Chapter 1 - The Man Everyone Was Too Afraid to Save
Rain slammed against the windows of St. Bartholomew's Medical Center as Dominic Vale was rushed through the emergency entrance, his white dress shirt soaked crimson with blood.
The room froze.
No one needed an introduction. Dominic ruled restaurants, warehouses, private clubs, and half of Boston's underworld. Even powerful men lowered their voices when they spoke his name.
One doctor stepped back.
"I'm not touching him."
Another quietly walked away.
I stared at the man bleeding out on the gurney, then looked at the frightened faces around me.
"He dies if we wait," I snapped. "Trauma Two. Move!"
One of Dominic's armed bodyguards blocked my path.
"You'd better know what you're doing."
I looked him dead in the eye.
"Unless you can start an IV, stay out of my way."
As I reached for Dominic, his hand suddenly clamped around my wrist with surprising strength. His storm-gray eyes slowly opened, locking onto mine while alarms screamed around us.
"Mr. Vale... can you hear me?"
His cracked lips barely moved.
"Are you... real?"
Before I could answer, his grip loosened and his eyes rolled shut again.
For hours, surgeons fought to pull three bullets from his chest while I waited outside, exhausted, my scrubs stained with blood that wasn't mine.
Near three in the morning, his lieutenant, Marcus Reed, approached me.
"You saved his life."
"I helped the surgeons keep him alive."
Marcus studied me carefully.
"You were the last person he spoke to."
"He asked if I was real."
Something unreadable crossed his face before the lead surgeon stepped into the hallway.
"He made it."
Relief swept through Dominic's men.
Then Marcus blocked my path.
"Mr. Vale wants to see you when he wakes."
"That won't be necessary."
His expression hardened.
"That wasn't a request."
I met his icy stare without flinching.
"Then tell Mr. Vale I said no."
Judging by Marcus's disbelief, nobody had ever refused Dominic Vale before.
Three days later, I learned exactly how dangerous that answer had been.
Without explanation, hospital administration reassigned me to Dominic's private floor. Black SUVs surrounded the building. Armed guards stood outside every elevator.
When I entered his suite, three men stood beside his bed.
"Leave," Dominic ordered.
They obeyed instantly.
That terrified me more than their weapons ever could.
"You should still be resting," I said.
"I've rested enough."
"You were shot three times."
"And yet..." His eyes settled on mine. "...I'm still here."
Silence stretched between us.
"What is your name?" he asked.
"You already know."
"I want to hear you say it."
I sighed.
"Grace Walker."
He repeated it almost like a promise.
"Grace."
A chill crept down my spine.
Then his expression turned dangerously cold.
"Why did you save me?"
"You were my patient."
"No."
His voice became razor sharp.
Slowly, Dominic reached beneath his pillow and pulled out something so familiar that every drop of blood drained from my face.
It was impossible.
No one in Boston was ever supposed to know that object existed.
He held it between two fingers, never breaking eye contact.
"Now," he whispered, "tell me who you really are."
The object was a small brass compass.
The metal had been scratched and darkened by age, but I knew every mark on it.
I knew the tiny dent near the hinge.
I knew the faded initials engraved beneath the lid.
G.W.
My mother's initials.
For seven years, I had believed the compass had been buried with her.
My mouth went dry.
"Where did you get that?"
Dominic watched me carefully.
So carefully that I realized he had been waiting for that exact reaction.
"That's what I want to know."
I stepped closer without meaning to.
"Give it to me."
He didn't.
"You recognize it."
I looked toward the door.
The guards were there.
Marcus stood outside the glass partition.
My pulse hammered.
"Where did you find it?"
Dominic's gaze hardened.
"Inside the coat of the man who shot me."
My knees nearly buckled.
My mother's compass had been in the possession of the man who had tried to kill Dominic Vale.
That wasn't possible.
My mother, Eleanor Walker, had died seven years earlier in what police called a random robbery gone wrong.
She had been found behind the small bookstore where she worked, a single gunshot wound to the chest.
The case was never solved.
But there was something the police never found.
Her compass.
She had carried it every day.
She had once told me that my father gave it to her before he disappeared.
I had asked her what the initials meant.
She had smiled sadly.
"Some things are safer forgotten."
Then she died.
"How did the shooter get it?" I whispered.
"That's exactly what I asked myself."
Dominic slowly placed the compass on the blanket.
"Three bullets were fired into my chest. The fourth never left the gun."
I frowned.
"What does that mean?"
"It means the shooting wasn't supposed to kill me."
My eyes lifted.
"What?"
"Someone wanted me wounded. Someone wanted me transported here."
A cold realization crawled through me.
"Why?"
He studied me.
"Because whoever arranged this knew exactly what would happen after I arrived."
I thought about the doctors stepping away.
The hesitation.
The fear.
The unusual reassignment.
My throat tightened.
"You think the hospital was involved."
"I know the hospital was involved."
The words landed like a blade.
Dominic leaned back despite the pain.
"Your mother worked here."
I froze.
He continued.
"Seven years ago. St. Bartholomew's. Cardiac records department."
I stared at him.
"How do you know that?"
"Because I spent seven years trying to find out who killed her."
I couldn't breathe.
"You knew my mother?"
"No."
His eyes darkened.
"But she knew my father."
The room suddenly felt too small.
Dominic Vale's father, Anthony Vale, had been a legendary Boston crime figure before disappearing twenty years earlier.
Everyone said Anthony was dead.
Everyone except Dominic.
"What did my mother have to do with your father?"
Dominic reached for the compass.
"My father was supposed to give this to your mother."
I stared at him.
"He was supposed to give it to her?"
"Yes."
"Then why was it with your shooter?"
Dominic's expression shifted.
"That's the question that could get both of us killed."
Before I could respond, someone knocked.
Marcus entered.
His face was pale.
"Boss."
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
"What?"
Marcus looked at me.
"There's been a problem."
"What kind?"
"The hospital's backup server was accessed twenty minutes ago."
Dominic slowly sat up.
"Who accessed it?"
Marcus swallowed.
"Someone using Grace Walker's credentials."
My blood ran cold.
"I didn't access anything."
Dominic looked at me.
For the first time, suspicion appeared in his eyes.
Then every light in the private floor went out.
A gunshot echoed somewhere below.
Dominic reached for me.
May you like
"Get down."
And as the hospital plunged into darkness, I realized the person trying to expose my mother's secret had already found a way inside.
Related Stories
