He gave me a grave nod. “I understand. You rest now. My pack will watch out for you—you have my promise. I’ll be back in the morning to pick you up and swing you by your place to grab whatever you need. Whatever you want to bring is fine. I’ve gota good-sized SUV, so we’ll pack it full if need be. Here.” He pulleda scrap of paper from his pocket and handed it to me. “This is my number. Doc has it, but in case you need me during the night.”
I took it, my fingers brushing his as the paper passed from his hand to mine. The warmth and smoothness of his skin sent another shockwave through me. What was it about this guy? I’d never felt like this before. “Thanks,” I murmured. “See you tomorrow.”
Nico nodded one last time, then latched the door behind him as he left. I used a button on the bed to turn the lights off in the room, scooting down and settling my head on the pillow as my eyelids grew heavy. Even after all the sleep I’d had, I was still exhausted. I closed my eyes and was asleep in seconds.
The next thing I remember was waking up. The room was still dark, but the first few rays of sunlight were starting to filter through the blinds. My head was turned toward the window, but I had the strange feeling that something wasn’t right. A feeling of impending doom that I couldn’t explain. I noticed movement to my left, in the direction of the door.
I turned my head, slowly, not entirely sure if I was in the middle of another nightmare. Surprisingly, there was a nurse with her back turned toward me. She held a small vial of liquid and was inserting a syringe into it. I watched her fill the syringe full, then slip the vial into her pocket. When she turned around, I saw it was the same nurse from the first time I’d woken up. Cleo? I think that was her name.
She still hadn’t noticed I was awake. She took my IV and moved the needle toward the bag. There was a look on her face that sent a wave of fear through me. Something wasn’t right. She looked nervous and worried. She even looked anxiously over each of her shoulders before moving the needle closer to the IV bag.
“What are you doing?” I asked, surprising myself.
She dropped the syringe, and gasped in surprise. The nurse locked eyes with me, and I saw terror in them. Abject, horrified terror flooded her gaze. My heart nearly exploded as I yanked the phone off the table beside my bed. I found Nico’s number and punched it in even as the nurse sprinted from the room. I heard her stumble and fall as she was going. Then Dr. Carter was yelling at her, asking why she was in so early.
Even as early as it was, Nico’s phone only rang once before he answered. “What’s wrong?” His voice was calm, but there was worry in it.
“The…I don’t know. I think the nurse here was going to do something. Can you send someone?”
“The nurse? Fuck. I’ll be right there.” He ended the call without another word.
An instant later, Dr. Carter burst into the room, looking harried and confused. He glanced at me and the phone, his expression asking a hundred questions. He walked over to me and rested a hand on my arm. “What’s going on here? What happened?”
I took several deep breaths, trying to get the image out of my head. The look on the nurse’s face had been one of the most horrifying things I’d ever seen. She looked like a woman intent on doing harm, even though she didn’t really want to. I looked at the doctor. “Are you sure your nurse is trustworthy?”
“Trustworthy? What?—”
“Maddy?” Both the doctor and I jumped in surprise as Nico’s voice boomed from the front of the clinic. How could he already be here? It had barely been a minute since he’d ended the call.
He came running into the room and looked from the doctor to me and back again. “What the fuck, Doc?”
Carter shrugged and looked bewildered. “I…Nico…I don’t know what’s going on. I only got in five minutes ago. Cleo was already here. She wasn’t even the nurse on duty.”
I pointed at the syringe on the ground. “She was going to put that into my IV. I caught her. She was trying to do it while I slept,” I said, surprised by the calmness in my voice.
Carter stooped and picked up the syringe. Nico stepped over to examine the syringe with the doctor. Carter grabbed a piece of gauze and squirted the liquid on it, then sniffed the liquid. Carter wrinkled his nose, then looked horrified. “Morphine?” His face went pale when he realized how full the syringe was. “This much would have stopped your heart in less than ten minutes once it was put in this IV. I don’t…what’s happening?”
My heart lurched into my throat. She’d been trying to kill me? I’d been seconds away from death. Had I not woken up, I’d probably already be dead. Twice in less than forty-eight hours someone had tried to kill me. I was living in a nightmare.
“Nooooooo!” a woman’s voice screeching in fear and anguish came from the lobby. All three of us jumped at the sound.
A few seconds later, Luis burst into the room. He had the nurse pressed to his body, his left arm around her throat, the right had her arm bent painfully behind her. Tears coursed down her cheeks, and a bright red welt on her cheek was shaped like a handprint likely matching Luis’s hand.
“Caught her,” Luis grunted. “Wrecked her car less than a block away trying to get out. Ran her down like a fucking rabbit.”
Nico stepped toward her, putting his face less than an inch from hers. “Who sent you? What were you doing here?”
Cleo winced away from him, her crying intensifying. Luis twisted her arm harder and she squealed in pain. “Alright!” she shouted. “A man told me to.”
“What man?” Dr. Carter asked, his bewilderment fading into anger.
“A man came to me last night. I got home and my husband wasn’t there. He showed me a picture of Jonathan. He was tied to a chair and his eye was swollen shut, and he…he…looked awful.” She broke down into sobs for a minute before continuing. “The guy handed me a vial of morphine and told me what to do. He said I had to kill this girl or they’d kill my Jonathan.” She dissolved into the most heart-wrenching cries I’d ever heard in my life. Her legs gave out and Luis let her body slide to the floor.
Luis looked down at her with his lips curled in disgust, then glanced at Nico. “I’ll get her out of here.”
Luis scooped the distraught nurse up and dragged her from the room. Dr. Carter followed them out. My entire body was shuddering, but I didn’t even realize it was happening until I felt Nico’s hand on my shoulder. My head snapped around to see him staring at me.
“Do you see now?” he asked. “The kind of trouble you’re in? The attack the other night wasn’t a one-and-done. Javi is going to keep coming after you. I need to protect you.”
