Chapter 10 - The Price of Survival
Three weeks later.
The Chicago winter had broken slightly, giving way to a pale, crisp morning that smelled of melting snow and fresh lake breeze.
I stood in the doorway of a private medical suite at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Inside, Marco Moretti was sitting up in bed, complaining loudly to a terrified physical therapist about the blandness of hospital food while two armed guards stood outside his room. His chest tube had been removed, his lung had fully re-expanded, and he was expected to make a full recovery.
My shift was over.
My ten-day contract had long expired, but I had stayed behind to oversee Marco’s post-operative recovery and ensure Luca’s endocrine panels returned to completely normal baselines.
The elevator doors at the end of the hall chimed.
Luca Moretti stepped out.
He was flanked by only two men today—clean-cut, discreet, wearing dark overcoats. Luca was dressed in a tailored navy-blue wool coat, looking every bit the untouchable titan of industry he had always been. His skin was healthy, his color strong, his stride steady and commanding.
When he saw me standing by the nurse’s station, he signaled for his guards to wait by the lobby. He walked down the corridor alone, stopping two feet in front of me.
“Nurse Reed,” he said.
“Mr. Moretti,” I replied, clipping my badge to my lanyard. “Your brother is currently threatening to sue the dietary department over low-sodium broth. He’s doing fine.”
Luca let out a short, genuine chuckle. It changed his entire face, softening the terrifying angles of his jawline.
“I didn't come to check on Marco,” Luca said.
He reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out a slender, cream-colored envelope, handing it to me.
I looked at it. “I’ve already been paid, Mr. Moretti. The hundred thousand was more than enough. My aunt’s bills are cleared, and my mother’s house in Indiana is paid off through next year.”
“Open it,” he said quietly.
I slid my finger under the wax seal and opened the heavy parchment paper inside.
It was an official deed of transfer for a fully funded, independent hospice and memory-care foundation in Oak Park, named *The Reed Memorial Center.* Below the charter was a contract naming me as the executive director of nursing, with full administrative autonomy and an endowment guaranteed for thirty years.
My breath caught in my throat. I looked up at him, my clinical composure cracking for the first time since I met him.
“Luca... this is millions of dollars,” I whispered. “I can’t accept this.”
“You didn't just save my life, Emma,” Luca said, his voice dropping into that low, serious rumble that commanded empires. “You showed me that loyalty isn't something you buy with diamonds or enforce with guns. It’s something you earn through competence and courage.”
“I’m a nurse,” I protested softly. “I don't belong in your world.”
“That foundation has nothing to do with my world,” Luca countered, taking a half-step closer. “It’s clean. Federally audited. Not a single cent of dirty money touches those accounts. It belongs to you. To help people who can’t fight for themselves.”
He extended his right hand—steady, unshakeable, scarred, but completely free of tremors.
“Consider it a retainer,” Luca added with a faint smirk. “In case I ever need someone to slap another pen out of someone’s hand.”
I looked at his outstretched hand.
I knew who he was. I knew the blood that stained his past and the violence that shadowed his future. But in that freezing penthouse, when every armed man was ready to let him die, he had looked at me not as a subordinate, but as an equal.
I reached out and took his hand. His grip was warm, strong, and steady.
“Only if you promise to eat your carbohydrates, Mr. Moretti,” I said.
May you like
Luca smiled—a wide, dangerous, but genuinely grateful grin.
“Deal, Nurse Reed.”
