Chapter 1 - The Hand He Should Never Have Touched
The sterile instrument cart flew across the emergency room.
Metal clamps, glass vials, and surgical scissors crashed across the floor as Dante Romano charged through the trauma bay with blood running down the left side of his face.
“Treat me now or I’ll shut this hospital down!”
His torn white shirt hung open at the collar. A deep cut crossed his eyebrow, but the injury was not life threatening.
The boy behind the glass doors was.
Fourteen year old Noah Kessler lay on a trauma bed while Dr. Evelyn Carter worked to stop the bleeding inside his chest. His shoulder had been shattered in a three car collision on Interstate 93. One lung was collapsing, and his heart rhythm was becoming weaker with every passing second.
Madeline Brooks stood beside the bed in blue scrubs, pressing gauze around the chest tube while another nurse prepared medication.
Dante kicked the broken cart again.
“Did you hear me?”
Madeline looked toward the trauma room monitor.
Noah’s oxygen level was falling.
She hit the door control.
The glass doors began closing between Dante and the medical team.
“You wait your turn,” she said.
The entire hallway went silent.
Dante stared at her as if no one had ever spoken those words to him.
Then he pushed through the narrowing gap and grabbed Madeline’s wrist.
His two bodyguards moved closer. Carmine and Hugo wore black leather jackets, and both reached toward the weapons hidden beneath them.
Madeline did not scream.
She turned her captured hand inward, stepped against Dante’s shoulder, and twisted free before driving him backward into the metal rail of an empty bed.
The movement was fast, controlled, and practiced.
Dante struck the rail hard enough to lose his breath.
Madeline stepped between him and Noah.
“Touch me again and you’ll receive treatment for more than that cut.”
Dante’s phone fell from his pocket.
It struck the floor and activated on speaker.
A deep male voice filled the silent emergency department.
“Who just put his hands on Madeline Brooks?”
Dante froze.
Carmine and Hugo immediately lowered their hands.
Madeline recognized the voice.
She had not heard it in twelve years, but some voices remained buried inside the body long after the mind tried to forget them.
Vincent Romano.
Dante looked at the phone.
“Dad?”
“Answer the question.”
Dante’s confidence weakened.
“The nurse grabbed me first.”
Madeline stared at him.
Even bleeding and surrounded by witnesses, he lied as naturally as he breathed.
Vincent’s voice became colder.
“If she had wanted to hurt you, you would not be standing.”
Dante looked from the phone to Madeline.
“You know this nurse?”
Madeline slowly rolled up her left sleeve.
A long burn scar crossed the inside of her forearm. It began near her wrist and disappeared beneath the fabric above her elbow.
The bodyguards recognized it.
Carmine looked away.
Vincent remained silent for several seconds.
Then he spoke.
“Ask her what happened twelve years ago.”
Dante’s face changed.
Madeline lowered her sleeve.
“What happened twelve years ago is not your son’s concern.”
“It became his concern the moment he entered that trauma room.”
Behind her, Noah’s monitor sounded.
Madeline turned back toward the bed.
The injured teenager opened his eyes for less than a second.
He looked directly at her scar.
His lips moved beneath the oxygen mask.
“Maddie.”
Madeline stopped breathing.
Only one person had ever called her that.
Her younger brother, Eli.
She moved closer to the bed.
“What did you say?”
Noah’s eyes closed again.
A nurse cut away the remaining section of his damaged jacket. Something small fell from the inner lining and struck the floor.
It was a silver Saint Christopher medal blackened by fire.
Madeline knew every scratch on its surface.
She had given it to Eli on his thirteenth birthday.
Three weeks later, he disappeared inside a burning warehouse near Boston Harbor.
Vincent Romano had told her there was nothing left to recover.
Madeline picked up the medal with trembling fingers.
Dante stared at it.
Then he lifted one hand to the chain hidden beneath his torn shirt.
May you like
An identical medal rested against his chest.
Continue to the next part: Madeline realizes the violent mafia heir may be connected to the brother she buried without a body.
