Six registered nurses had quit in five weeks.

One had left the DeLuca estate crying so hard she forgot her winter coat in the foyer. Another had threatened to sue until a man in a charcoal suit handed her a thick envelope, a nondisclosure agreement, and a pen.

The sixth lasted forty-eight hours.

Mara Bennett intended to last longer.

She had to.

The black SUV smelled of expensive leather and stale cigarettes. Mara sat in the back seat with both hands resting on the faded fabric of her navy scrubs, watching downtown Chicago disappear behind tinted glass.

Concrete became bare trees.

Bare trees became snow-dusted pines.

By the time the SUV turned north toward Lake Forest, her phone had been taken, sealed inside a black security pouch, and placed in the glove compartment.

Mara hadn't argued.

Ten thousand dollars a week bought a lot of cooperation.

More importantly, it bought treatment.

She closed her eyes and immediately saw Ethan.

Twenty-one years old.

Six feet tall before leukemia stripped nearly forty pounds from him.

Her little brother had always hated hospitals. Now he slept in one with a central line in his chest and bruises blooming across skin that had become almost translucent.

The experimental treatment offered by Midwest Cancer Institute was his best remaining option.

It was also impossibly expensive.

Three nights ago, Mara had been sitting at her kitchen table staring at another insurance denial when an unknown number called.

The man on the phone had offered her ten thousand dollars a week.

Cash.

Private nursing.

Live-in position.

No questions.

She had thought it was a scam until he said her full name, nursing license number, current hospital, and the exact amount of Ethan's outstanding medical balance.

That should have frightened her.

Instead, she had asked when she started.

The iron gates ahead opened.

Mara sat forward.

The DeLuca estate appeared beyond a long driveway lined with pines, a sprawling gray-stone mansion surrounded by enough security cameras to make a federal courthouse look careless.

Two armed men stood near the entrance.

Neither tried to hide the guns beneath their coats.

"Subtle," Mara muttered.

The driver glanced at her in the mirror but said nothing.

The SUV stopped.

A broad-shouldered man waited at the top of the steps. He looked somewhere in his mid-forties, with close-cropped dark hair, a nose that had been broken more than once, and a charcoal suit tailored around a body that suggested he had spent years doing something more physical than managing a household.

"Mara Bennett."

Not a question.

She climbed out with her canvas duffel.

"That's me."

"Anthony Russo. Tony."

He took her bag before she could protest.

"I run the house."

Mara looked at the armed guards.

"Interesting house."

Tony didn't smile.

"You'll get used to it."

"I don't plan on getting used to men carrying guns indoors."

"Then don't look downstairs."

That got her attention.

Tony opened the front door.

"Come on."

The mansion was beautiful in the coldest possible way.

White marble floors. Twenty-foot ceilings. Dark wood. Expensive art. No family photographs.

The silence felt wrong for a house that large.

Tony led her upstairs.

"The nurse before you left four hours ago."

"What happened?"

"Mr. DeLuca."

"Specific."

Tony kept walking.

"The one before her lasted thirteen hours."

"Impressive turnover."

He stopped at the end of a long hallway.

"Vincent doesn't like being helpless."

Something in Tony's voice changed when he said the name.

Not fear.

Loyalty.

"He doesn't like strangers. He doesn't like doctors. He doesn't like medication. And he especially doesn't like anyone telling him what he can and can't do."

"Then he's going to love me."

Tony finally looked amused.

It lasted half a second.

"He'll insult you. He may throw things. He'll refuse treatment just to prove he can."

"Psych history?"

"No."

"Substance abuse?"

"No."

"Traumatic brain injury?"

"Not according to the scans."

"Then he's just difficult."

Tony stared at her.

"You really don't know who Vincent DeLuca is."

"I know he's my patient."

"That's probably safer."

He put her duffel beside the wall.

"Rules."

Mara folded her arms.

"Here we go."

"You handle medical care. Nothing else. You don't ask about the men downstairs. You don't ask what happened to him. You don't ask about the business."

"What business?"

Tony's expression remained perfectly blank.

Mara nodded.

"Right."

"You don't leave the property without permission."

"That's less charming."

"You agreed before you came."

"I agreed because you offered ten thousand dollars."

"And you'll get it every Friday at midnight."

"Then we're still friends."

Tony's eyes moved toward the double doors beside them.

"One more thing."

His voice lowered.

"Don't touch the curtains in his bedroom."

Mara looked at the doors.

"The curtains."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I just told you not to ask questions."

"Fair."

"He wants the room dark."

"Does he have migraines?"

"Mara."

"Fine."

Tony put his hand on the door handle.

"Do your job. Keep him alive. Don't try to fix what's inside his head."

He opened the door.

Darkness swallowed the room.

The first thing Mara noticed was the smell.

Iodine.

Sweat.

And beneath both, something sweet and rotten.

Infection.

Her entire attitude changed.

"Vincent," Tony called.

A monitor glowed near an enormous bed.

"The new nurse is here."

A man's voice came from the darkness.

"Send her back."

Rough. Low.

Weak enough that Mara immediately noticed the effort behind the words.

Tony looked at her.

Mara set her jaw.

He stepped backward.

The doors closed behind her.

"Apparently," Mara said, "he isn't sending me back."

Silence.

Then:

"Get out."

Mara walked toward the bedside table and switched on a lamp.

A glass flew past her head.

It shattered against the wall.

Mara froze.

Not from fear.

From surprise.

Then she looked at the man in the bed.

Vincent DeLuca was younger than she'd expected.

Maybe thirty-six.

Dark hair had grown too long around his temples. Heavy bruising faded from purple to yellow along his jaw. Sweat shone across a face that would have been striking if pain hadn't hollowed it out.

His right leg was surrounded by an external fixator.

Metal rods disappeared into flesh and bone.

Heavy dressings covered his abdomen.

A fresh red stain was spreading through one of them.

His pale blue eyes locked on hers.

"Turn it off."

"No."

His expression sharpened.

Mara walked to the sink.

"I can't assess your incision in the dark."

"I didn't ask you to assess anything."

"The smell did."

For the first time, Vincent seemed caught off guard.

Mara washed her hands.

"You have an infection."

"You've been in here thirty seconds."

"And I've been a nurse for seven years."

She dried her hands.

"You also reopened part of your abdominal incision throwing that glass, so congratulations. Very dramatic."

"Get out."

Mara found a broom in the utility cabinet and swept up the broken glass.

Vincent watched her.

She didn't lecture him.

Didn't flinch.

Didn't call Tony.

When the floor was clean, she put on sterile gloves.

"I'm changing the dressing."

"No."

"That wasn't a question."

His eyes went cold.

"Do you know whose house you're in?"

"Currently? A man with a fever and an infected surgical wound."

She lowered the blanket.

Vincent caught her wrist.

Hard.

Pain shot through her hand.

Mara looked at his fingers.

Then at him.

"You're pressing directly over my radial nerve."

His grip tightened.

"I said don't touch me."

"And I'm saying if I don't clean this wound, bacteria could enter your bloodstream."

She leaned slightly closer.

"You can intimidate me after your temperature is under a hundred and one."

Something flickered in his eyes.

"You aren't afraid."

"I'm exhausted."

"There's a difference?"

"Huge one."

His grip slowly loosened.

Mara pulled her hand away.

She removed the old dressing.

The wound was angry and inflamed.

"Damn it."

Vincent's jaw tightened when saline touched the tissue.

Mara worked quickly.

"Broad-spectrum IV antibiotics. Tonight."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

Mara looked directly at him.

"I need you alive until Friday."

Vincent blinked.

"So I can get paid."

For one stunned second, neither spoke.

Then something dangerously close to a laugh escaped him.

It immediately turned into a grimace.

"At least you're honest."

"Always cheaper."

Mara finished the dressing, checked the fixator sites, adjusted his IV fluids, and recorded his temperature.

102.4.

Bad.

But manageable.

She pulled a leather chair into the corner and sat down.

Vincent stared.

"What are you doing?"

"Monitoring you."

"Outside."

"No."

"Turn off the light."

Mara pulled a battered paperback from her scrub pocket.

He looked at her as if nobody had disobeyed him in years.

Maybe nobody had.

Mara opened her book.

An hour passed.

Then two.

At 2:47 a.m., Vincent finally slept.

Mara stood to check his IV.

That was when she saw it.

A tiny puncture mark near the inside of his arm.

Fresh.

Too fresh.

She frowned.

It wasn't from the IV.

She checked his medication chart.

No intramuscular or subcutaneous injections had been documented there.

Mara looked at the sleeping man.

Then at the door.

Someone had put a needle into Vincent DeLuca.

And whoever had done it had never written it down.