THE MAFIA BOSS WAS DYING OF A MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS—UNTIL HIS NEW NURSE KNOCKED THE SYRINGE FROM HIS FIANCÉE’S HAND AND EXPOSED A SICKENING SECRET

By nine o’clock that night, the Moretti penthouse had transformed from a luxury palace into a fortified bunker.

Heavy steel security shutters had rolled down over every panoramic window, cutting off the view of the snow-covered skyline and leaving the apartment bathed in the amber glow of recessed track lighting. Two guards stood outside every bedroom door.

In the master suite, I sat on an armchair across from the king-sized bed. Luca was propped up against four goose-down pillows, wearing a dark gray silk robe. An IV bag of normal saline was running into his forearm, the plastic tubing taped neatly against his skin by my hands.

His color was returning. His blood sugar had stabilized at ninety-eight.

“You’re surprisingly calm for a woman who had three Glocks pointed at her head three hours ago,” Luca said. He was sipping black coffee, which I had only allowed him to have after he finished two scrambled eggs and a piece of whole-wheat toast.

“I worked twelve years in the trauma bay of Cook County Hospital before I went private, Mr. Moretti,” I said, checking the drip rate on his IV line. “I’ve had gang members pull MAC-10s in the triage room while I was inserting a chest tube. You get used to people who think their anger makes them immortal.”

A faint, humorless smirk touched the corner of his lips. “You think I believe I’m immortal?”

“I think you’ve spent the last three months letting someone slowly execute you because your ego refused to let you admit you were weak.”

Luca’s smirk vanished. The air in the room grew heavy.

Most people in Chicago wouldn't dare speak to Luca Moretti in that tone if they valued their tongue. But I wasn't his soldier, and I wasn't his mistress. I was his nurse, and right now, the only thing keeping his organs functional was my clinical judgment.

“Explain it to me,” he demanded, his voice dropping into that dark, low rumble. “Plain English, Emma. No medical jargon.”

I pulled a small leather-bound notebook from my pocket.

“Three months ago, you had your first 'episode' during a meeting in Detroit,” I said, flipping through my notes. “Profuse sweating, heart palpitations, sudden panic. You were told it was a panic attack. Two weeks later, another episode during breakfast. You collapsed, woke up in Northwestern Memorial, and the blood tests showed low blood sugar, but the doctors assumed you had skipped meals or were overworking.”

“Vanessa was there every time,” Luca murmured, his jaw hardening.

“Every single time,” I confirmed. “Insulin has a very short half-life in the bloodstream. If someone gives you an injection of rapid-acting insulin—like Humalog or Novolog—it peaks within sixty to ninety minutes and completely clears out of the plasma within four hours. By the time the paramedics arrive, test your blood, and transport you to the hospital, your liver has already dumped its emergency glycogen reserves to keep you alive. The insulin is gone. All the hospital sees is a man who had an unexplained transient drop in blood sugar.”

“They thought it was an insulinoma,” Luca said. “A tumor on my pancreas.”

“Which is why they kept running expensive MRI scans and finding nothing,” I said. “Because the poison wasn't coming from your pancreas, Mr. Moretti. It was coming from the woman who kissed you every morning before handing you your vitamins.”

Luca stared at the IV drip. His eyes were empty, reflecting the amber light like dark glass. “Why slow? If she wanted me dead, why not put a bullet in my head while I slept?”

“Because if Luca Moretti dies of a gunshot wound, the syndicate tears the city apart looking for the killer,” a voice spoke from the shadows near the doorway.

Dante stepped into the light. His coat was covered in melting slush, and his knuckles were bruised and raw.

“And if Luca Moretti dies of a mysterious, declining brain illness,” Dante continued, his jaw tight, “the family scrambles to find a successor while his fiancée quietly inherits the offshore accounts and the real estate trusts tied up in his private will.”

Luca looked at Dante. “Where is Sterling?”

Dante swallowed hard. For the first time since I met him, the giant enforcer looked unsettled.

“We went to his clinic on Michigan Avenue,” Dante said quietly. “Front door was unlocked. His receptionist was gone.”

“And Sterling?” Luca snapped.

“He was sitting behind his desk, boss,” Dante said. “Two rounds through the back of his skull. Caliber was .380. Clean execution. Professional. His hard drives were ripped out of the computers, and his paper files were soaked in bleach.”

Luca didn’t flinch. He just set his coffee cup down on the nightstand with a slow, deliberate click.

“Someone cleaned the trail,” Luca said softly.

“Not all of it,” I interrupted.

Both men turned to look at me.

I reached into my medical kit and pulled out a small glass vial containing five milliliters of blood—the sample I had drawn from Luca’s arm before starting the IV line, before anyone else had entered the room.

“Hospital labs don’t run C-peptide tests during routine emergency workups unless specifically ordered,” I explained. “When your body naturally produces insulin, it creates a byproduct called C-peptide in equal amounts. If you have an insulinoma, both insulin and C-peptide are sky-high. But if synthetic insulin is injected from the outside, the body’s natural insulin production shuts down. The insulin levels skyrocket, but the C-peptide level drops to zero.”

I held the vial up to the light.

“This blood is forensic proof of attempted murder,” I said. “And whoever killed Dr. Sterling doesn’t know I took it.”

Before Luca could answer, the master bedroom lights flickered twice.