Chapter 2 - The Needle and the Blade
Dominic Rossi did not move, but the atmosphere in the room shifted so violently it felt as though the oxygen had been sucked out of the space.
His dark eyes, shadowed by severe fever and days of agonizing pain, locked onto mine. A faint, deadly smirk flickered at the corner of his cracked lips—the look of a predator evaluating an insect that had foolishly landed on his claw.
Slowly, his left hand slipped beneath the blood-soaked pillow.
When his fingers emerged, the dim gray light from the window caught the gleam of cold, polished steel. A ten-inch tactical blade rested comfortably in his grip.
“You have three seconds to turn around and walk out that door,” Dominic rasped, his voice raw from dehydration and fever. “Or I’ll make sure the seventh nurse leaves in a body bag.”
My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird, but I forced my feet to stay planted on the hardwood floor. I had spent four years in an urban trauma ER dealing with drunken gang members, violent junkies, and desperate men who thought loud voices made them immortal.
Dominic Rossi was far more dangerous than any of them, but right now, he was also a man whose body was eating itself alive.
“Go ahead,” I said, my voice remarkably steady despite the ice running through my veins. “Throw the knife. Shoot me. Do whatever you need to satisfy your ego. But my blood will ruin those expensive Egyptian cotton sheets even more than yours already has, and you’ll still be dead of septic shock before sunrise.”
Dominic’s jaw clenched. His dark eyebrows pulled together, a flash of genuine surprise breaking through his lethal mask. He wasn't used to people talking back to him. He was used to terror, obedience, or quiet execution.
“You don’t know who I am,” he growled.
“I know you’re a man with a hundred-and-three-degree fever,” I replied, unzipping my canvas duffel bag and pulling out two pairs of sterile nitrile gloves, a bottle of medical-grade iodine, a roll of gauze, and a surgical scalpel kit I had taken from my old hospital locker before they escorted me out. “I know your right shoulder is burning through muscle tissue, and I know that if I don’t clean that wound in the next twenty minutes, your organs are going to start shutting down one by one.”
I snapped the gloves onto my hands. The sharp, familiar sound echoed in the quiet room.
“So you can kill me,” I continued, stepping up to the side of his king-sized bed, “or you can let me do my job. Either way, my rent is due on Monday, and I’m not leaving this house without my paycheck.”
Dominic stared at me for three long, agonizing seconds. The blade in his hand didn't drop, but his grip loosened just a fraction. He was testing my pulse with his eyes, looking for the telltale tremor of fear in my fingers or the quickened rise and fall of my chest.
When he found none, he let out a harsh, dry breath that turned into a deep, ragged cough. Pain exploded across his face, forcing his eyes shut as he gripped the edge of the mattress.
I didn't wait for his permission.
I leaned over the bed, reached down, and took the knife directly from his hand. He tried to pull back, but the fever had stolen his reaction time. I set the blade on the nightstand out of his reach, right beside a half-empty glass of stale water.
“Don’t touch me,” he spat, opening his eyes, dark with promise.
“Hold still,” I countered, grabbing a pair of surgical shears from my tray.
I cut through the thick layer of makeshift bandages wrapped around his chest and shoulder. As the yellowed, blood-caked gauze peeled away from his flesh, a foul, metallic odor filled the room.
I gasped softly.
The wound wasn't just a gunshot bleed. It was a messy, jagged entry wound near his collarbone where a high-caliber bullet had passed clean through his trapezius muscle. But what caught my attention wasn't the hole—it was the stitching.
Someone had sewed the wound shut using crude, black nylon thread. They hadn't drained the hematoma underneath. They hadn't removed the dead, necrotic tissue, and they had sealed a deep bacterial infection inside the pocket of his muscle.
“Who stitched this?” I demanded, leaning closer to examine the inflamed, purple edges of his skin.
Dominic’s eyes fluttered, his breathing growing shallow. “My family’s physician. Dr. Vance.”
“Dr. Vance is either completely incompetent, or he tried to murder you,” I said flatly.
Dominic’s head snapped toward me, his dark gaze sharpening instantly despite his delirium. “What did you say?”
“Look at it,” I said, pointing to the angry red red streaks spreading down his chest toward his heart. “Any first-year medical student knows you don't close an infected puncture wound without a drainage tube. He trapped the necrotic tissue inside your body. The infection is leaking directly into your bloodstream.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened so hard I heard his teeth grind. “Vance has worked for the Rossi family for twenty years.”
“Then for twenty years, you’ve been lucky,” I said, reaching for my bottle of iodine and a fresh scalpel. “Because right now, his work is killing you. I have to reopen these stitches, cut away the dead flesh, and wash out the pocket. It’s going to hurt. A lot.”
Dominic let out a low, bitter laugh that sounded like gravel grinding together. “Do it, nurse. I’ve survived worse than a little thread being pulled.”
“I don’t have local anesthesia,” I warned him, holding his gaze. “The previous nurses left all the controlled narcotics locked in the cabinet downstairs, and I don't have the key.”
“I don't need narcotics,” he growled. “Just cut.”
I took a deep breath, centered my focus, and pressed the tip of the scalpel into the black thread at his shoulder.
The moment the steel sliced through the first knot, Dominic’s entire body went rigid as iron. His left hand shot up like a lightning strike, wrapping around my right wrist with a grip so fierce it felt as if my bones were about to shatter.
Pain flared through my hand, but I didn't drop the scalpel. I looked down into his face. Sweat was pouring down his forehead, his veins bulging against his neck, his eyes wide and wild with unadulterated agony.
“If you let go of my wrist,” I said through gritted teeth, “I can finish this twice as fast.”
Dominic stared up at me, his chest heaving, his dark eyes locked onto mine as if searching for a single grain of weakness. Slowly, agonizingly, his fingers uncoiled from my wrist, leaving deep red marks on my skin.
He grabbed the wooden headboard above him, his knuckles turning chalk-white.
“Finish it,” he gritted out.
I didn't waste another second. I cut the remaining stitches, pulled the thick nylon thread from his skin, and opened the wound. A surge of dark, infected fluid burst forth. Dominic let out a choked groan, his head snapping back against the pillows, but he didn't scream. He didn't cry out. He endured the torturous pain with a terrifying, stoic silence that unsettled me far more than any violent outburst would have.
For forty-five minutes, I worked with methodical, surgical precision. I excised the dead tissue, flushed the pocket with liters of sterile saline solution from my bag, and packed the open wound with antibiotic-soaked gauze, leaving a clean drain in place to ensure the infection could finally escape.
By the time I pressed a thick, sterile dressing over his shoulder and secured it with medical tape, the room was plunged into total darkness as the storm outside worsened.
Dominic lay completely motionless, his breathing deep, heavy, and ragged. His skin was drenched in cold sweat, his energy entirely drained by the agonizing procedure.
I stood over the bed, my arms trembling slightly from exhaustion, peeling off my bloody gloves and tossing them into the trash bin.
I looked down at the man who ruled the city’s underground empire. Without his lethal aura and his sharp words, he looked human. Vulnerable, even. The heavy dark stubble along his jawline framed a face carved from sharp, masculine angles—high cheekbones, a straight nose, and a firm, unyielding mouth that looked as though it had never smiled in its life.
Suddenly, his dark eyes opened halfway, glittering in the dim light of the bedside lamp I had just turned on.
“You’re still here,” he rasped softly.
“I told you,” I said, wiping my forehead with the back of my forearm. “My rent is due on Monday.”
Dominic stared at me for a long moment, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. A shadow of an unreadable emotion crossed his dark eyes.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Nora,” I said. “Nora Hayes.”
May you like
Dominic closed his eyes again, his breathing slowing as the extreme fatigue finally pulled him under.
“If I wake up tomorrow morning, Nora Hayes...” he muttered, his voice trailing off into sleep, “...I might just let you live.”
