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Chapter 1
Lucia
The air in the emergency ward of Ashford County Hospital runs cold, the way all hospitals do. Outside, Washington Heights thrums, as it usually does at this hour. Sirens compete with booming bass from car stereos, light shines from the windows of the bodega across the street, and somewhere a few blocks north, the George Washington Bridge hums with the last of the late commuters heading into Jersey.
My sneakers squeak against the linoleum as I head toward Room 14. I’m walking as fast as I can, and the two people beside me struggle to keep up.
On my left is Jenna Chase, a trauma nurse and the only person nosy enough to be considered my best friend both in and out of the hospital.
Intern and hospital heartthrob Dr. Noah Webb hovers on my right side, a tablet tucked under his arm as he rattles off vitals. He’s 6’2, sandy-haired, and has a chiseled jawline. He always seems to inspire glances and whispers among the nursing staff whenever he passes through, but he’s too much of a workaholic to take advantage.
“Next patient is male, mid-thirties, with a single gunshot wound to the left shoulder.” Noah pumps his legs to keep up. He’s been around the block for a while now, but he hasn’t lost that earnest attitude that makes him triple-check labs and ask follow-up questions most residents stopped caring about six months in. “Entry wound anterior, no exit. Stable for now. Pressure dressing’s holding. He’s not talking to police.”
Jenna swings her ponytail to the other shoulder, her brown eyes already narrowing with the curiosity she disguises as professional concern. “He refuses to give any details about what happened.” She rolls her eyes. “Cops think it’s mafia related.”
Of course they do.
She glances at me sideways. “So, you gonna call your cop boyfriend? He seems to love patrolling right at the end of your shifts so he can trail after you in his car.”
A dry laugh slips from my lips. “Mason isn’t my boyfriend. He’s my ex.”
“Well,” Jenna tucks a clipboard under her arm, “exes can be useful, especially if they dote on you like Mason does.”
I respond with a little snicker as I snatch back the cubicle curtains. The cutting, metallic stench of blood assaults my nose before my eyes even register the patient. He reclines on the propped up gurney, his jaw tight, his eyes flat, and his shirt gone. The gauze taped to his shoulder reddens with seeping blood.
A strange black geometric tattoo sits on his skin, carrying the weight of a brand. Though it looks familiar, I can’t quite place where I’ve seen the mark.
“Lu?” Jenna murmurs, close enough that only I can hear. “You okay?”
After I drag a breath in through my nose and exhale it from my mouth, the room snaps back into focus.
“Fine.” I yank on a fresh pair of gloves. “Let’s get started.”
The words come out crisp, clipped, and professional, though an ugly sensation coils low in my gut.
The only place I could’ve seen that symbol was in Matteo’s notebook. My brother’s ghost has been haunting me for a while, but this could be yet another false connection.
I’ve had a few of those over the years. I’ll see something or have an epiphany that I believe might shed light on the real reason behind Matteo’s death, then I’ll hop down the rabbit hole of trying to dig into that link only to come up empty. And every time this happens, it feels like I’m ripping the band-aid off a wound that’s still festering.
My fixation often leads to so much irritability that it’s a miracle I’ve not made huge errors at work…I probably couldn’t because Noah asks questions and for clarifications with almost every breath he draws, and it would be hard to miss out on something when you have to explain the whats and whys to a personal barnacle.
“Dr. Romano?”
There he goes again. I let Noah’s quiet rumble pull me back to the present and the man on the gurney.
The patient watches me with narrowed eyes, pale but alert as I poke and prod around his injury and probe him to describe his pain.
When I peel back the edge of the gauze to assess the wound, my eyes lock on the full scale of all that black ink.
If my curious itch was the size of a papercut, now it’s widened into a whole damn midline laparotomy. I have to fight to keep my fingers from trembling because I’m now positive that I’ve seen that mark before. I’ve combed through Matteo’s belongings enough in the last two years for that body art to be burned into my mind. Grief can’t possibly delude me into second-guessing a truth I already know.
A series of images hit my mind like a freight train.
I’d been a first-year resident sprinting down this same corridor of this same hospital after Mason had called to tell me my brother had been shot.
Matteo arrived at the ER on a gurney, blood soaking through his shirt. A pained smile creased his face, the same expression he used to wear when comforting me during harsh times. He was the one bleeding, but sympathy pain pumped through every artery, spreading through the smallest atom in my body as I grabbed his hand. He felt so cold to the touch, his pulse faint.
When his lips moved, I bent down to listen, though my ears barely picked up his raspy, broken whispers. I could only catch the initials he mentioned. “B.C.”
