Her eyes flick up from the chart in her hand, narrowing with the kind of wariness I’ve grown used to over the years. “I’ll try my best.”
“There was a woman here,” I begin. “She came to visit the man in seven eighteen two mornings ago. Dark hair. About five-six. Wore a baggie hoodie, big sunglasses. Used the name Dani Rivera.”
Her shoulders shift—almost imperceptibly.
“I don’t usually give out visitor information,” she says, voice flat. “Especially not to men who look like you and ask vague questions.”
Fair enough.
I pull the photo from my coat pocket. Bianca. Or Lilly. OrDani. Or whatever the hell her name is.
“I know she was here,” I say. “I just need the name of the man that was in that room. That’s all.”
“I’m not allowed to give that information.”
I sigh, hating what I’m about to say, but I need that name.
“Do you know who I am?”
Her eyes flash to mine. “I do.”
I lean forward. “I need that information. If you don’t give it to me, there are other ways.”
Her eyes narrow on mine. “Are you threatening me?”
I shake my head. “No, ma’am, but I like to do things the easy way and if my people have to hack into the hospital records, they could also gain access to payroll. And I know there are a lot of people here who rely on their paychecks.”
The nurse hesitates. Then, after a beat too long, she exhales through her nose and glances down the hallway to make sure no one else is in earshot.
“Declan Kavanagh,” she says quietly.
The name hits me like an explosion— deafening.
Kavanagh.
My jaw tightens. Heat rises beneath my skin, crawling up the back of my neck like a fuse has been lit.
Declan Kavanagh is the youngest son of Laclan Kavanagh—my father’s oldest rival. Our families have bled over turf, shipping routes, and broken favors going back at least forty years. And now, the woman I haven’t stopped thinking about for two goddamn years was at his bedside.
“What was his condition?” I ask, sharper now.
“Critical. Passed a day later.” She doesn’t blink. “His wife was here around the clock. The other woman you asked about only visited twice.”
I nod, backing away from the desk with my phone still clutched in my hand.
My thoughts spin in volatile circles, each one darker than the last. If she sat beside a dying Kavanagh, then she isn’t just hiding—she’s entrenched. Embedded. Part of something deeper. Maybe she was using me all along, slipping into my club, into my bed, into my veins, just to carve out space in my world and pull information from the inside.
But the pieces don’t fit. She never asked the wrong questions, never pushed too hard. When she was inside my penthouse—my most private space—she didn’t snoop, didn’t even glance where she shouldn’t have.
And no infiltrator walks away once they’ve breached the walls. They stay. They take. They rot you from the inside out. She…she vanished. Which means there’s more.
I step into the elevator, pulse hammering like a gun trigger against my ribs.
Lilly. Bianca. Dani. Whoever the fuck you are…you’ve got secrets.
And I’m going to drag every last one of them into the light.
My officeat Monarch stirs with voices when I step inside. Lars is already here, two of my men flanking the desk, a laptop glowing between them. The scent of expensive whiskey clings to the air, but no one’s touched their glasses. They’re waiting for me. They’ve been digging, and from the look on their faces, they’ve found something.
