Chapter 2
Riley
I stare at the MRI until my eyes burn, as if I glare hard enough, the truth will materialize between the gray shadows of bone and tissue.
Eleven at night, and I’m still hunched over Jacob Mancini’s medical files, chasing a diagnosis that makes sense.
The scans show minor inflammation. Nothing that would drop a fighter to his knees.
But I watched him wince when I rotated his shoulder.
I felt the resistance in his muscles, saw the flash of pain he tried to hide behind those dark eyes.
The tests are lying, or Jacob is. And something tells me it’s not Jacob.
My office is tomb-quiet this late, the only sounds the hum of my laptop and the occasional distant squeak of nurses’ shoes on polished floors.
The hospital wing sleeps around me while I flip back and forth between X-rays, CT scans, and the tersely worded evaluations from the three doctors who saw Jacob before me.
They all reached the same underwhelming conclusion: mild inflammation, possible minor tendon strain, nothing career-ending.
But his reaction when I touched him told a different story.
I tap my pen against the desk, remembering how his massive frame tensed under my hands.
Jacob filled the cramped locker room with his presence, all coiled muscle and barely restrained power.
Even wounded, he radiated the kind of physical authority that makes people step back, give way.
The nickname “Brickhouse” wasn’t just marketing. It was a warning label.
“Fuck this,” I mutter, reaching for my coffee. Cold. I drink it anyway, grimacing at the bitter sludge. Sleep is clearly not in my immediate future, not with Jacob’s medical mystery gnawing at my brain.
I pull up the video Renata sent me. Jacob’s last fight.
The camera quality is shit, but his fighting isn’t.
He moves with controlled violence and precision, as if gravity is optional.
Until the fourth round. There it is. I pause, rewind, play it again at half speed.
His right shoulder drops a fraction after landing a hook.
I flip back to the MRI. There should be a tear, a dislocation, something structural. But there’s nothing significant. Just that whisper of inflammation that doesn’t match his symptoms or his behavior.
Athletes lie about pain all the time. They minimize, they push through, they self-medicate. But Jacob’s eyes held something different when I pressed on his deltoid. Surprise. Like the pain itself was unexpected, even to him.
My phone sits next to the keyboard. I check the time: 11:17 PM. Too late to call anyone sane. Perfect time to call Renata.
I grab the phone and tap her number before I talk myself out of it. She answers on the third ring, her voice alert despite the hour.
“Doctor Shepard. Problem with the files?” No small talk, no surprise at the timing. I like that about her.
“The files are fine. It’s the diagnosis I’m questioning.” I lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling tiles. “Everything I’m seeing indicates minor inflammation, maybe some impingement. Nothing that should sideline a fighter of Jacob’s caliber.”
“But?”
“But I saw him, Renata. There’s something wrong that isn’t showing up on these scans.”
Silence stretches between us. I can almost hear her calculating risk versus reward.
“What do you need?” she finally asks.
“I need to talk to him again and get a more complete history.”
“Okay. I can set something up for—”
“Tonight, if possible.” The words come out before I can stop them.
“Tonight?” Renata’s voice carries a note of surprise. “It’s nearly midnight.”
“I know. But this is—” I stop myself from saying ‘bothering me’ and switch to “—time-sensitive. The sooner we figure out what’s happening, the sooner we can get him back in fighting shape.”
I hear a sigh from the other end of the line. “He’s at the gym. Some nights he works out until they kick him out. Says it helps him think.”
“Text me the address.”
“I can drive you there,” she offers. “Jacob’s not in the best mood lately. I can run interference.”
“I appreciate that, but I need to speak with him alone. Doctor-patient confidentiality.”
Renata sighs. “Fine. But if he beats you to a pulp, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” There’s no humor in her voice, just resignation.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I hang up before she can respond.
My phone buzzes with a text almost immediately.
An address in the industrial district, about twenty minutes from the hospital.
I shut down my laptop, slide it into my bag, and gather the files.
I’m moving on autopilot, driven by something more than professional curiosity, though I’m not ready to name it.
The hospital corridors are half-lit, operating on night mode. My footsteps echo as I pass empty waiting areas and darkened exam rooms. The hushed nighttime routine of a major hospital unfolds around me—quieter, slower, but never truly still. Life and death don’t respect office hours.
As I round the corner to the main nurses’ station, Sheila looks up from her computer. She’s been working nights in orthopedics longer than I’ve been practicing medicine, and nothing escapes her notice.
“Doctor Shepard, leaving before sunrise? Should I call security?” Her mouth quirks up at one corner, eyes twinkling behind reading glasses that hang from a beaded chain.
“Very funny, Sheila. I do have a life beyond these walls.” It’s a bald-faced lie, and we both know it.
“Mmhmm.” She leans forward, voice dropping conspiratorially. “Hot date?”
I snort. “At eleven-thirty at night?”
“Best time for it, if you ask me.” She winks, and I find myself smiling despite my impatience to leave. “Though I have to say, if you’re dating at this hour, no wonder things didn’t work out with Trudy.”
Christ. Trudy. I’d almost succeeded in forgetting that disaster.
“How is your neighbor doing?” I ask, because there’s no escaping this conversation now.
“Disappointed.” Sheila gives me a reproachful look. “She said you were a perfect gentleman.”
“That’s… bad?”
“It is when she was hoping for a little less gentleman and a little more action, if you catch my drift.”
I rub the back of my neck. “The date was fine. We just didn’t click.”
“Didn’t click,” she repeats, shaking her head. “You young people and your ‘clicking.’ In my day, we gave things a chance to develop.”
“Your day sounds exhausting.” I adjust my bag on my shoulder, edging toward the exit. “Look, I have to—”
“My niece is coming to town next month,” she continues, as if I hadn’t spoken. “Lovely girl. Pediatric nurse in Boston. Very pretty, very smart.”
“I’m sure she’s wonderful.” I take another step backward. “But I really have to go.”
“Fine, fine.” She waves me off. “Go to your mysterious middle-of-the-night meeting. But don’t think I’m giving up on you, Doctor Shepard. A man your age needs someone to come home to besides medical journals and takeout containers.”
“Goodnight, Sheila.”
Her laughter follows me down the corridor. I push through the double doors into the parking garage, breathing in the cold concrete smell of it. My car sits alone in the physicians’ section, a practical sedan that needs a wash.
As I slide behind the wheel, I ask myself what the hell I’m doing.
Driving across town at this ungodly hour to confront a potentially hostile patient about a medical condition that might not even exist beyond my intuition.
It’s unprofessional, possibly unethical, definitely not in the standard care protocols.
But I can’t get Jacob Mancini’s face out of my mind.
The way he’d looked at me in that locker room, sizing me up, dismissing me, then reassessing when my fingers found the spot that made him flinch.
There was something unguarded in that moment, a crack in his armor.
And behind it, something complicated I want to understand.
I start the engine and pull out of the garage, programming the gym address into my GPS.
The streets are empty, the city as close to sleeping as it ever gets.
I tell myself this is about solving a medical puzzle, about doing my job well.
I’m good at lying to others, but I’ve never been great at lying to myself.
The truth is, I want to see Jacob Mancini again. And that might be the biggest mystery of all.