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Not knowing what else to do, I shoot to my feet. Sitting feels too much like I’m stuck. He moves back, his eyes never leaving mine. My heart pounds against my ribs in a way that has me sick with worry, my body yearning to surrender while my mind still resists.
“I appreciate the concern.” I scowl, aiming for clinical detachment and landing somewhere too brittle. “However, I’m not getting involved in whatever serves as ‘protection’ in your book. I can already tell I’d regret it.”
I inch toward the door, but his hand closes around my upper arm. The hold isn’t rough. His warm, steady fingers wrap around my elbow and slide down to my wrist, causing my pulse to jump against his rough palm.
“I need you to let me handle this.”
Though subtle, I note the plea in his voice. This man’s entire identity is built around control, strategy, and never needing to ask for permission. But here he is, asking.
My chest flutters as I glance at his hand, then up at his face. Though his expression is composed, I glimpse the tightness beneath. He would never admit this, but he’s worried.
“Handle it how?”
He doesn’t answer immediately, and the heavy pause stretches for several seconds until I realize his answer is in his silence.
“Marco.” I wrench my arm free and pivot to face him fully. “If you send men to confront the people from the supply room and they end up injured, well, I need you to understand that I’m a doctor. My profession has no off switch.” My hands press together. “I can’t stand in this building knowing I was the reason someone died. Even someone who threatened me. That’s a line I won’t cross.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, his eyes firing the same look at me but not betraying his thoughts.
“I hear you.” He draws a sharp breath through his nose.
“You’re a man who probably works alongside these same men you’re warning me about. You share their world and rules. So why turn on your own kind for a stranger?”
His eyes flicker. “Like you said, you don’t understand. You don’t know my world.”
“Why do you suddenly care about the safety of one civilian ER doctor? Is there something you’re not telling me?” I regard him directly. “Does keeping me close serve some hidden purpose for you?”
Caught between what he wants to say and what he can afford to reveal, Marco’s jaw tightens. His eyes grow tortured for an instant before he buries all the emotion.
“I’m just offering help. If you don’t want it, then that’s all right.” The words come out clipped, stripped of the softness he’d offered seconds ago. The man who crouched to meet my eyes vanishes as he straightens to his full height. In his place, I find the guarded and untouchable Marco Santori the rest of the world sees. Frustrated, he stomps out without another glance.
I return to the ER moments later. All of the beeping monitors, stretchers wheeling past, and scattering laughter from the nurses’ station proves the world stands exactly where it’s always been, and I’m the only one whose reality is shifting.
It feels like I’m stuck on a Ferris Wheel that keeps whirling round and round, never knowing when I’ll get off.
I shove the worries aside and lose myself in work, pushing my body toward exhaustion so my mind won’t think. Jenna notices the expression on my face, and for the first time, she refrains from asking me questions.
As soon as my shift ends, I jump in my car and head straight home. I’ve barely staggered in and locked the door when my phone vibrates in my pocket with a text from the unsaved number that invited me to dinner.
I just confirmed that the Bratva are staking out your apartment in unmarked cars. Where are you, Dottoressa?
The next text contains an image of two black SUVs and a blue sedan. I pull the curtain aside and press my face close to the glass, scanning the street below. None of the SUVs are on the road, but the sedan sits down the block. No one in this neighborhood drives that car.
My heart flips in my chest as I type a reply.
I just got home. The blue car is still here, but the others are gone.
His response comes almost instantly.
Pack a bag now. I’m getting you out of there before the Volkovs decide to break down your door. Be ready when I get there.
I stare at the screen while my heart performs what can only be described as an inappropriate dance.
I’m an ER doctor who treats other people’s emergencies. Apparently, I’m now also an emergency myself.
Chapter 6
Marco
