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“I don’t know how to be the man you deserve.”
My whisper fills the space between us. “Let me help you figure it out.”
We stay entangled, neither of us sleeping. The night settles around us, heavy but bearable because we’re bearing it together. In the quiet hours, watching the sky lighten through the window, I grapple with a question I’ve actively avoided.
If this is what being with Marco costs—all of the waiting, the fear, and the blood—can I truly survive it? More terrifyingly, are my feelings enough to pull him back from the brink, or will they be one more burden for him?
Eventually, gold spills across the room, and my phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I open a text from an unknown number and find a snapshot of Ashford County Hospital, captured across the street from the front doors. The morning light in the photo matches the light in our room. Whoever took this was standing there just minutes ago.
Below the photo, I read a line that ices my blood.
Missing you at work, Dottoressa. Hopefully we’ll see you soon.
I don’t tell Marco. He’s already bogged down with so much. Instead, I close the message without replying, set my phone down, and curl closer to him.
Still, the image burns behind my eyelids every time I try to rest, filling my head with one question…Does being with Marco mean losing the life I used to have?
My job was everything to me, and I haven’t been able to go to work for weeks. People that genuinely care about me like Jenna, Noah, Dr. Job, and my patients might now be in danger simply because they associate with me.
All because I decided to waltz into Marco’s wild world.
Chapter 20
Marco
Three days after the raid, I still can’t talk about what I witnessed.
Not to Enzo, who pins me with those knowing eyes during strategy meetings. Not to Nico, who’s learned not to ask. Not to Lucia, who assesses me with the same wary attention she gives unstable patients. She’s careful and measured, like she’s waiting to see which way I’ll break. She doesn’t push, and her restraint—that confidence that I’ll come to her when I’m ready—worsens my guilt.
I throw myself into the one task I can handle right now.
Interrogation.
The captured traffickers sit in a converted warehouse on Benedetti property. The old structure smells of rust and old sweat. The walls are soundproofed, the rooms windowless, and the concrete radiates heat. The space is designed for conversations no one else needs to hear, and the unforgiving conditions help us extract truths.
I spend hours here, rotating between the six men and applying the kind of steady, methodical pressure Enzo taught me. I ask the same question from different angles, weaponize silence, and offer the occasional reminder that cooperation is the only currency that buys them a future.
My body forces me out only to eat food I barely taste, to shower under water hot enough to scald, or to sleep in ninety-minute intervals on the cot Nico set up in the adjacent office. None of it can erase the smell of blood and fear from my skin.
Today’s subject is a mid-level coordinator named Dmitri Volkov, distant cousin to the Bratva leadership. We caught him during the raid with shipment manifests in his jacket. Currently, he’s chained to a metal chair in the center of a concrete room where every breath echoes.
I circle him, my footsteps slapping against the floor. I measure the set of his shoulders, the twitch in his jaw, and the way his eyes track me despite his attempts at bravado.
“You know why you’re here.”
Dmitri spits on the floor, the glob of saliva splatting near my feet. “You think I’m afraid of you?” His English is precise and formal with no stumbling, but his vowels carry the drawl of a Russian man educated in Western institutions. “I’ve been tortured by professionals in Moscow who would eat you for breakfast. You’re just a washed-up fighter playing gangster in your dead father’s clothes.”
My fist connects with Dmitri’s jaw. The force snaps his head back, and blood blooms from his split lip, trickling down his chin.
“I’m not here to torture you.” I keep my voice calm and conversational. I need every word to hit the spot. “I’m here to give you a choice. Tell me about Bruno’s next operation…the location, timing, and targets. Do that, and you’ll walk out of here with all your parts attached and a ride to wherever you want to go.”
I curl my fists. “Refuse, and we do this the tough way. That way will leave you so scarred that even your mother won’t recognize you.”
Dmitri laughs, the rasp thick with blood. “You think I know anything? I only handle logistics and paperwork. I push numbers across desks. I don’t know—”
I hit him harder this time, and his chair scrapes against the concrete.
