Page 5
“Cristo… That was more painful than the others.”
I bend closer, my voice low and meant for his ears alone. “You refused the anesthesia. It’s only right you should feel some of the pain you opened yourself to.”
“What kind of a man would rather be loopy or unconscious while a beauty like you tends to him?” His intense brown gaze pins me in place, and the air between us crackles.
I grit my teeth as I tie off the final suture and reach for the non-adherent gauze. His scar-covered body is warm and alive. The musky scent of his cologne invades my senses.
For good measure, I spread a thin coat of petroleum jelly atop the bandage so it won’t bond to the fresh stitches and rip open the incision during a dressing change.
“You mend wounds well, Dottoressa.”
The compliment breaks the spell, and I snap back to the moment, ripping off my gloves with unnecessary force.
“Yes, I do my job well, thank you. And I’m done.”
He watches me like a predator tracking prey. “Have dinner with me.” His voice drops. “Let me thank you for saving my life.”
A nervous laugh spills from my lips. “If I went to dinner with every patient I treated, I wouldn’t have another free Saturday night until I’m well in my eighties.”
He grins, showing off perfectly set incisors. “I’m not like other patients.”
“What makes you believe that?”
“I bet none of them have managed to look this good while bleeding out on your table. I know you sense the same connection I do.”
I roll my eyes and gag out my next words as dramatically as possible to convey my disgust. “The only thing I feel is contempt for having to save the life of another criminal.” I pivot away, my hands shaking as I scribble the procedural entries. “I’ll have another doctor take over. You’ll be settled in a room soon enough.”
The farther away I get from him, the better.
Marco lifts his head. “I won’t be staying.”
“Just what I thought.” I cap the pen with a click. “Men in your line of work usually skip bed rest to avoid police questioning.”
He hums. “You know my line of work?”
I start ticking off the evidence on my fingers. “Custom leather Armani suit. A Patek Philippe watch. That’s eighty thousand dollars on your wrist alone. Just the fact that you look like a businessman except for the knife wound tells me a lot about you.”
His eyes gleam. “So you think you know me?”
“I don’t. And I’d rather not.” I shove the paperwork in his face. “If you insist on leaving, please sign this AMA form so I can discharge you. We’d appreciate having the bed for someone with real need.”
He takes the forms and scribbles his signature several times. “Eager to see me go?”
“Desperately.”
A shuffle in the doorway pulls my eyes to the curtain partition. Two men loom just outside Marco’s bay, close enough to see inside but with no intention of entering. One is tall with a blond buzz cut. The other sports a bald head and a full, thick beard. Their hard eyes and powerful builds suggest a profession that involves inflicting damage. Matching heavy coats further emphasize their similarities, though the garments appear out of place in a hospital corridor.
Their eyes slip right past me to fixate on Marco, and they begin a low, rapid, and guttural exchange in…Russian, I think, though I can’t be sure.
I can’t follow most of the words, but two Italian names cut through their Slavic cadence like foreign objects in a wound.
Santori and Benedetti.
I place the first name from Jenna’s breathless identification twenty minutes ago. The second means nothing to me—not yet—but the way it’s spoken conveys importance.
Marco sits up on the gurney, and the man I stitched up vanishes. The charm, the flirtation, the lazy amusement, all of it dissolves, replaced by a cold, lethal stillness that transforms him into someone I haven’t met yet.
He props himself on his elbows, the action sharp and immediate. The sutures strain, and his bandage darkens at the center where the petroleum-smothered gauze wicks away the fresh blood. He doesn’t flinch, but his eyes grow frigid and deadly. The men in the doorway spot him reaching for the forceps, and they leave fast.
