PART 2 Four armed men guarded the hospital door when Chicago’s most feared crime boss offered me $50,000 to sleep beside him
PART 2
“Six weeks,” Dominic repeated.
The click of the lock sounded much louder than it should have.
I removed my hand from his shoulder and stepped back.
“What happens in six weeks?”
“Either I recover enough to move without medical supervision,” he said, “or the people who shot me realize they failed.”
The heart monitor kept beeping steadily, almost absurdly calm against the tension in the room.
I looked toward the frosted glass. The broad silhouette of Dominic’s guard remained on the other side of the door.
“Unlock it.”
Dominic’s eyes stayed on mine. “The hospital has initiated a security hold.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He reached for the phone on the bedside table and pressed one button.
“Malik.”
The guard’s voice came through the speaker. “Yes, sir.”
“Open the door.”
There was a pause.
“We have an incident on the east stairwell.”
“What kind of incident?”
“A man wearing maintenance credentials entered the restricted floor. Security stopped him near the medication room. He ran.”
I stared at Dominic.
He did not look surprised.
“Was he armed?” Dominic asked.
“No weapon recovered. He left a bag.”
“Clear the floor before anyone touches it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The line disconnected.
I folded my arms. “Your people are giving orders inside a hospital.”
“My people are assisting hospital security.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” he agreed. “It is faster.”
I moved toward the door and tested the handle. It remained locked.
Dominic watched me without apology.
“You said I could leave if anyone crossed a line.”
“And you can.”
“The door says otherwise.”
“The door says someone may have entered this floor using false identification.”
He drew a slow breath. Pain tightened his mouth before he could hide it.
“I’m not keeping you here, Elena. I’m keeping whoever is outside from getting in.”
Hearing my name unsettled me more than it should have.
“You knew about Marco,” I said. “You knew about my debts. What else did you investigate?”
“Enough to know you have no connection to my enemies.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only part that matters right now.”
“Not to me.”
He looked toward the rain-streaked windows.
“Your parents died eight years ago. You left nursing school for eleven months to become Marco’s guardian, then returned while working two jobs. You rent an apartment on West Addison. Your landlord filed an eviction notice last week, though the hearing has not occurred.”
My face burned.
He continued in the same measured tone.
“Marco was hospitalized twice this year for complications related to a congenital heart condition. The latest bill is thirty-two thousand dollars.”
“Stop.”
“You asked what I knew.”
“I did not ask you to recite the worst parts of my life.”
His gaze returned to me.
“No. You asked why I chose you.”
I hated that he could say it without sounding cruel.
Dominic shifted against the pillows and winced.
“One of the bullets damaged tissue near my lung. The surgeons expect a normal recovery if there are no complications. But someone knew where I would be three nights ago, which route I would take, and which vehicle I would use.”
“You think one of your guards betrayed you.”
“I think someone close to me did.”
“And you want a nurse who is not part of your organization.”
“I want someone whose loyalty cannot already have been purchased.”
I laughed once, quietly.
“You offered me fifty thousand dollars.”
“I offered to purchase your time. Not your loyalty.”
The distinction was so precise that I almost admired it.
Almost.
“What exactly are you asking?”
“Six weeks as my private nurse. You monitor the wounds, manage the medication schedule, communicate with the surgical team, and make sure I do not return to work before my body can tolerate it.”
“You have enough money to hire an entire medical staff.”
“I had one.”
The way he said it made me stop.
“What happened?”
“My former physician resigned yesterday.”
“Why?”
“He claims he wants to spend more time with his family.”
“You don’t believe him.”
“I believe he was frightened.”
“Of you?”
“Not this time.”
Rain struck the windows in heavy sheets.
I glanced again at the locked door.
“And Marco?”
“A secured apartment will be provided near his school. You may bring your aunt or another adult to stay with him while you work.”
“I don’t have an aunt in Chicago.”
“Then he can stay at my residence with you.”
“No.”
The answer came so quickly that Dominic’s eyebrows lifted.
“My brother is not moving into the home of a man called the Phantom King.”
“I have guest rooms, security, and very good Internet.”
“He is twelve, not a visiting diplomat.”
Something shifted at the corner of Dominic’s mouth.
“Then propose an alternative.”
“I return to my life. You hire someone else.”
“You could.”
“Then unlock the door.”
Before he could respond, the monitor beside him changed rhythm.
Dominic’s face tightened.
His hand went to his chest.
I moved instinctively.
“Where is the pain?”
“Left side.”
“Sharp or pressure?”
“Pressure.”
I checked the monitor, then his oxygen saturation. His pulse had climbed, but not dangerously. I placed two fingers against his wrist.
“Slow your breathing.”
“I am breathing.”
“You’re barely doing it.”
He tried to inhale more deeply and stopped when pain caught beneath the bandages.
I reached for the medication chart hanging from the end of the bed.
A handwritten note had been added after the overnight shift.
The dose listed for one of his pain medications was twice what the surgeon had ordered.
I checked the electronic record.
The higher dose appeared there too, entered at four twelve that morning.
I had been in the room at four twelve.
No physician had come in.
“Who changed this?” I asked.
Dominic’s eyes sharpened despite the pain. “Changed what?”
“Your dosage.”
I pressed the call button.
A nurse answered.
“This is Elena Reyes in room 304. I need the charge nurse and the attending physician. Now.”
Dominic watched me.
“What did you find?”
“Someone altered your chart.”
“Would the dose have killed me?”
“Probably not. But with your blood pressure and the other medications, it could have caused respiratory depression.”
“While I slept.”
I did not answer.
His expression became very still.
The door opened at last. Malik entered first, followed by the charge nurse and one of the surgical residents.
The next fifteen minutes passed in a blur of questions, record checks, and increasingly worried faces.
The electronic change had been made using the credentials of a physician who had not been inside the building since midnight.
The hospital administrator arrived before seven.
By seven thirty, Dominic’s discharge was postponed.
By eight, two police detectives were speaking to hospital security.
And by eight fifteen, Dominic’s offer no longer felt like the strangest thing in the room.
I stood near the window, drinking coffee that had gone cold.
“You noticed it,” Dominic said.
“I read charts.”
“Apparently more carefully than the people paid to protect me.”
“The hospital staff are not part of your security team.”
“No. They simply made my room number available to anyone who knew where to look.”
“That is not fair.”
“Fairness is rarely useful.”
I turned to face him.
“You really believe someone came here to hurt you.”
“I believe someone wanted me unconscious enough that a complication would look natural.”
The possibility made my stomach twist.
I thought about the man with false maintenance credentials. The changed dosage. The guard outside the door who had locked it without waiting for permission.
Then I thought about Marco sitting at Mrs. Donnelly’s kitchen table before school, probably eating cereal from the blue bowl because it was the only one he claimed made it taste right.
Dominic saw the change in my face.
“Call him.”
“I already texted him.”
“Call.”
I took my phone from my pocket and stepped into the corner of the room.
Marco answered on the second ring.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Good morning to you too.”
“You always call before seven.”
“I had a difficult patient.”
Dominic glanced at me.
I turned away.
“Did you take your medication?”
“Yes.”
“Both pills?”
“Yes.”
“Breakfast?”
“Half a waffle.”
“Half?”
“Mrs. Donnelly burned the other half.”
In the background, our elderly neighbor protested loudly.
Marco lowered his voice. “She says that is slander.”
I smiled despite myself.
“You’re going to school?”
“Unless you suddenly became rich and decided to take me to Hawaii.”
“Not today.”
“Tomorrow?”
“We’ll discuss it.”
He became quiet.
Marco had learned to hear what I did not say.
“What happened?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
“That means something happened.”
“I’m safe.”
“Are you coming home?”
I looked at Dominic.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll be home soon.”
After the call ended, guilt settled heavily in my chest.
I had lied to Marco often since our parents died.
Not about important things, I told myself.
Only about whether money was tight, whether I was tired, whether another hospital bill scared me.
Small lies meant to preserve his childhood.
But childhood had not survived our parents’ funeral.
It had simply learned to hide beside us.
Dominic waited until I returned to the bed.
“Your brother knows when you are afraid.”
“So do you, apparently.”
“Fear is useful information.”
“Not everything has to be used.”
For the first time, he looked as though the thought had not occurred to him.
The surgical resident returned and confirmed that Dominic would remain under observation until the chart alteration was investigated.
I should have left then.
My shift was over. My responsibility to him had ended. The fifty thousand dollars sat inside a sealed envelope in my locker downstairs.
Yet when Malik opened the door for me, Dominic said, “The offer remains.”
I stopped.
“Six weeks,” he continued. “Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
I stared at him.
“That is not the same amount you offered before.”
“You identified a threat my own people missed.”
“I identified a medication error.”
“You still believe it was an error?”
No.
That was the problem.
“What happens after six weeks?” I asked.
“I return to my life. You return to yours with enough money to pay your debts and secure Marco’s care.”
“And during those six weeks?”
“You and Marco stay somewhere protected.”
“You do not control where he goes to school.”
“Agreed.”
“You do not investigate him further.”
“Agreed.”
“You do not use me to carry messages, hide money, lie to the police, or do anything unrelated to your recovery.”
His expression remained unreadable.
“Agreed.”
“I keep my phone. I speak to whomever I choose. And if I believe Marco is in danger, the arrangement ends immediately.”
Dominic gave a slight nod.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
I looked directly at him.
“You tell me why someone is trying to kill you.”
His eyes moved to the closed door.
“I will tell you what I know.”
“That sounds carefully worded.”
“It is.”
I should have walked away.
Instead, I thought of the eviction notice folded inside my kitchen drawer. Marco’s cardiology bill. The old car that stalled whenever the temperature dropped. The exhaustion I felt each morning before my shift had even begun.
Money did not make the decision simple.
Dominic had been right about that.
It made the decision possible.
“I want the terms in writing,” I said.
“You’ll have them before noon.”
“And an attorney who does not work for you reviews everything.”
“I know one.”
“That would be an attorney who works for you.”
A shadow of amusement passed over his face.
“Choose your own.”
I held out my hand.
“One week at a time.”
Dominic looked at it, then at me.
“One week at a time,” he agreed.
His palm was warm and his grip unexpectedly careful.
By late afternoon, I was sitting across from a legal aid attorney named Hannah Price, who read Dominic’s proposed contract three times before speaking.
“This is unusual,” she said.
“That is one word for it.”
“The duties are medically reasonable. The pay is not.”
“Is that a problem?”
“Not legally. But generous compensation can create pressure to tolerate things you would otherwise refuse.”
“I already told him I could leave.”
“The contract says the same.”
She tapped one paragraph.
“It also provides an apartment, transportation, private security, school tuition if needed, and full medical coverage for your brother during the six-week term.”
My throat tightened.
“I did not ask for tuition.”
“He included it.”
“I don’t want Marco changing schools.”
“Then we remove it.”
She studied me over the top of her glasses.
“Do you know who this man is?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what he has been accused of?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe you can remain separate from that part of his life?”
“I believe I can treat a patient without becoming responsible for everything he has done.”
Hannah leaned back.
“That is a nurse’s answer.”
“What is the legal answer?”
“The legal answer is that you should document everything, maintain professional boundaries, and leave at the first sign those boundaries are not respected.”
I signed after she amended the contract.
That evening, Malik drove me to a quiet apartment building in Lincoln Park.
The unit was on the sixth floor, with two bedrooms, pale wooden floors, and windows overlooking a courtyard. It was more beautiful than anywhere Marco and I had ever lived.
I distrusted it immediately.
“Cameras?” I asked.
“Building entrances and elevators,” Malik said. “None inside.”
“Who owns it?”
“Ashford Residential.”
“Of course.”
“The building has families, attorneys, two medical residents, and a retired judge. Mr. Ashford does not use it for business.”
“How reassuring.”
Malik accepted the remark without offense.
He was a large man in his forties with a quiet voice and a scar near his jaw. Unlike the other guards, he never tried to appear intimidating.
“Your current apartment is being watched,” he said.
I stopped.
“By whom?”
“We don’t know.”
“How long?”
“A gray sedan appeared twice this week. The plates were temporary.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“We confirmed it this afternoon.”
My pulse began to race.
“Marco is there.”
“Two men are outside. Mrs. Donnelly and your brother have not been approached.”
I grabbed my phone.
Malik blocked the doorway, not with his body, but with his words.
“If you panic him, he may leave the apartment before we arrive.”
He was right.
I hated him for being right.
When we reached my building, Marco was waiting in the hallway with his backpack and a duffel bag.
He looked from Malik to the black SUV and then to me.
“You became rich faster than I expected.”
“Get in the car.”
His smile disappeared.
“What happened?”
“We need to stay somewhere else for a few days.”
“Why?”
“There was a problem at the hospital.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Not here.”
Mrs. Donnelly stood in her doorway with her arms folded.
“You take care of these children,” she told Malik.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
She studied him, then handed me a paper bag filled with sandwiches.
Only after we were inside the SUV did Marco speak again.
“Is this about the patient?”
“Yes.”
“The difficult one?”
“Yes.”
“Is he a criminal?”
Malik looked straight ahead.
I closed my eyes briefly.
“He is a businessman with a complicated reputation.”
“That means criminal.”
“You are twelve.”
“I have the Internet.”
I turned toward him.
“Marco, I accepted a temporary job caring for someone who was badly injured. There may be a security problem, so we are staying in another apartment until it is resolved.”
His face tightened.
“You said you were coming home.”
“I am sorry.”
“You lied.”
“I was trying not to frighten you.”
“That doesn’t make it not a lie.”
His words landed with painful accuracy.
Malik looked out the window, giving us the closest thing to privacy available inside a moving car.
“You’re right,” I said. “I should have told you things had changed.”
Marco stared down at the zipper of his backpack.
“Are we in danger?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked up sharply.
It was the answer he had not expected.
“But,” I added, “I am taking every step I can to keep us safe.”
“By working for him?”
“By making enough money that we are not trapped by every bill that arrives.”
His anger softened, but did not disappear.
“This is because of me.”
“No.”
“My hospital bills—”
“No.”
I took his hand.
“This is because I made a decision. You are not a burden, and you are not a debt I have to repay.”
His fingers remained stiff in mine for several seconds.
Then they curled around my hand.
The next morning, Dominic was discharged through a private entrance.
His home stood behind stone walls near Lake Forest, surrounded by bare trees and winter-gray gardens. It was not the dark fortress I had imagined.
The house was old, quiet, and filled with books.
Dominic’s private suite occupied the eastern side of the second floor. A hospital bed had been placed near tall windows overlooking the lake, though he refused to use it and chose a leather chair beside the fireplace instead.
“You need to lie down,” I said after checking his wounds.
“I have been lying down for three days.”
“You were shot.”
“I noticed.”
His left shoulder had been grazed. A second bullet had passed through soft tissue near his ribs. The third had lodged near his lung and required surgery.
He was fortunate.
He did not seem to feel fortunate.
I reviewed his medications, set alarms, and wrote a schedule on a whiteboard.
Dominic stared at it.
“You expect me to sleep ten hours?”
“I expect you to rest ten hours.”
“I have meetings.”
“Cancel them.”
“I run several companies.”
“Then employ competent people.”
His mouth nearly curved.
Across the room, Malik pretended not to listen.
The first week passed without another incident.
Dominic recovered quickly, though not patiently.
He took calls from legitimate business executives, attorneys, and property managers. Some conversations stopped when I entered. Others involved hotel renovations, union disputes, and warehouse insurance claims.
Nothing sounded criminal.
That did not mean it wasn’t.
Each night, nightmares dragged him awake.
The first time it happened at the house, I found him sitting upright, his breathing ragged and his hand beneath the pillow.
“Do not reach for the gun,” I said from the doorway.
His eyes focused slowly.
“I wasn’t.”
“You were.”
He removed his hand.
“Turn on the light.”
“You turn it on.”
I stayed near the door until he did.
Sweat darkened the collar of his shirt. His face had lost its usual control.
“Were you back there?” I asked.
He looked toward the window.
“You asked why I couldn’t sleep.”
“Yes.”
“My mother was killed when I was sixteen.”
I remained silent.
“Someone set fire to our house. I woke to smoke and breaking glass. My father got me out.”
“But not her.”
“No.”
The single word carried twenty years of grief.
“Was the fire connected to your family’s business?”
“Yes.”
“You think the attack three nights ago is connected too.”
“I know it is.”
“How?”
“The shooter used a phrase before opening fire.”
“What phrase?”
Dominic’s gaze settled on me.
“Old debts collect interest.”
A chill passed through me.
“Does that mean something to you?”
“It was written on the wall after the fire.”
I sat in the chair across from him.
“Who knew that?”
“My father. Malik. Two detectives. And my older brother.”
I had never read anything about a brother.
“What happened to him?”
“Adrian disappeared three months after the fire.”
“Disappeared?”
“My father believed he ran away.”
“And you?”
“I believed he died.”
The flames shifted behind the fireplace screen.
“Now you think he might be alive.”
“I think someone wants me to.”
By the second week, Dominic could walk slowly through the upstairs hall without losing his breath. His bandages grew smaller. The bruising along his ribs faded from black to yellow.
Marco visited the house twice after school.
The first visit had been an accident. Malik brought him because my shift ran late and the apartment’s security alarm malfunctioned.
The second was Marco’s idea.
Dominic had a chessboard.
That was apparently enough to overcome his reputation.
“You move like you’re afraid of losing,” Dominic told him during their third game.
“I am losing.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Marco frowned at the board.
“You sound like Elena.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
I threw a folded napkin at Dominic’s shoulder.
He caught it with his uninjured hand.
For an hour, the house felt almost normal.
Then a man named Victor Hale entered the library.
He was tall, silver-haired, and carried himself with the smooth confidence of someone accustomed to being welcomed everywhere.
Dominic’s expression changed the moment he saw him.
“Victor.”
“I heard you had company.”
His gaze moved to me, then Marco.
“This is my nurse, Elena Reyes, and her brother.”
Victor smiled warmly.
“Marco, is it?”
Marco nodded.
Something about the way Victor looked at him made me uneasy.
Not threatening.
Recognizing.
“Have we met?” I asked.
Victor’s smile remained.
“I don’t believe so.”
He looked at Marco again.
“You resemble your father.”
The room became silent.
Marco’s hand froze above a chess piece.
I stood.
“You knew our father?”
Victor’s eyes shifted toward Dominic.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
Dominic saw it too.
“I may be mistaken,” Victor said.
“My father’s name was Tomas Reyes.”
Victor’s face gave away nothing.
“Then I am mistaken.”
He placed a folder on the desk.
“Dominic, we need to speak privately.”
“No,” Dominic said.
Victor blinked.
“Not now.”
The words were calm, but final.
Victor looked at me once more before leaving.
When the door closed, I turned to Dominic.
“Who is he?”
“My father’s former attorney.”
“He knew my father.”
“I don’t know.”
“You looked at him as if he said too much.”
“Because he did.”
Marco’s face had gone pale.
“Our father fixed elevators,” he said. “Why would an attorney like that know him?”
No one answered.
That night, after Marco was asleep in the guest room, I found Dominic in his study.
“You investigated me for more than security reasons,” I said.
He closed the file in front of him.
“Yes.”
The admission struck harder than denial would have.
“Why?”
“Your name appeared in a document recovered after the shooting.”
“What document?”
“A list.”
“Of targets?”
“No.”
“Then what kind of list?”
“We don’t know.”
I stepped closer to the desk.
“You brought me into your house. You brought my brother here. You knew his name was connected to something, and you said nothing.”
“I knew your father’s name appeared on the list.”
“My father is dead.”
“I have not found proof of that.”
The room seemed to narrow around me.
“We buried him.”
“You buried a closed casket after a highway collision involving eleven vehicles.”
I stared at him.
“That is not proof of anything.”
“No.”
“You think my father survived?”
“I think the dental records used to identify him were filed by a clinic owned by Victor Hale’s brother-in-law.”
I gripped the back of a chair.
“Why would anyone fake my father’s death?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have had weeks to tell me this.”
“I had six days.”
“You had enough time to investigate my rent, Marco’s hospital bills, and every mistake I ever made.”
His face tightened.
“I needed to know whether you were connected to the attack.”
“And now?”
“Now I think your father was.”
I stepped back.
“Take us home.”
“Elena—”
“Tonight.”
“The surveillance at your old building has not been resolved.”
“Then take us to the apartment and remove your guards.”
“I cannot do that.”
“You agreed I could leave.”
“You can.”
His voice remained controlled, but something urgent entered his eyes.
“Your brother cannot.”
I went completely still.
“What did you say?”
Dominic rose too quickly and pressed one hand against his ribs.
“Marco received a message this afternoon.”
“What message?”
He opened the drawer beside him and removed a small white envelope.
My brother’s name was written across the front.
Inside was a single photograph.
It showed Marco leaving school the previous Monday.
On the back, someone had written:
ASK DOMINIC WHAT HAPPENED ON ROUTE 41.
My vision blurred for a second.
Route 41 was where our parents had died.
“Why didn’t you tell me immediately?”
“Because Marco found it first. He gave it to Malik and asked him not to worry you until after your shift.”
That sounded exactly like my brother.
Trying to protect me with silence.
Repeating the worst habit I had taught him.
I took the photograph.
“Who delivered it?”
“It was inside his locker.”
“How did they get into the school?”
“We are reviewing the cameras.”
My anger drained into something colder.
“What happened on Route 41?”
Dominic looked at the photograph in my hand.
“The night your parents died, one of my vehicles was found three miles from the pileup.”
I could barely hear him over the rush of blood in my ears.
“Was your father driving?”
“No.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
He hesitated.
That was when the study door opened.
Marco stood in the hallway wearing borrowed pajamas and holding Dominic’s old chess book against his chest.
His face told me he had heard enough.
“I know who was in the car,” he said.
I turned toward him.
“What?”
Marco swallowed.
“Dad told me before the crash.”
Dominic’s expression sharpened.
“Told you what?”
Marco looked from him to me.
“He said if anything ever happened, I was supposed to remember one name.”
My fingers went numb around the photograph.
“What name?”
Marco’s voice was barely audible.
“Adrian Ashford.”
Dominic did not move.
The silence that followed seemed to press against the walls.
Then Marco opened the chess book.
A folded piece of paper slipped from between the pages and landed on the carpet.
Dominic stared at it.
“That was not there before.”
I picked it up.
The paper was old, its creases softened by time.
Across the top was our father’s handwriting.
I recognized it from birthday cards, grocery lists, and notes he used to leave beside the coffeemaker.
Elena,
If you are reading this, then Dominic has finally found you.
Do not trust what they told you about Adrian.
And do not let Dominic open the vault beneath his father’s house.
At the bottom, beneath my father’s signature, was a date.
Three days after the highway crash that had supposedly killed him.
END OF PART 2 – LIKE, SHARE AND COMMENT “THE ENTIRE STORY” IF YOU WANT TO READ THE FULL STORY
