Chapter 4 - The Shadow in the Hospital
By the second month, a quiet, delicate rhythm settled between Vincent and me.
I was granted permission to leave the estate three days a week under heavy security to complete my advanced clinical hours at a private, highly secured medical center in Lincoln Park—a facility funded quietly by the Rossi family.
Every morning, Vincent walked me to the waiting SUV, checking my coat, ensuring my security detail—led by Marco—was fully prepped. And every evening, no matter how late his meetings ran, he was waiting in the library to hear about my day.
We hadn't crossed the physical line yet. We slept in separate suites in the west wing, but the tension between us had grown into a thick, magnetic pull that vibrated every time we were in the same room. The sharp, terrifying gangster who ruled Chicago with an iron fist had become remarkably gentle with me—listening to my lectures on pharmacology, sitting patiently while I practiced bandaging techniques on his scarred forearms, and watching me with a deep, quiet reverence that made my heart ache.
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon in late November, everything shattered again.
I was finishing my late-afternoon shift at the Lincoln Park medical clinic, updating patient charts at the central nursing station. The third-floor hallway was quiet, lit by soft fluorescent lights, the rain beating a steady cadence against the high windows.
Marco and Leo were positioned at the elevator bank fifty feet down the hall, their eyes sweeping the floor as they always did.
"Nurse Parker?" a soft voice called out from the doorway of room 304.
I looked up. A young woman in a scrub top was leaning out of the door, holding a blood pressure cuff.
"Could you help me with a line insertion in 304?" she asked. "The patient's veins are collapsed."
"Of course," I said, grabbing my penlight and stepping around the desk.
I gave Marco a brief nod, signaling I was stepping into the room. He nodded back, maintaining his post by the elevators.
I walked into room 304. The lights inside were turned off, the window blinds drawn tight against the dreary afternoon sky.
"Where's the patient—" I began, turning around.
The door slammed shut behind me.
Before I could scream, a heavy, leather-gloved hand clamped violently over my mouth, shoving me backward against the hard medical cart. The metallic tray rattled violently, instruments crashing to the floor.
"Quiet, little girl," a harsh, venomous voice hissed in my ear.
I kicked back violently, my heel slamming into his shin. The man grunted in pain, his grip loosening just enough for me to twist my head away.
"MARCO!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
The glove slammed back over my mouth, but it was too late. Outside in the hallway, heavy, rapid footsteps instantly thundered toward the room.
"Bitch!" the man snarled.
In the dim light, I recognized his face—it was Carmelo Moretti's younger son, Julian. He pulled a heavy tactical knife from his belt, his eyes wild with desperate, bloodthirsty rage.
"If my family is going down, I'm taking Rossi's prize with me!" Julian roared, driving the blade straight toward my chest.
My nursing instincts and survival reflexes kicked in simultaneously. I didn't pull back. I grabbed the heavy stainless-steel tray from the medical cart with both hands and jammed it upward, catching the blade between the tray and the frame.
The knife scraped violently across the metal with a horrific screech.
BOOM!
The wooden door of room 304 exploded inward off its hinges.
Vincent Rossi stepped through the splintered frame.
He hadn't been waiting in the car. He had come upstairs to surprise me at the end of my shift.
When Vincent saw Julian Moretti pinning me against the cart with a knife, his face didn't just turn angry; it transformed into something apocalyptic.
Vincent didn't draw a gun. He moved with a speed that defied his broad frame. He caught Julian by the back of his neck, hauling him off me like a ragdoll, throwing him across the room. Julian smashed into the heart monitor equipment, crashing onto the floor in a heap of wires and plastic.
Before Julian could recover, Vincent was on top of him.
He grabbed Julian by the collar, slamming his head violently against the linoleum floor once, twice—a terrifying, brutal display of raw, unadulterated violence.
"Vincent! STOP!" I screamed, rushing forward, catching his heavy, raised arm before he could strike again. "Vincent, he's unconscious! You'll kill him!"
Vincent froze.
His heavy chest was heaving, his dark hair falling wildly over his forehead, his knuckles bloody. His iron-grey eyes were wild, consumed by a bloodlust so deep it didn't look human.
I grabbed his bloody right hand with both of mine, pulling it against my chest, right over my beating heart.
"Look at me, Vincent," I pleaded, my voice trembling but steady. "Look at me. I'm okay. You saved me. Look at me."
Slowly, agonizingly, the wild, lethal fire behind his grey eyes began to recede. His focus shifted from the unconscious man on the floor to my face. He looked at my neck, my hands, my clothes, checking every inch of me for blood.
"Did he touch you?" Vincent rasped, his voice rough, shaking with an emotion I had never heard from him before—pure, absolute terror of losing me. "Did he cut you, Emma?"
"No," I whispered, tears filling my eyes as I reached up, cupping his warm, bloody cheek with my palm. "No, Vincent. I'm untouched. I'm safe."
Vincent let out a long, ragged exhale that sounded like a sigh from a dying man. He stood up, ignoring Julian's limp body on the floor, and pulled me violently into his arms.
He crushed me against his chest, holding me so tight I could barely breathe, his face buried deep in the crook of my neck. I felt his whole massive frame trembling against mine.
"If anything happened to you..." Vincent choked out against my skin, his voice breaking completely. "...if I lost you, Emma, I would have burned this entire city to ash."
May you like
I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders, pressing my face into his neck, smelling the cedar, rain, and expensive leather that had become my sanctuary.
"You won't lose me," I whispered back, realizing in that blood-stained hospital room that I didn't want to be anywhere else in the world. "I'm yours, Vincent. I'm yours."
