Chapter 2 - Shadows in the Lemon PolishBy three in the morning, the fever had broken, leaving Dominic drenched in cold sweat and breathing with a slightly more regular rhythm.
I sat in a high-backed velvet armchair beside the bed, a lukewarm cup of black coffee—leftover from a thermos I brought in my bag—growing colder by the minute. My eyelids felt like lead. Every muscle in my body ached from the exhaustion of a twenty-hour day that had started at an employment agency and ended in the inner sanctum of a Manhattan crime syndicate.
The mansion was completely silent, save for the grandfather clock ticking heavily in the downstairs hallway and the steady, rhythmic beep of the portable cardiac monitor Leo had grudgingly dragged up from the medical wing an hour after my arrival.
A faint shadow flickered across the crack beneath the heavy double doors.
I froze, my coffee cup halfway to my mouth.
Footsteps—soft, calculated, deliberate—padded down the hallway outside. They didn't sound like Leo’s heavy, purposeful stride. These steps were lighter, almost stealthy, pausing directly outside the master suite.
My heart hammered against my ribs. In an emergency room, you expect chaos. You expect alarms, shouting, and spilled blood. But in a fortress like this, silence was much more terrifying.
The brass doorknob turned. Slowly. Infinitesimally.
I set my cup down without making a sound, sliding off the armchair and slipping my hand into my duffel bag until my fingers wrapped around the heavy metal handle of a stainless-steel medical scissors.
The door opened an inch. A sliver of yellow hallway light cut across the dark carpet.
A figure slipped inside—tall, draped in a dark trench coat, moving with the cold, fluid grace of a ghost. The intruder didn't look at the bed. Their eyes scanned the room, instantly locking onto the armchair where I had been sitting a moment before.
When the figure realized the chair was empty, a sharp intake of breath echoed in the dark.
Before the intruder could turn, I moved.
I didn't yell for Leo. I didn't wait. Years of handling erratic patients in chaotic trauma bays taught me that hesitation gets you killed. I lunged forward, grabbing a heavy silver pitcher from the bedside table and bringing it down with a dull thud against the intruder’s shoulder blade, while simultaneously hooking my foot behind their ankle.
The intruder stumbled hard, crashing against the mahogany dresser with a violent clatter of cosmetic bottles and crystal trays.
“What the hell—!” a sharp, feminine voice hissed in the dark.
The overhead bedside lamp clicked on instantly, blindingly bright.
I spun around, scissors raised, ready to strike again. But I froze.
Standing by the dresser, rubbing her bruised shoulder and glaring at me with eyes as cold as jagged ice, was a stunning woman in an immaculate designer coat, her blonde hair pinned up in an expensive twist.
And sitting up in bed, a Beretta pistol already materialized from beneath his pillows and aimed squarely at the woman’s chest, was Dominic Rossi.
“Elena,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into an arctic register that could freeze blood. “You’ve gotten sloppy in your old age. Sneaking into my bedroom at three in the morning is a very good way to get your head blown off.”
Elena straightened her coat, her lips twisting into a thin, venomous smile as she looked from the gun to me, and then back to Dominic’s bandaged shoulder.
“Put the gun down, Dom,” Elena spat, her voice dripping with acid. “I came to see if the rumors were true. I wanted to see my dear husband bleeding to death in his own bed. Instead, I find you being babysit by a charity case in cheap sneakers.”
My stomach dropped. Husband?
May you like
Nobody had mentioned a wife.
Elena turned her sharp gaze onto me, her eyes narrowing with undisguised hatred. “And who are you? The new nurse? Or just the latest disposable body he’s using to warm the sheets before the funeral?”
