the heavy doors slid shut.

Silence descended upon the penthouse once more, broken only by the rhythmic beep of the cardiac monitor.

Gabriel stood swaying by the edge of the desk, his massive frame trembling from the sheer effort of holding himself upright. He slowly turned his head to look at me, the harsh fluorescent light catching the jagged scars across his chest and shoulders.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

Then, Gabriel let out a rough, humorless chuckle.

“Four nurses ran away before midnight,” Gabriel said, his voice deep and gravelly. “And the fifth one just saved my life, beat up my cousin’s conspiracy, and diagnosed a targeted biochemical assassination in under six hours.”

“I’m billing your agency for hazard pay, Mr. Moretti,” I said calmly, tossing the empty syringe into the biohazard bin and snapping off my bloody gloves. “And if you ever pull me by the wrist like that again, I’m going to let the neurotoxin finish its job.”