I did not go home that night.
That was Damian’s decision.
My opinion had apparently been filed somewhere between “irrelevant” and “absolutely not.”
“You can’t keep me in your penthouse,” I said when the elevator doors opened.
“I can.”
“That sounded disturbingly confident.”
“Would you rather I call it protective custody?”
“I’d rather you call me a car.”
“No.”
I walked into the penthouse and dropped my purse onto the nearest table.
“You understand I’m an adult?”
“Yes.”
“With my own apartment?”
“Yes.”
“And my own locks?”
“Locks that Mercer’s men can open.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know what I would be able to open.”
That ended the argument more effectively than I liked.
Damian’s men had brought the broken champagne glass and syringe directly to Crosswell.
A laboratory technician I trusted was testing both.
Until the results came back, Damian refused to leave me alone.
He gave me a guest suite larger than my entire apartment.
I stood in the doorway staring at a bed that looked like it belonged in a luxury hotel advertisement.
“You actually expect me to sleep?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I expect you to try.”
He turned away.
“Damian.”
He stopped.
Using his first name still felt strange.
“You said somebody inside your organization let that Mercer man into Crosswell.”
“Yes.”
“How many people could do that?”
His expression hardened.
“Too many.”
“That doesn’t inspire confidence.”
“It wasn’t intended to.”
I studied him.
Everyone in Boston seemed to know a version of Damian Cross.
Newspapers called him a billionaire developer.
Federal prosecutors reportedly called him something less flattering.
Men at the clinic called him boss.
Tonight, for the first time, I saw something none of those descriptions mentioned.
He was tired.
Not physically.
Something deeper.
The kind of exhaustion I had seen in emergency-room doctors after thirty-hour shifts.
The exhaustion of someone who never truly believed he could turn his back on a room.
“Why Crosswell?” I asked.
He glanced at me.
“What?”
“You own hotels, warehouses, construction firms. Why a medical clinic?”
“Go to sleep, Claire.”
“That means there’s a story.”
“That means it’s three in the morning.”
He walked away.
I smiled despite myself.
At 4:17 a.m., somebody knocked.
Damian entered with two cups of coffee.
“You were right,” he said.
I sat up.
“I enjoy hearing that sentence. Continue.”
He handed me a cup.
“The residue on the champagne rim contained a synthetic cardiac agent.”
My humor disappeared.
“What kind?”
“Something that can trigger ventricular arrhythmia.”
I stared at him.
“In a healthy person?”
“With enough dosage.”
“And the syringe?”
“A concentrated form of the same compound mixed with a sedative.”
I put the coffee down.
“The champagne was Plan A.”
“And the syringe was Plan B.”
“The gun?”
“Plan C.”
I rubbed my hands over my face.
“That man really wanted you dead.”
“A lot of people do.”
“You say that far too casually.”
“You learn to.”
I looked up.
“No. You learn to pretend to.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His eyes went cold.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Keep him alive.”
He ended the call.
“The waiter talked?”
“Not exactly.”
“What happened?”
“He had a seizure.”
My nursing instincts took over.
“What did they give him?”
“Nothing.”
“Then he may have been poisoned too.”
Damian was already moving.
I followed.
“Where are you going?”
“Downstairs.”
“So am I.”
“No.”
“You have a possibly poisoned prisoner and I’m the medical professional you specifically brought because I notice things.”
He stared at me.
I folded my arms.
“Try arguing.”
Ten minutes later, we entered a private treatment room at Crosswell.
The attacker lay unconscious.
His wrists were secured.
His skin looked gray.
I checked his pupils.
Pulse.
Breathing.
There was a faint chemical odor on his breath.
“What did he eat?”
Damian’s security chief, Gabriel Vale, answered.
“Nothing after we took him.”
“Before?”
“No idea.”
I opened the man’s mouth.
Beneath his tongue was a small ulcer.
Recently ruptured.
“He had something hidden in his mouth.”
Gabriel frowned.
“A capsule?”
“Probably.”
“Suicide?”
I shook my head.
“Maybe. But he’s still alive.”
I ordered blood tests.
While we waited, I examined his arm.
The serpent-and-crown tattoo curved around his forearm.
Exactly as I remembered.
“Same symbol?” Damian asked.
“Yes.”
I looked at the man’s face.
Recognition struck.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“It isn’t only the tattoo.”
I moved closer.
“I have seen him.”
Damian’s posture changed.
“At the clinic?”
“No. Not as a patient.”
“Where?”
I closed my eyes.
Hospitals blur together after enough years.
Faces.
Families.
Hallways.
Then I remembered.
“Six months ago. The night the Mercer man was treated.”
Damian went completely still.
“He was outside the operating room.”
“Doing what?”
“Pretending to be family.”
“You’re sure?”
“He asked me whether the patient would survive.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I couldn’t discuss medical information.”
Damian turned to Gabriel.
“Pull everything from that night.”
“Already doing it.”
“Camera footage. Entry logs. Parking records. Every employee on duty.”
Gabriel left.
I looked at Damian.
“You really didn’t know they were here.”
“No.”
“So somebody opened your clinic to Mercer’s people.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That is what I intend to find out.”
At sunrise, Gabriel returned.
The expression on his face gave me the answer before he spoke.
“The records are gone.”
“All of them?” Damian asked.
“Security footage from midnight to four. Visitor logs. Electronic admission history.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“What about the medical file?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“There isn’t one.”
I felt cold.
“I operated on him.”
“The system says no patient matching that description was admitted.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
I went to the nursing station.
Logged in.
Searched the date.
Nothing.
Then I checked medication dispensing.
Something appeared.
“That’s strange.”
Damian leaned over my shoulder.
“What?”
“Medication cabinets create independent inventory records. Whoever erased the patient file forgot that.”
I pulled up the entries.
Morphine.
Cefazolin.
Sutures.
Saline.
Blood products.
All removed under my employee badge.
My stomach tightened.
“I didn’t authorize half of these.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“Someone used your credentials.”
“Yes.”
“Could they still?”
“No. Passwords rotate.”
“Who had access then?”
“Supervisors. IT administrators. The medical director.”
That gave us our first real list.
Dr. Adrian Walsh had directed Crosswell for six years.
Highly respected.
Elegant.
Calm.
The kind of doctor donors trusted instantly.
When he arrived at seven, Damian was waiting in his office.
I stood nearby.
Walsh stopped when he saw us.
“Damian. Claire. This is unexpected.”
Damian closed the door.
“Six months ago, Mercer’s people were treated in my clinic.”
Walsh’s smile disappeared.
“That’s impossible.”
“So everybody keeps saying.”
He looked at me.
“Claire?”
“I remember the patient.”
Walsh shook his head.
“You see hundreds.”
“I remember this one.”
“Memory can be unreliable after—”
“Don’t.”
Damian’s voice was soft.
Walsh stopped speaking.
“Do not explain her own memory to her.”
The room went quiet.
Walsh cleared his throat.
“I was going to say hospital stress can distort details.”
“Her medication credentials were used.”
That changed his face.
Only slightly.
But I noticed.
A tightening around his mouth.
I noticed everything now.
“Who had administrative authority to access her account six months ago?” Damian asked.
Walsh hesitated.
“IT.”
“And?”
“Department supervisors.”
“And?”
Walsh met his eyes.
“My office.”
Damian stepped closer.
“Find out who did it.”
“I will.”
“You have twelve hours.”
Walsh swallowed.
“Of course.”
We left.
In the hallway, I touched Damian’s sleeve.
“He knew.”
“You saw it too?”
“His breathing changed when you mentioned my credentials.”
Damian’s expression went dark.
“Can you prove it?”
“No.”
“Then we wait.”
Waiting lasted forty minutes.
At 8:03 a.m., somebody tried to access my apartment.
My building camera caught two men wearing maintenance uniforms.
They stayed for ninety seconds before leaving.
Damian watched the footage on Gabriel’s phone.
Then he looked at me.
“This is why you didn’t go home.”
I hated that he was right.
“What now?”
“You stay somewhere nobody expects.”
“Where?”
“My house in Beacon Hill.”
“I thought the penthouse was your house.”
“It’s where I sleep.”
“That sounds lonely.”
He looked at me for longer than necessary.
“You ask too many questions.”
“It’s a medical condition.”
His mouth twitched.
We left Crosswell through a private garage.
Halfway to Beacon Hill, a motorcycle appeared behind us.
Gabriel noticed first.
The driver accelerated.
Our car turned sharply.
I grabbed the seat.
Another motorcycle joined.
“Damian.”
“I see them.”
One rider reached beneath his jacket.
Damian shoved my head down.
Glass exploded behind us.
The rear window spiderwebbed.
The driver accelerated.
I heard two more impacts.
Then the motorcycles fell behind as two Cross security vehicles cut between us.
We turned into an underground garage minutes later.
My hands were shaking.
Damian saw.
He didn’t tell me to calm down.
He didn’t say everything was fine.
Instead, he took my hands in his.
“Look at me.”
I did.
“Breathe slower.”
I inhaled.
Exhaled.
Again.
His thumbs moved across my knuckles.
“You’re safe here.”
“For how long?”
His gaze hardened.
“Until I end this.”
I should have been terrified of those words.
Part of me was.
Another part noticed something far more dangerous.
The man everyone else feared was holding my hands as though they were the most fragile things in the world.
And I wasn’t sure which frightened me more.
The people trying to kill us.
Or the fact that I was beginning to see Damian Cross as something other than the man they called boss.