Six nurses had quit in five weeks, and the last one fled the mansion sobbing so hard she left her coat behind. Everyone expected me to run too, but I needed the money badly enough to face Chicago’s most feared crime boss, and before my first week ended, I was about to break the one rule every nurse had been warned never to break.

Until midnight.

I woke up to a faint metallic scrape echoing from the grand hallway outside.

At the estate, night brought a heavy, suffocating silence, broken only by the distant wind sighing through the evergreens. Without my phone, time crawled, and every shadow played tricks on my mind. Quietly slipping out of the narrow cot in the adjoining nook, I crept toward the heavy oak doors of Liam’s bedroom and peered through the small brass keyhole.

Two men in dark suits stood near the top of the sweeping mahogany staircase. Even in the dim light, I recognized Leo, but the other man was a stranger—taller, lean, with a jagged scar running down his cheek and an expensive silk suit that looked entirely out of place in a rustic fortress.

“He’s weak,” the stranger was saying, his voice a low, venomous hiss. “The board isn't going to wait another month for Mercer to recover. If he can't sign off on the docks by Monday, Viktor takes over the territory.”

“Liam is recovering,” Leo replied firmly, his posture rigid. “The new nurse actually has him eating. Give him another week.”

“A week is too long,” the stranger spat, stepping closer to Liam’s door. “If the infection doesn't finish him off, maybe a pillow will. It would save us all a lot of trouble.”

My blood ran cold. They weren’t just guarding him; some of them were plotting his execution from within.

Before I could process the threat, a heavy hand clamped down over my mouth, and an arm banded around my waist, yanking me backward into the shadows of the linen closet.

I panicked, thrashing wildly, my elbow connecting hard with ribs.

“Quiet,” a rough voice whispered directly into my ear.

The heat of the voice, the familiar cadence—it was Liam.

I froze, my heart hammering against my ribs like a caged bird. I turned my head as much as the grip allowed, staring up through the gloom. Liam stood behind me, leaning heavily against the wall for support, his right leg immobilized by the external fixator, but his left arm wrapped securely around me to silence my breathing.

Through the crack of the closet door, we watched as Leo glared down the stranger.

“Touch him, and I put a bullet between your eyes myself, Marcus,” Leo said, his voice dropping into a deadly, quiet register. “Mercer built this family. You try anything while I’m watching, and you won’t make it out of these woods alive.”

Marcus sneered, spat on the hardwood floor, and turned on his heel, walking down the stairs into the darkness.

Once the front door echoed shut below, Liam let out a long, shuddering breath and slumped against me, his weight suddenly bearing down. I caught him instinctively, wrapping my arm around his waist to bear his heavy frame.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” I whispered angrily, my voice shaking as I guided him back toward his room. “Are you insane? You could shatter those bones permanently!”

“They were talking about killing me,” Liam muttered, sinking heavily onto the edge of his mattress as I helped him settle back beneath the sheets. His face was slick with cold sweat from the exertion. “And you were standing right outside the door like an idiot, listening.”

“I was protecting my investment,” I fired back, though my hands were trembling as I checked his bandage to ensure the sudden movement hadn't torn his stitches. “Ten thousand dollars, remember? You don't die until Friday, Mercer. Those are the rules.”