Chapter 4 - The Predator’s AwakeningMorning sunlight cut through the heavy velvet curtains, casting sharp golden stripes across the dark hardwood floor of the master suite.
Nora woke with a start from the armchair, her neck stiff from sleeping at an awkward angle. She rubbed her eyes, stretched her arms, and immediately checked the monitors across the room.
Dominic’s bed was empty.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She bolted upright, scanning the vast bedroom. The bathroom door was ajar, and the sound of running water echoed from within.
Before she could reach the door, it swung open.
Dominic stood in the doorway, wearing a pair of dark lounge pants, his chest bare. The thick white bandages over his right shoulder were dry, but the sudden exertion of getting out of bed and moving around had obviously cost him dearly. His face was pale, glistening with a cold sweat, and he was leaning heavily against the doorframe to keep from collapsing.
"What on earth do you think you're doing?" Nora hissed, marching across the room and grabbing his uninjured arm to support his weight. "You're supposed to be on bed rest for at least forty-eight hours!"
Dominic tried to pull away, grunting in pain as a jolt went through his shoulder, but he was too weak to shake her off. "I don't lie in bed like an invalid, nurse. I have business to run."
"Your business right now is not bursting your stitches and bleeding all over my clean dressings!" Nora snapped, steering him firmly back toward the massive bed. "Get back under those covers before I sedate you myself."
Dominic glared down at her, his dark eyes flashing with dangerous defiance, but the sheer dizziness of the movement forced him to yield. He allowed her to guide him back down onto the mattress, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"You are remarkably bossy for someone half my size," Dominic muttered, closing his eyes as he sank back into the pillows.
"And you are remarkably stubborn for someone who nearly died of a preventable infection because you thought you could tough out a gunshot wound," Nora retorted, grabbing a damp washcloth from the bedside table and gently wiping the cold sweat from his forehead.
Dominic froze. His eyes snapped open, tracking her movements as she tended to him with clinical, unbothered efficiency. No one had touched him with gentleness in years—not since his mother died when he was a boy. Everyone in his world either feared him, wanted to kill him, or wanted to use him. This small, exhausted ER nurse was treating him like an ordinary, stubborn patient who needed a keeper.
"Why didn't you leave?" Dominic asked suddenly, his voice quiet, dropping the hostile edge that had defined every word he spoke to her since she arrived.
Nora paused, the cloth hovering near his jawline. She looked down at him, seeing the deep, exhausted shadows beneath his dark eyes and the heavy burden of a life built on violence and paranoia.
"Because despite what your fancy clothes and iron gates suggest, Mr. Rossi, underneath all that armor, you're just a patient who's bleeding out," Nora said softly. "And I took an oath. Besides... your head of security slid a very convincing check under the door last night."
A slow, crooked smile touched the corner of Dominic’s mouth—a rare, genuine expression that transformed his rugged face completely.
"Honest about the money," Dominic murmured. "I can respect that."
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"Just rest," Nora instructed, pulling the blankets up over his chest. "If you behave yourself today, I might let you sit in the armchair by the window tomorrow."
"A riveting reward," he dryly observed, though he closed his eyes and let the warmth of the blankets pull him back into a restorative sleep.
