The nurse stitched up the mafia boss's wound and secretly helped him in a way no one else could – a few hours later, he woke up and whispered, "Find her... I can't wait any longer..."

Nora took a sharp step back, putting space between herself and the mob boss.

“Get out of my apartment, Mr. Mercer,” she demanded, her voice tight with anger. “You got what you wanted. You’re alive. Now leave me and my father out of your war.”

Silas did not leave. Instead, he pulled a thick, heavy manila envelope from his inner coat pocket and set it squarely on her small dining table.

“What is that?” Nora asked, staring at the envelope as if it contained a bomb.

“Consider it a retainer,” Silas said smoothly.

“I don't take bribes.”

“It’s not a bribe, Nora,” Silas corrected, his voice dropping into a serious, heavy tone. “It’s the full payment for your father’s care facility in Boston for the next ten years. Placed in a private trust under your name.”

Nora froze.

Her father’s medical bills had been crushing her for eighteen months. Captain Caldwell suffered from severe, progressive combat-related neurological trauma that required round-the-clock specialized care—care that cost nearly six thousand dollars a month. Nora worked eighty hours a week at St. Anselm’s, taking every night shift and holiday overtime just to keep him in that facility.

She looked from the envelope up to Silas’s icy blue eyes.

“Why?” she whispered, her resistance wavering for a fraction of a second. “Why would you give me this?”

“Because you saved my life,” Silas said simply. “And because as of three o'clock this afternoon, you are no longer safe in Providence.”

A cold knot of dread formed in Nora’s stomach. “What are you talking about?”

Viktor stepped forward from the doorway, pulling a tablet from his pocket and displaying a high-resolution photograph taken from a street camera near the hospital.

The photo showed Nora walking out of the ER exit at six o'clock that morning. Standing across the street, watching her through tinted car windows, was a man with a dark serpent tattoo running up his neck.

“Salvatore Moretti,” Viktor explained grimly. “The rival family that shot Mr. Mercer last night. They had scouts watching St. Anselm’s. They saw Mr. Mercer enter the building near death, and they saw you walk out four hours later after keeping him alive.”

Nora’s breath went shallow. “They... they know who I am?”

“Moretti thinks if he kills the person who saved me, it sends a message to every doctor and nurse in the state,” Silas said, his expression turning dark and deadly. “He thinks you are my weakness.”

Nora backed up until her lower back bumped against the edge of her kitchen counter. “I don't even know you! I just patched you up on an ER table!”

“They don't care, Nora,” Silas said softly, stepping closer again until he stood right in front of her. “In my world, association is a death sentence.”

He reached out, his large, warm hand gently taking her chin, forcing her to look up into his fierce blue eyes.

“You have two choices, Nora,” Silas murmured, his thumb brushing lightly across her cheekbone. “You can stay in this apartment and wait for Moretti’s hitters to kick your door down tonight. Or you can come with me to my estate, where forty armed men will ensure that not a single hair on your head is touched.”

Nora stared at him, feeling trapped between two terrifying monsters: the mafia war outside her window, and the dangerous, magnetic man holding her face in his hands.