"Was… Past tense. I've been retired for five years."
"Retired." I chuckle at the very thought of it. "People don't retire from being killers. Are you an idiot?"
"I stopped killing." Dane leans forward and narrows his eyes on me, and I get the feeling I've pushed a button he doesn't likehaving pushed. "After Queens, I walked away. I burned every contact, disappeared into these mountains, and stayed invisible. Until now."
I push the plate away, no longer able to stomach food. "So you’re the one who shot that man in Queens?" I can't believe what I'm hearing. I've been searching for this asshole for five years and now he sits right in front of me? Maybe this is some cruel twist of fate and whoever drugged me is trying to help me.
Dane's silent for a long moment, studying me with those cold gray-blue eyes. "You really want to know?"
"I've spent five years trying to find out. So yes, I really want to know."
"His name was Domingo Maddox, high up in the Maddox crime family. He'd been an ally to the Ferraro family for years, helped them move product through his territory, provided protection when deals went south. But internal politics shifted. The Ferraros decided his usefulness had expired, and his existence became a liability." He pauses, and I see something flit across his face, but he masks it well. "So they sent me to fix the problem."
Domingo Maddox. The name doesn't mean anything to me—I never learned it or got access to his full file. But hearing it now alongside the clinical way Dane describes his execution makes my skin crawl.
"You killed a mobster?" This sounds about as made up as it can get. "You worked for the Mafia."
"We don't call each other mobsters anymore. That's vocabulary from the thirties and forties, but yes. I worked for the Ferraro family, specifically. I was their top asset for fifteen years. Started when I was sixteen, fresh out of juvie with nowhere else to go.They trained me, gave me purpose, turned me into a weapon." He says it matter-of-factly, as though it's absolutely normal. "I was good at it. Too good. And when they needed someone eliminated, I was the one they called."
This talk is making my stomach turn. "How many people have you killed?"
"More than I can count." There's no hesitation in the way he speaks, and I believe him. "You follow orders and you survive."
"Until Domingo Maddox."
His expression darkens. "Until Domingo Maddox." Dane's face contorts and his head drops, like he’s feeling shame. "He was a friend, or as close to a friend as someone in my position could have. He'd saved my life, and I owed him. But the family didn't care about personal debts. They cared about power. So I put two bullets in his chest and one in his head, knowing I'd crossed a line I couldn't come back from."
I curl my knees to my chest and hug them as I watch this man I just met turn to a husk of himself right in front of me. His face pales, his shoulders sag. This really fucked him up.
"Why are you telling me this?" I ask quietly. "Why not just kill me and eliminate the risk?"
"Because you're not a risk. You're a victim." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, then runs both hands through his hair. "Someone used you to get to me. And they wanted you involved, which means they have plans for you too."
Fear claws its way up my throat. "What kind of plans?"
"That depends on who sent you. If it's the Ferraro family, they're tying up loose ends. If it's someone else, someone connected toDomingo Maddox, then this is about revenge. Either way, you're caught in the middle."
I stand abruptly, needing to move, to pace, to do anything other than sit still while he lays out how thoroughly screwed I am. "This is insane. I'm a nurse. I save lives, I don't take them. I have nothing to do with crime families or assassins or whatever twisted world you live in." My arms flail while I'm pacing and I can't stop them. Fear is taking over again and making me feel panicked.
"You have everything to do with it." His voice cuts through my panic. "You were in that ER when Domingo Maddox died. You worked on him, tried to save him. Someone remembers that and blames you."
Spinning around on my heel, I turn to face him. "But I didn't do anything wrong. Someone said I made mistakes, but it wasn't me. They said they have proof, but I swear…"
"Do they?"
"I don't know." I feel gutted and weak in the knees again. "I've replayed that surgery a thousand times in my head—my decisions, my timing, my approach. Maybe if I'd been faster, better, more experienced, he would've lived. Or maybe he was already dead the moment you shot him, and nothing I did would've made a difference."
Dane stands, closing the distance between us. "It wouldn't have made a difference. I made sure of that. I don't make mistakes. That man was dead no matter what you did."
"Then why blame me?" My voice breaks. "Why drag me into this if I couldn't have changed the outcome?"
"Because grief needs a target and someone out there watched Domingo Maddox die and decided it was your fault." He's close enough now that I can see the scars on his hands, the old wounds from a life of violence. "Whoever brought you here wants both of us to pay. You for failing to save him, me for killing him in the first place."
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly shivering and feeling frozen. "We should go to the police. Report everything, get protection."
He actually laughs at that, a bitter sound devoid of humor. "And tell them what? That I'm a retired Mafia assassin and you're connected to one of my victims? They'd arrest me before I finished the sentence. And they sure as hell couldn't protect you from the kind of people we're dealing with."
His tone shifts to a growl as he says, "You need me."
