Chapter 1 - My fingers tightened around the blind cord.
“Don’t,” Liam said again.
This time there was no command in his voice.
No coldness.
There was something far stranger coming from a man who had spent four days making it clear that fear was something other people felt around him.
He sounded afraid.
I turned toward him.
In the weak glow of the bedside lamp, Liam Mercer looked different.
His shoulders had gone rigid against the pillows.
One hand gripped the sheet near his hip, whitening his knuckles.
“You hate the dark,” I said.
His eyes flicked to mine.
“I hate people who don’t listen.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“It was the only one you’re getting.”
For four days I had watched this man endure procedures that would have reduced most patients to begging.
I had changed abdominal dressings while he stared at the ceiling and refused pain medicine.
I had flushed his IV when his veins burned from antibiotics.
I had cleaned around metal pins drilled through swollen tissue while his jaw locked hard enough to show every muscle along his face.
He had never looked frightened.
Not once.
Yet now, because my hand rested on a blind cord, Liam looked as if something on the other side of those curtains could hurt him more than anything I had already treated.
I released the cord.
His shoulders lowered by half an inch.
It was such a small movement that another person might have missed it.
Nurses learn to notice small movements.
They are often where the truth lives.
“I’m not opening them,” I said.
He said nothing.
“But you’re going to tell me why.”
His expression hardened immediately.
“There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The part where you become like the others.”
I folded my arms.
“I didn’t meet the others.”
“They all started the same way.
Medication.
Dressings.
Vital signs.”
He looked toward the dark windows.
“Then questions.”
“Maybe because you’re obviously hiding something.”
A humorless smile appeared.
“You were hired specifically not to ask questions.”
“I was hired to keep you alive.”
“For ten thousand dollars.”
The words landed harder than they should have.
Maybe because they were true.
I glanced at the medication tray so he wouldn’t see my face.
“Correct.”
“Then take the money and stop pretending you care.”
Something sharp rose in me.
Four nights of almost no sleep.
Four days of listening for changes in his breathing, checking drainage, watching his temperature climb and fall.
Four days of wondering whether Tommy had eaten breakfast, whether his gums had started bleeding again, whether the experimental trial still had a place for him.
I picked up Liam’s thermometer.
“Open.”
He stared at me.
“Excuse me?”
“Your mouth.
Unless mafia bosses measure temperature through intimidation.”
For half a second, I thought he might throw the thermometer.
Instead, to my surprise, he opened his mouth.
I took his temperature.
One hundred point seven.
Better than yesterday.
Not good.
But better.
I wrote it down.
“You know,” I said, “for someone who claims I’m pretending to care, you’re doing a very inconvenient job of surviving.”
His eyes followed my pen.
“Maybe I’m trying to get you paid.”
“Very thoughtful.”
“I have moments.”
That almost made me smile.
Almost.
I gave him his antibiotics, adjusted the pillows behind his injured leg, and checked his abdominal dressing.
The redness had stopped spreading.
That mattered.
For the first time since I had entered the room, I believed we were winning against the infection.
When I finished, I carried the medical waste toward the door.
“Anna.”
I stopped.
It was the first time he had used my name.
I turned.
He was looking at the blinds.
“Leave them closed.”
I studied him for a moment.
“All right.”
His gaze moved back to me.
There was suspicion in it.
As if kindness always arrived carrying a hidden bill.
“I said all right,” I repeated.
Then I left.
Leo was standing in the hallway.
Of course he was.
He had the unnerving habit of appearing without footsteps.
“You touched the cord.”
“So you were listening.”
“I’m responsible for the house.”
“That’s a creative way to say eavesdropping.”
His expression stayed flat, but his eyes briefly warmed.
“You didn’t open them.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he asked me not to.”
Leo stared at me like this was somehow the strangest answer I could have given.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He started walking.
I followed.
“Actually, not nothing.
Six nurses quit.
One forgot her coat.
Everyone acts like the blinds contain nuclear codes.
And Liam looked like he’d rather have me pull the pins out of his leg than let sunlight in.”
Leo stopped.
The hallway was long and silent, lined with paintings that looked expensive enough to pay Tommy’s hospital bills ten times over.
“You should be careful about what you notice in this house.”
“There’s that mysterious-mafia warning again.”
“It isn’t a threat.”
“Good.”
“It’s advice.”
“Worse.”
He sighed.
“Anna.”
“Yes?”
“You are doing well with him.”
Something about the statement sounded almost reluctant.
“I’ll put that on my résumé.”
“I mean it.”
He glanced toward Liam’s room.
“He hasn’t allowed anyone to stay this long since the accident.”
“What accident?”
Leo looked at me.
I raised both hands.
“Right.
No questions.”
He walked away.
I watched him disappear around the corner.
Then I noticed something near the baseboard.
A photograph.
It must have slipped from the folder Leo was carrying.
I bent and picked it up.
For a few seconds, I didn’t understand what I was seeing.
Liam stood in bright sunlight.
He looked younger by several years and entirely unlike the man upstairs.
No bruises.
No hollow exhaustion around his eyes.
No bitterness carved into his mouth.
He was smiling.
Actually smiling.
Beside him stood a woman with dark hair blowing across her face.
She held the hand of a little girl wearing yellow rain boots.
They were standing near a lake.
Liam’s arm was around the woman’s shoulders.
The little girl looked up at him with complete trust.
On the back, someone had written three words in blue ink.
Summer at Geneva.
I heard footsteps.
I turned.
Leo stood twenty feet away.
His eyes went to the photograph.
Everything about him changed.
Not dramatically.
Leo didn’t seem like a man who did anything dramatically.
But his face closed.
I held the picture out.
“You dropped this.”
He crossed the hallway quickly and took it.
“Thank you.”
“Who are they?”
His jaw tightened.
“I thought you understood the rules.”
“I found a picture, Leo.
I didn’t hack into the Pentagon.”
“Forget you saw it.”
He slipped it into his folder.
“The little girl—”
“Anna.”
The warning in his voice stopped me.
Not because it frightened me.
Because underneath it, I heard sadness.
Deep, exhausted sadness.
I nodded.
“Fine.”
He walked away.
I remained in the hallway for another minute.
Then I returned to my room.
My assigned bedroom was bigger than my entire apartment back in Chicago.
Thick carpet.
Private bathroom.
A bed with pillows I was almost afraid to touch because they looked expensive enough to require insurance.
I sat on the mattress.
My thoughts should have been on Liam.
Instead, they went to Tommy.
They always went to Tommy.
We were six years apart.
When our mother died, I was twenty-two and Tommy was sixteen.
Our father had already been gone for years.
So it became me and Tommy against whatever came next.
Rent increases.
College applications.
Broken alternators.
Flu seasons.
Bad landlords.
Then leukemia.
At first, the doctors had been cautiously optimistic.
Young patients responded well, they said.
Tommy joked about losing his hair.
He named his IV pole Gerald.
He sent me photographs of hospital food with dramatic reviews.
Zero stars.
Potatoes legally qualify as construction material.
Then treatment stopped working.
The jokes became less frequent.
The conversations with doctors became longer.
And one afternoon a specialist had carefully mentioned a private experimental program with promising preliminary results.
Insurance would not cover it.
I had asked the price.
Afterward, I sat in a bathroom stall for twenty minutes because I couldn’t let Tommy see me cry.
Then the mysterious call came.
Ten thousand dollars a week.
No phone.
No questions.
I had never asked how they found me.
At the time, desperation had made that seem less important than the number.
Now, sitting inside Liam Mercer’s mansion, I wondered why I had been selected at all.
I wasn’t famous.
I wasn’t a private nurse for billionaires.
I worked double shifts in an ordinary hospital and bought groceries with coupons.
Why me?
A soft knock came at my door.
Leo stood outside holding something.
My phone.
I shot to my feet.
“You confiscated that when I arrived.”
“I did.”
“Did something happen?”
My stomach dropped.
“Tommy?”
“He’s fine.”
I took the phone anyway.
Three missed calls from the hospital.
My hands began shaking.
“You said he’s fine.”
“As far as I know.”
I dialed immediately.
A nurse named Carla answered.
“Anna?
Thank God.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing bad.
Tommy’s stable.”
I shut my eyes.
“Carla, three missed calls is not how you tell someone that.”
“I know.
I’m sorry.
We were trying to reach you because there’s been a development with the trial.”
My knees weakened.
“What development?”
“The financial coordinator called this morning.”
I gripped the edge of the dresser.
“And?”
“There’s been an anonymous payment toward Tommy’s enrollment.”
Silence filled my room.
I looked at Leo.
He looked away.
“How much?”
“Enough to secure his place.”
I couldn’t speak.
Carla continued.
“They still need your authorization on several documents, but the deposit has been accepted.”
My voice came out barely above a whisper.
“Who paid it?”
“They wouldn’t tell us.”
After the call ended, I remained standing with the phone pressed against my palm.
Leo waited.
“You.”
“No.”
“Liam?”
He said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“Was it Liam?”
“I’m not authorized to discuss his finances.”
“That means yes.”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“Why?”
Leo’s expression softened.
“Ask him.”
“You told me not to ask questions.”
“I’m beginning to reconsider the usefulness of that rule.”
I stared at him.
“You knew about Tommy.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Your background was checked before you came here.”
A chill moved through me.
“You investigated me?”
“We investigate everyone entering this property.”
“You looked into my brother’s medical records?”
“No.
Your financial emergency wasn’t difficult to establish.”
The anger that came was immediate.
“So that’s why I was chosen?
Because you knew I was desperate enough to tolerate anything?”
Leo’s face tightened.
“I didn’t choose you.”
“Who did?”
He looked toward Liam’s room.
My stomach turned.
Liam had chosen me.
Before I ever walked through the door.
I pushed past Leo.
“Anna.”
I kept going.
“Anna, think before you go in there.”
“I’ve been thinking for four days.”
I opened Liam’s door without knocking.
He was awake.
Of course he was.
“Did you pay for Tommy’s treatment?”
No greeting.
No vitals.
No medication.
His eyes lifted from the book in his lap.
“Leo gave you your phone.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“You’re fond of saying that.”
“Did you?”
He closed the book.
“Yes.”
One word.
Simple.
Calm.
As though he had admitted to ordering lunch.
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because your brother needs treatment.”
“You don’t know my brother.”
“No.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
“No, you don’t.”
I was angrier than I expected to be.
That confused me.
Someone had just handed Tommy a chance at life.
I should have been grateful.
I was grateful.
But underneath the gratitude was something uncomfortable.
Fear.
Because gifts that large usually came with expectations.
“What do you want?”
I asked.
His face hardened.
“Nothing.”
“People don’t pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for nothing.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I can.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“For you?”
“For anyone.”
He looked away.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Liam said quietly, “My sister was twenty-four when she got sick.”
The anger left the room.
I lowered my voice.
“Cancer?”
“Lymphoma.”
I pulled the chair closer but didn’t sit.
“What happened?”
“She needed a treatment overseas.”
His fingers moved over the edge of the book.
“I had the money.”
Something in his voice made me hesitate.
“But?”
May you like
“I was busy.”
I waited.
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