Mercy stared at Nathaniel.
“What do you mean, waiting?”
Nathaniel’s face gave away nothing.
“We intercepted communication.”
“From who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It isn’t.”
Dr. Warren interrupted.
“This discussion doesn’t change the medical problem.”
“No,” Mercy said. “But it changes whether we’re keeping a patient in my bedroom or hiding a target.”
Rossi spoke from the bed.
“You should leave.”
Mercy looked at him.
“This is my house.”
“Then we leave.”
“You can’t.”
“Make up your mind.”
Mercy glared at him.
Warren stepped closer to the leg.
“We need decompression if pressures confirm what we’re seeing.”
Mercy knew what that meant.
A fasciotomy.
A surgical procedure to release dangerous pressure inside the muscle compartments.
Not something she could safely perform in a bedroom.
Not something anyone should.
Nathaniel asked, “Can we create what you need here?”
Warren rubbed his jaw.
“With equipment, another surgeon, anesthesia support, sterile supplies—”
“How long?”
“Several hours under ideal conditions.”
Nathaniel pulled out his phone.
Warren caught his arm.
“I said ideal conditions. This is an ice storm.”
Nathaniel looked at him.
“Give me names.”
Mercy realized then that these men lived in a different world.
A world where problems were not accepted.
They were purchased, threatened, negotiated, or removed.
But the storm didn’t care how powerful Dominic Rossi was.
Neither did human anatomy.
Mercy looked at Rossi.
For the first time, she saw fear.
Not much.
A flicker.
But it was there.
“You’re afraid of hospitals,” she said.
“No.”
“Then what?”
Rossi remained silent.
Nathaniel answered.
“His brother died in one.”
Rossi’s eyes snapped toward him.
“Nathaniel.”
Mercy waited.
Nathaniel ignored the warning.
“Eleven years ago. Gunshot wound. He survived the shooting. Someone got into the recovery floor dressed as hospital staff.”
Mercy understood.
“They killed him there.”
Rossi looked away.
“Yes.”
The room went quiet.
Suddenly his refusal made emotional sense.
That didn’t make it medically acceptable.
Mercy sat beside him.
“I’m sorry about your brother.”
“I don’t need sympathy.”
“Good. I wasn’t offering sympathy. I was acknowledging why you’re scared.”
His eyes hardened.
“I’m not scared.”
“Everybody’s scared of something.”
“Are you?”
Mercy looked toward the window.
Men with guns stood outside her home.
“Yes.”
“Of me?”
She considered lying.
“No.”
That seemed to surprise him.
“I’m scared of what follows you.”
Rossi absorbed that.
Then he looked at her bruised wrist.
“You should be.”
Nathaniel’s phone rang.
He answered.
The conversation was brief.
When he hung up, his face had become colder.
“What?” Rossi asked.
“We have a problem.”
Mercy almost laughed.
“Another one?”
Nathaniel looked toward the road.
“One of the men who transported Mr. Rossi here is missing.”
Silas, standing near the stove, went still.
“Which one?”
“Cal Mercer.”
Silas cursed.
Mercy remembered Cal.
Young.
Nervous.
The one who wouldn’t look at her when she asked why they had bypassed the clinic.
“You think he told someone?”
Nathaniel didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Rossi pushed himself higher.
Mercy immediately reached toward him.
He stopped himself before she touched him.
“Find him.”
“Already doing it.”
“And Mercy?”
Nathaniel looked at him.
“Nobody gets near this house.”
Mercy bristled.
“I’m standing right here.”
Rossi met her gaze.
“That instruction wasn’t for you.”
“What if I want to leave?”
“You don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“If whoever caused the crash knows I’m here, you’re safer inside.”
“I didn’t volunteer for protective custody.”
“No. You volunteered to save a stranger.”
His voice softened almost imperceptibly.
“And I’m sorry for what that cost you.”
Before Mercy could answer, a sharp sound came from outside.
Every man in the room froze.
A gunshot.
Then another.
Nathaniel moved instantly.
“Down!”
Mercy dropped beside the bed.
Rossi tried to move.
She shoved him flat.
“Absolutely not.”
“That was close.”
“You have a broken leg.”
“I noticed.”
Another shot.
Glass shattered in the kitchen.
Mercy covered her head.
Nathaniel drew a weapon and moved toward the front of the house.
Outside, men shouted.
Then came silence.
A long, awful silence.
Mercy’s heart hammered.
Rossi’s hand found her shoulder.
Not gripping.
Steadying.
“You hit?”
“No.”
“Mercy.”
“I said no.”
His hand remained there.
Then Nathaniel called from the kitchen.
“Clear.”
Mercy stood.
One of the windows had a neat hole in it.
A bullet had buried itself in the wall.
She stared.
This had been her mother’s kitchen.
The table where Mercy had done homework.
The room where her mother taught her how to stitch a wound on a pig’s foot when she was fourteen.
Someone had just fired a rifle into it.
Rage replaced fear.
Nathaniel returned.
“Shooter was in the tree line. Our men returned fire. He fled.”
Mercy looked at Rossi.
“You said nobody gets near this house.”
His face was stone.
“They won’t again.”
She wanted to scream at him.
Instead, Dr. Warren said, “We still have a leg to save.”
The next hours moved with terrifying speed.
A second physician arrived by snowmobile after a vehicle couldn’t make the final mile.
Then medical equipment.
Sterile packs.
Portable monitoring.
Medication.
A nurse anesthetist named Carla Jennings came with two men carrying cases.
Mercy watched her bedroom transform into something halfway between a field hospital and an operating room.
It wasn’t ideal.
It wasn’t close.
But it was all they had.
Dr. Warren confirmed what Mercy had feared.
Pressure was dangerously high.
They had to act.
Warren looked at Mercy.
“You can leave.”
She shook her head.
“You need hands.”
“You’ve done enough.”
“No.”
He studied her.
Then nodded.
“Scrub.”
Dominic heard.
“No.”
Mercy looked at him.
“What now?”
“You don’t need to be here.”
“I’ve been here since you arrived.”
“This is different.”
“Why?”
His gaze held hers.
“Because if something goes wrong, I don’t want you carrying it.”
Mercy’s anger disappeared.
For one strange second, she saw the man beneath the reputation.
A man who had lost a brother in a hospital.
A man who expected bad endings.
She leaned closer.
“Then don’t make me carry it.”
“What?”
“Stay alive.”
His expression shifted.
Mercy held out her hand.
“Deal?”
Dominic looked at it.
Then at her bruised wrist.
He took her hand gently.
So gently it hurt more than the bruises.
“Deal.”
The procedure began.
Mercy had assisted with enough emergencies under her mother’s supervision to understand what was happening, but this was beyond anything she had done at home.
She followed instructions.
Passed supplies.
Watched monitors.
Helped keep everything organized.
And when Dominic’s blood pressure dropped, she was the first to notice.
“Pressure’s falling.”
Carla checked.
“Damn it.”
Warren looked up.
“How much?”
Mercy answered.
Things moved faster.
Fluids.
Medication.
Commands.
Dominic’s face went pale.
Mercy stood near his head.
“Dominic.”
His eyes opened slightly.
“Stay with me.”
He tried to speak.
“What?”
His voice was barely audible.
“My coat.”
“What about it?”
“Pocket.”
Mercy looked toward Nathaniel.
Nathaniel crossed the room and retrieved Dominic’s torn coat from a chair.
“Inside pocket,” Dominic whispered.
Nathaniel reached inside.
His face changed.
He pulled out a small photograph.
A woman.
Dark hair.
Warm smile.
Beside her stood a teenage Dominic and a younger boy.
His brother.
Mercy understood.
Dominic looked at the photograph.
“Don’t let me die like Michael.”
Mercy leaned closer.
“You’re not dying.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.”
She took his hand.
“But I can promise you’re not alone.”
His fingers closed around hers.
This time carefully.
The crisis passed.
The surgery continued.
Two hours later, Warren stepped back.
Everyone in the room looked exhausted.
“He keeps the leg if we avoid infection and vascular complications.”
Nathaniel closed his eyes.
Emmett sat down hard.
Mercy simply stood there.
Her knees had forgotten how to move.
Dominic was alive.
His leg was still his.
For now.
Mercy walked outside.
The storm had finally stopped.
Snow covered everything.
Clean.
White.
Almost peaceful.
She sat on the porch steps.
Emmett came out ten minutes later.
He handed her coffee.
She accepted it.
“You saved him twice,” he said.
“The doctors saved him.”
“You got him to the point where doctors could.”
Mercy stared into the cup.
“Who is he really?”
Emmett sat beside her.
“You know what people say.”
“I’m asking you.”
Emmett thought for a long time.
“He’s a man who learned young that fear keeps people farther away than grief does.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
“No.”
He looked toward the bedroom window.
“Dominic’s father built an empire with dirty money and clean businesses. Dominic inherited both. He spent twenty years trying to separate them without getting everyone he loved killed.”
“Has he hurt people?”
Emmett didn’t lie.
“Yes.”
Mercy appreciated that.
“Has he killed people?”
Emmett’s eyes stayed on the snow.
“I won’t insult you with a lie.”
Mercy’s stomach tightened.
“Then why should I trust him?”
“You shouldn’t.”
She looked at him.
Emmett continued.
“Trust isn’t something a man like Dominic gets because somebody tells you he has a good heart. He earns it, or he doesn’t.”
The front door opened.
Nathaniel stepped out.
“We found Cal.”
“Alive?” Mercy asked.
“Yes.”
“Was he the leak?”
Nathaniel’s expression told her before he spoke.
“Yes.”
Emmett stood.
“Why?”
“Money.”
“Who paid him?”
Nathaniel looked at Mercy.
Then toward the bedroom.
“Adrian Rossi.”
Emmett went pale.
Mercy frowned.
“Rossi?”
Nathaniel nodded.
“Dominic’s cousin.”
Mercy felt the cold suddenly.
Nathaniel’s next words were worse.
“Cal says Adrian knows Dominic survived.”
Mercy stood.
“And?”
Nathaniel looked down the road.
“He also knows exactly whose house he’s in.”