Chapter 3 - Ten Years of Silence|
Naomi felt the breath leave her lungs as if she’d been struck in the chest with a lead pipe.
Ten years.
Ten years of living in a world of fluorescent lights, double shifts, unpaid medical bills from her late husband’s cancer treatment, and quiet, invisible survival. She had forgotten what it felt like to be looked at by someone who actually saw her.
"Raymond," she whispered softly, her hand resting over his trembling knuckles on her sleeve. "Lie still. Your spleen is lacerated."
Raymond let out a low, breathless sound that might have been a laugh if he hadn't been bleeding out. "You... you still use that tone."
"And you still get yourself beaten up in dark alleys," she replied, her voice shaking despite her best efforts. "Only now people use heavy ordnance on you."
"Boss," Marcus interrupted, his tone turning urgent as his radio buzzed against his belt. "Security cameras caught a black sedan pulling into the ambulance bay. It’s the Genovese crew. They know you survived the dock ambush."
Raymond’s grip on Naomi’s sleeve didn't loosen. His gray eyes turned dark and lethal as he looked at Marcus, the vulnerable boy from the high school yard vanishing behind the terrifying mask of a mafia Don.
"Get the car to the rear service bay," Raymond commanded softly. "And bring her."
Naomi blinked. "What? I'm not going anywhere with you! I have three more patients in Bay Four—"
"Nurse Hail," Raymond rasped out, using her full name off her plastic ID badge. "If you stay in this building, the men who shot me will ask you what you saw. And they don't leave witnesses to write charts."
May you like
Naomi looked from Raymond’s gray eyes to Marcus, who had already drawn a silenced tactical pistol from inside his tailored jacket, stepping between the curtain and the corridor door.
"He's telling you the truth, Nurse," Marcus said, his tone entirely devoid of drama. "The men outside aren't here to file insurance claims. You saved Raymond Lockwood's life. In our world, that makes you a target."
