Under the danger, under the power that clung to him even while he sat half-collapsed in a stranger’s garage, there was pain. Not just physical pain. Something older. Something lonelier.
“You’re hurt,” she said. “I’m a nurse. That’s reason enough.”
Inside the house, Claire moved fast.
She yanked open cabinets, dumped medical supplies from her emergency kit onto the kitchen counter, grabbed gloves, gauze, antiseptic, tape, sterile pads, towels, trauma shears, and the antibiotics she had left over from an old dental infection and knew she had no business giving anyone. Her hands shook only when she stopped moving, so she did not stop.
When she returned, Luca was paler.
That scared her more than the gun.
“Hey,” she said sharply, kneeling beside him. “Eyes open.”
His eyelids lifted.
“Bossy.”
“Alive patients complain. I like complaining.”
She cut through the blood-soaked fabric of his shirt. The wound was ugly, but not hopeless. The bullet had passed through. The bleeding was heavy, but the location suggested it might have missed the worst of what could have been hit.
Might.
Claire packed the wound, and Luca’s body jerked so hard his head hit the wall.
A curse tore out of him in Italian.
“I know,” she said, pressing harder. “I’m sorry. I know it hurts.”
“You have gentle hands,” he said through clenched teeth, “for someone who enjoys torture.”
“This is not me enjoying anything.”
“Could have fooled me.”
“Keep talking.”
“Why?”
“Because if you pass out, I may panic, and I don’t want to panic.”
He let out a breath that might have been a laugh if he had not been fighting for consciousness.
“You admit that to patients?”
“Only the ones who break into my garage.”
“I did not break in.”
“You bled in. That feels worse.”
For a few minutes, the absurd rhythm of the conversation helped. Claire cleaned and packed and taped while Luca answered her questions with stubborn half-truths. He was thirty-six. He lived across the city. He hated hospitals. His favorite color, apparently, was black. His mother had once been a nurse, which he admitted only after Claire threatened to call him boring if he kept refusing to answer.
Then headlights swept across the garage windows.
Both of them went silent.
The beam moved slowly over the walls, paused, then slid away.
Claire’s pulse climbed into her throat.
Outside, a vehicle rolled to a stop.
Luca’s entire body changed.
The pain did not leave his face, but something else took over. Calculation. Command. Violence held on a leash.
His hand moved to the gun.
“Turn off the light,” he whispered.
Claire killed her phone flashlight.
Darkness swallowed them.
For a moment, the only sound was Luca’s breathing and the faint tick of the garage opener motor overhead.
Then came the knock.
Two slow taps against the garage door.
Claire felt the sound inside her ribs.
Luca’s hand found her wrist again, but this time his grip was not forceful. It was urgent.
“Do not answer,” he breathed.
Another knock.
A man spoke from the other side of the door.
“Miss Bennett? Open the door. We know he is inside.”
Claire stopped breathing.
They knew her name.
Her full name.
Luca closed his eyes for half a second, and when he opened them, fury burned through the
