Every Nurse Quit His Night Shift, but the Chubby One Found the Scar Nobody Was Supposed to See

By 3:00 AM, the penthouse was quiet save for the rhythmic hum of the oxygen concentrator Nora had assembled near the bed.

Gabriel’s fever had dropped to ninety-nine point six. His skin had lost its greyish cast, returning to its natural golden tone, though he remained pale from exhaustion. The drainage tube in his lower back was slowly clearing, drawing out the residual bacterial fluid that had crippled his nervous system.

Nora sat on a dark leather armchair beside the bed, a steaming mug of black coffee in her hands. She had stripped off her dirty apron and replaced her gloves, her eyes scanning a thick blue ledger she had found tucked inside Gabriel’s bedside safe—which Luca had opened for her after she threatened to leave if he didn't provide her with his master medical chart.

"You shouldn't be reading that," a deep, rough voice spoke from the bed.

Nora looked over the top of the leather notebook.

Gabriel was watching her. He was still weak, his chest rising and falling slowly beneath the black silk sheet, but his eyes were sharp again. Intensely sharp. They were dark, amber-flecked, and settled on Nora with a heavy, unblinking intensity.

"I'm an emergency room nurse with twelve years of experience, Mr. Moretti," Nora said, taking a quiet sip of coffee. "I'm also a woman who likes to know if the man I just saved is going to get me shot before my shift ends at seven."

Gabriel’s mouth twitched—the ghost of a dark, amused smile. "You have a terrible bedside manner."

"My bedside manner cost eighty dollars an hour," Nora replied calmly, turning a page in the ledger. "Your agency paid forty. You're getting the discount version."

Gabriel let out a soft, low breath that sounded almost like a laugh, though he winced as his ribs expanded. "Luca told me what you pulled out of my spine."

"An epidural fragment loaded with a localized culture of Clostridium perfringens," Nora said, her tone entirely professional. "It causes gas gangrene and rapid nerve degeneration. In another twenty-four hours, the tissue around your lumbar spine would have gone necrotic. You would have suffered a systemic stroke, and the coroner would have ruled it an acute surgical complication from the gunshot wound."

Gabriel’s dark eyes narrowed. "A clean kill."

"Very clean," Nora agreed. She closed the ledger with a soft thud. "And according to these delivery records, the specific medical compound used to preserve that bacterial culture was purchased three weeks ago using a corporate credit card registered to Moretti Import & Export."

Gabriel went still. The air around the bed instantly became heavy, cold, and razor-sharp.

"Vincent," Gabriel said, the name tasting like ash on his tongue.

"Your cousin," Nora said. "The ledger shows he authorized four separate payments to Dr. Adrian Vale's private clinic in Zurich over the last six months. Totaling two point eight million dollars."

"He was selling the docks," Gabriel whispered, his large, scarred hand slowly curling into a fist against the sheet. "I refused to let him use the South Side shipping yards for human trafficking. He waited until I was shot, then brought in Vale to make sure I never walked out of this room."

"And the previous four nurses?" Nora asked, leaning forward.

"Vincent assigned them," Gabriel said, his eyes locking onto hers. "They weren't nurses. They were paid watchers. Their job was to make sure I stayed in bed, kept taking Vale's 'painkillers', and didn't let anyone else inspect the wound."

"Which is why they ran when they saw me actually doing my job," Nora murmured. She looked down at her broad, ink-stained hands, then at her reflection in the dark glass of the balcony door. "They thought I was just a fat, slow agency temp who wouldn't notice a three-millimeter puncture site."

Gabriel looked at her then—really looked at her.

He didn't look at her heavy thighs, her wide hips, or the scrubs that clung snugly to her soft waist. He looked at the steady hands that had just extracted a lethal weapon from his body. He looked at the quiet, absolute courage in her brown eyes that hadn't flinched when he held her wrist with enough force to bruise iron.

"They were idiots," Gabriel said softly, his deep voice carrying a strange, heavy weight. "All of them."

Nora lifted an eyebrow. "Is that a compliment, Mr. Moretti?"

"It's a fact," Gabriel said. He reached out slowly, his large, calloused hand resting palm-up on the edge of the mattress. "Come here, Nora."

Nora hesitated for a fraction of a second before standing up and stepping to the bedside. She didn't take his hand, but she stood close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from her body.

"Vincent thinks I’m dying," Gabriel murmured, staring up at her. "He called a meeting of the family council for tomorrow night at the Grand Plaza. He’s going to announce my 'incapacitation' and take control of the Moretti holdings."

"You can't walk yet," Nora reminded him clinically. "The nerve block from the toxin will take at least seventy-two hours to wear off completely. Your legs are useless right now."

Gabriel’s dark lips curved into a cold, lethal smile.

"My legs don't need to work for me to pull a trigger, Nora," he said quietly. "I just need someone who can get me into that room without Vincent knowing I'm coming."

Nora looked down at him, her heart giving a strange, sudden thud against her ribs.

"You're asking a temp nurse to help you commit high-level corporate homicide?" she asked dryly.

"I'm asking the woman who saved my life to help me finish the job," Gabriel corrected her, his dark eyes burning into hers. "I'll double whatever Luca promised you. Ten thousand dollars for thirty-six hours of your time."

Nora looked at the luxurious room, at the blood-stained needle sitting on the tray, and then at the powerful, dangerous man lying before her—a man whom everyone in Chicago feared, but who was currently looking at her as if she were the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.

"Twenty thousand," Nora said flatly. "And you let me drive."