Chapter 2 - The Safe House With No Address
Dominic did not ask Clare whether she wanted to leave the apartment.
He told her she could not stay.
That was their first argument after Tommy’s surgery.
It lasted eleven minutes.
It ended when somebody fired two shots through Clare’s living-room window.
The glass exploded inward.
Dominic knocked her to the floor before she understood what happened.
One bullet buried itself in the kitchen cabinet.
The other struck the wall where Clare had been standing.
After that, she stopped arguing about whether the apartment was safe.
She started arguing about where Dominic intended to take her.
“No hotels you own.”
“Fine.”
“No mansion full of armed men.”
“Then you’re going to hate the next suggestion.”
“Dominic.”
He looked at the broken window.
“Someone just tried to shoot you.”
“I noticed.”
“Good. Then we’re making progress.”
The safe house was a three-story brick building in Bridgeport hidden behind a closed printing business.
No sign.
No visible security.
Nothing about it suggested that the basement contained medical equipment worth more than Clare’s apartment building.
Tommy slept in a private room downstairs.
Dr. Grant remained with him.
Nico Ferraro occupied another bed.
That surprised Clare.
“You moved him out of St. Jude’s?”
Dominic answered, “An hour before they fired you.”
“Against medical advice?”
“Nico’s advice mattered more.”
Nico looked stronger than he had that morning.
Still pale.
Still receiving oxygen.
But alive.
He smiled when Clare entered.
“You’re the nurse.”
“Apparently that’s what everyone calls me now.”
“You saved my life.”
Clare checked the monitor by instinct.
“The hospital team did.”
Nico snorted.
“No. You did.”
“Dr. Weber?”
The smile disappeared.
“I heard him talking.”
“With who?”
“Couldn’t see. I was barely conscious.”
“What did he say?”
Nico’s eyes shifted toward Dominic.
Dominic nodded.
Nico continued.
“He said, ‘Not yet. Let him deteriorate.’”
Clare felt cold.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Could he have been talking about something else?”
“I’ve replayed it a hundred times.”
Clare sat.
“Why would anyone at St. Jude’s want you dead?”
“Because I saw the men who attacked our South Side warehouse.”
“What warehouse?”
Dominic leaned against the wall.
“One of our freight facilities.”
“Legitimate?”
His silence answered.
Clare rolled her eyes.
“Forget I asked.”
Nico continued.
“I went there because inventory numbers were wrong. Half a million dollars of equipment had disappeared.”
“What kind of equipment?”
“Medical equipment.”
That got Clare’s attention.
“Stolen?”
“Supposedly damaged shipments.”
“But?”
“Somebody was rerouting them.”
Clare looked at Dominic.
“To where?”
“We don’t know.”
Nico shook his head.
“When I got to the warehouse, two trucks were loading. Men I didn’t recognize. Then a propane line blew.”
“Accident?”
“No.”
“Who pulled you out?”
“One of our drivers.”
“And then you went to St. Jude’s.”
“Closest Level I trauma center.”
Clare crossed her arms.
“So somebody attempted to kill you at the warehouse, failed, then somehow knew which hospital you would reach and had a doctor waiting.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“And now Tommy gets shot.”
Dominic’s face changed.
“Yes.”
Clare looked toward the basement room.
“Was Tommy involved with the warehouse?”
“No.”
“Then why target him?”
“We don’t know that it was connected.”
“Who is Adrian?”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
Nico looked away.
Clare noticed.
“You both know.”
“Adrian Ross,” Dominic said finally. “My operations chief.”
“Tommy said his name in the car.”
“He and Tommy were together before the shooting.”
“And where is Adrian now?”
“Missing.”
Clare exhaled.
“Convenient.”
Dominic’s phone rang.
He stepped out.
Nico watched him leave.
“He scares most people.”
“Dominic?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve had surgeons throw instruments at me.”
Nico laughed.
“You might be worse for him than a rival family.”
“I’m not anything for him.”
“Sure.”
Clare pointed at his monitor.
“Your heart rate went up. Stop talking.”
Nico smiled wider.
The safe house had four bedrooms upstairs.
Dominic showed Clare one.
Fresh sheets.
Private bathroom.
New toothbrush still in packaging.
A folded T-shirt and sweatpants sat on the bed.
She stared at them.
“What?”
“These are women’s clothes.”
“Yes.”
“You keep emergency women’s clothes in your safe house?”
“My cousin Bianca uses this room sometimes.”
“That answer is slightly less disturbing.”
Dominic leaned against the doorway.
“You should sleep.”
“I should call the police.”
“You can.”
That surprised her.
“You won’t stop me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because if I stop you, I become exactly what you think I am.”
Clare looked at him.
“And what do I think you are?”
“Dangerous.”
“You are.”
“Yes.”
No denial.
That made him harder to categorize.
“Why haven’t you called them?” he asked.
Clare thought of the text.
The photograph.
Someone creating her termination papers before Nico arrived.
“I don’t know who’s involved.”
“Good answer.”
“It wasn’t a compliment to you.”
“I know.”
He started to leave.
“Dominic.”
He turned.
“Why five cars?”
“What?”
“To find one nurse.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“Tommy was bleeding out. I was impatient.”
“That is the most ridiculous use of resources I’ve ever seen.”
“I own the cars.”
“That does not improve it.”
This time he actually smiled.
Then he left.
Clare did not sleep.
At three in the morning she went downstairs.
Tommy was awake.
Grant had reduced his medication enough for brief conversation.
Dominic sat beside the bed.
His jacket was gone.
Sleeves rolled up.
For the first time, he looked less like a crime boss and more like a brother who had almost lost someone.
Tommy opened one eye.
“You’re her.”
Clare stepped closer.
“The terrifying nurse? Yes.”
“The one Dom kidnapped?”
Dominic sighed.
“Everyone needs to stop calling it that.”
“It was definitely kidnapping,” Clare said.
Tommy’s mouth twitched.
Then pain crossed his face.
Clare checked him.
Nothing alarming.
“Don’t try to be funny.”
“That’s my whole personality.”
Dominic looked relieved simply hearing him speak.
Clare noticed.
Tommy noticed her noticing.
“Dom acts like he doesn’t care about anybody.”
“Tommy.”
“He cries at dog movies.”
“Tommy.”
“Like full tears.”
Dominic stood.
“I’m turning the medication back up myself.”
Clare almost smiled.
Then Tommy’s expression became serious.
“Adrian.”
Dominic sat again.
“What about him?”
“He called me.”
“When?”
“Before I got shot.”
“Why?”
“Said Nico was awake.”
Nico was listening from the next room.
“Then what?”
“He wanted me to meet him at the garage.”
“Which garage?”
“Taylor Street.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“That property is closed.”
“I know.”
“Why did you go?”
Tommy looked embarrassed.
“He said you were in trouble.”
Dominic cursed softly.
“Then?”
“I got there. Adrian wasn’t there.”
“Who was?”
“Two guys.”
“Names?”
“Never saw them.”
“Faces?”
“One had a St. Jude’s jacket.”
Clare’s blood went cold.
“What?”
Tommy looked at her.
“Dark-blue hospital jacket. Security or transport. I don’t know.”
“Did you see an ID badge?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“They asked where Nico was.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“And?”
“I told them to go to hell.”
“Then they shot you.”
Tommy nodded.
“One guy said something before they left.”
“What?”
Tommy frowned, trying to remember.
“‘Tell Vale the hospital isn’t his anymore.’”
Silence.
Clare looked at Dominic.
“Was it ever yours?”
“No.”
“Then what does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
A phone vibrated upstairs.
Clare’s.
She hurried up.
Jasmine again.
This time there was a voicemail.
Clare played it.
“Clare, it’s me. Don’t call back. They searched my locker tonight. Davis asked whether you ever kept personal notes. Dr. Weber is telling everyone you had some kind of breakdown. And there’s something else.”
Jasmine’s voice dropped.
“I checked the system audit. Nico’s emergency registration triggered an automatic notification to an outside company called Harland Patient Transport. That doesn’t make sense. Trauma admissions aren’t supposed to notify outside transport vendors.”
A noise sounded behind her.
Jasmine inhaled sharply.
Then the message ended.
Clare called.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
Dominic had followed her upstairs.
“What company?”
“Harland Patient Transport.”
His expression hardened.
“You know it.”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“Victor Sloane owns it.”
“Who?”
Dominic did not answer immediately.
That was enough.
“Rival?”
“Something like that.”
Clare stared at him.
“Something like that is not useful.”
“Victor Sloane used to work for my father.”
“And now?”
“Now he owns ambulance companies, security firms, towing companies, and enough politicians to make people forget the rest.”
“Does he hate you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wouldn’t give him control of Vale Maritime after my father died.”
“So he built his own organization.”
“He took half of mine with him.”
Clare closed her eyes.
“This is insane.”
“You’re free to leave.”
She pointed toward the boarded-up safe-house windows.
“With people shooting at my apartment?”
Dominic’s face became serious.
“That was not supposed to happen.”
“What?”
His words hung between them.
“What do you mean not supposed to happen?”
“I had someone watching your building.”
“Without telling me?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Since we found your name.”
Clare stared at him.
“You tracked me.”
“Tommy was dying.”
“That is not a blank check to invade my life.”
“No.”
“Then stop behaving like it is.”
Dominic looked as though nobody had spoken to him like that in years.
Maybe ever.
“I sent a man to watch your apartment because I thought whoever targeted Nico might target the person who saved him.”
“Apparently you were right.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make the method right.”
“No.”
The immediate agreement took the fight out of her.
She hated that.
Dominic added, “The man watching your building disappeared ten minutes before the shooter arrived.”
Clare’s anger cooled.
“Disappeared?”
“His phone is off.”
“Could he have betrayed you?”
“Possibly.”
“Another one?”
Dominic’s mouth hardened.
“My organization is leaking.”
“And St. Jude’s is part of it.”
“Yes.”
Clare looked at Jasmine’s voicemail screen.
“I need to get her out.”
“I’ll send people.”
“No.”
“Clare.”
“She doesn’t know your people. Men in black suits showing up will terrify her.”
“She may already be in danger.”
“Then we do it carefully.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
Dominic’s eyebrows rose.
“I thought you weren’t joining this.”
“I’m not.”
“That sounds exactly like joining.”
“I’m getting my friend out.”
“Fine.”
“And I want police.”
“We don’t know who Sloane owns.”
“Then federal.”
Dominic stared.
“You understand that inviting federal investigators into my life is not normally one of my hobbies.”
“I’m beginning to care very little about your hobbies.”
A long silence.
Then Dominic nodded.
“I know one detective I trust.”
“One?”
“One is more than most men in my position have.”
The detective was Naomi Reyes.
Chicago Organized Crime.
She arrived before sunrise.
No entourage.
No visible weapon.
She was forty-two, sharp-eyed, and entirely unimpressed by Dominic Vale.
“I always knew one day you’d call me,” she said.
Dominic replied, “You sound disappointed.”
“I was hoping it would be to confess.”
“Give it time.”
Reyes looked at Clare.
“You the nurse?”
Clare sighed.
“Apparently.”
They explained everything.
Reyes listened.
Then she said something neither Clare nor Dominic expected.
“Harland Patient Transport is already on our radar.”
“For what?” Clare asked.
“Patient information trafficking.”
“What does that mean?”
“Hospitals illegally selling or sharing admission data.”
“To whom?”
“Debt collectors. Lawyers. Sometimes private security.”
Dominic’s expression darkened.
“Sometimes killers?”
Reyes looked at him.
“We’ve suspected that.”
Clare felt sick.
“St. Jude’s?”
“No proof.”
“I may have proof.”
She told Reyes about the termination file created before Nico arrived.
Jasmine’s audit trail.
The external notification.
Reyes stood.
“We need your friend.”
Clare nodded.
“I’m coming.”
Dominic said, “No.”
She looked at him.
He stopped himself.
Then corrected.
“I think that’s a bad idea.”
“Much better.”
Reyes almost smiled.
They reached Jasmine’s apartment at seven.
The door was unlocked.
Clare’s stomach dropped.
“Jasmine?”
Nothing.
Reyes entered first.
The apartment was empty.
No blood.
No struggle.
But Jasmine’s laptop was gone.
Her phone sat shattered inside the sink.
On the kitchen table lay Clare’s missing notebook.
The one stolen from her apartment.
Dominic put on gloves and opened it.
A single new sentence had been written across the final page.
NURSES SHOULD KNOW WHEN TO STOP SAVING PEOPLE.
Clare stared.
Then Reyes noticed something taped beneath the notebook.
A St. Jude’s employee badge.
Jasmine Lee.
Across the photograph, someone had drawn a black X.
Clare stopped feeling afraid.
Something hotter replaced it.
She looked at Dominic.
“Find Jasmine.”
His gray eyes held hers.
“I will.”
“No.”
Clare picked up her notebook.
“We will.”
And for the first time since the five black cars surrounded her in the rain, Dominic Vale looked at Clare Bennett not as a nurse he needed.
May you like
Not as someone he had to protect.
But as someone standing beside him by choice.
