Chapter 1 #2
I lasted halfway to my car before I did. Relief slipped out of me in a quiet exhale I hadn’t realized I was holding. He hadn’t followed me. But he eventually would, wouldn’t he? What did he expect to accomplish by trailing me everywhere?
I reached my car and shut myself inside behind locked doors.
The silence was immediate and oppressive.
For a moment, I sat there, hands gripping the steering wheel.
I’d never felt so alone before. Since the Russian Mafia infiltrated my life, I’d cut off everyone I was close to.
If Brad had thought about me once, he wouldn’t have gotten me involved in this mess.
Now I was left to clean it up, and I refused for anyone else to be caught in the crossfire.
My vision blurred. I blinked hard, once, twice. A tear escaped anyway, sliding down before I could stop it. I wiped it away with the heel of my palm, irritated at myself for the weakness.
He didn’t get to do this to me.
Not today.
I straightened, inhaled deeply, and started the engine. By the time I reached the hospital, I had reconstructed myself. At least to anyone looking on the outside. I was thirty minutes early, which was too much time to wallow in my unfortunate situation, so I got right to work to occupy my mind.
My job at the hospital was the one thing that held up my sanity since Brad died.
The work was demanding, relentless, and unforgiving, which was exactly what I needed to get out of my head.
To stop dwelling on the fact that I’d buried my husband recently and helped the very men who were responsible for his demise.
The guilt I carried would weigh me down to an early grave.
Brad, do you forgive me?
I changed into my scrubs, reviewed charts, and stepped into my first consult without pause. The rhythm of it steadied me. Diagnosis. Explanation. Consent. Surgery schedule. My hands moved confidently, and my voice never faltered doing the familiar tasks.
Hours passed before I allowed myself to take a break.
I checked my phone on the way to the nurses’ station, deleted my brother’s missed calls, and swiped away my sister’s text messages even though it hurt.
Things were better this way, keeping them out of this mess Brad had involved me in. I refused to do the same thing to them.
“Dr. Cavanagh, just who I wanted to see,” Emma called as I approached the desk. She was one of the friendliest nurses on staff and always wore a smile. She’d cut her usual waist-length hair into a bob that framed her face nicely.
“Is everything alright?” I slid my phone into my pocket and checked my pager out of reflex.
A message blinked back at me from the Chief of Surgery, who wanted me to call him back. My expression didn’t change, but my chest tightened. The hospital had been pushing me to take bereavement leave, but I’d refused. I had no doubt that Hargrove wanted to talk to me about the time off.
How could I convince them that without this job, I would lose my sanity?
“Someone dropped this off for you earlier.” She extended a small stainless-steel thermos toward me.
I stared at it. “What’s that?”
“Coffee, I guess.”
I sucked in a deep breath and spun around.
My gaze swept the corridor beyond the nurses’ station.
Left. Right. Down toward the elevators, to the glass doors that led to Administration, and finally toward the waiting area.
But no six-foot-four hulking shadow was lurking around.
While that should have relaxed me, it didn’t.
If anything, it unsettled me more.
Was this meant to be a warning? A quiet reminder that he knew exactly where I worked and which corridors I walked?
That he didn’t need to follow me from the coffee shop?
He could simply walk in whenever he wanted.
Past reception. Past security. Past every invisible boundary I’d told myself separated my professional life from his.
This wasn’t about coffee. It was about his access to me, and the message was clear. There was nowhere in this city where I existed outside the Bratva’s reach.
“He didn’t leave a name,” she added, lowering her voice slightly. “Huge guy. Dark coat. Intense. Honestly, terrifyingly sexy. And yeah, he had a tattoo of a compass on his hand.”
I forced myself to not react, not wanting her to see how upset I was. “I’ve decided to cut back on coffee. Been too reliant on caffeine lately. You can have it or throw it out.”
Emma’s eyes lit up. “Really? Thanks, Doc! This is going to recharge my batteries for the rest of the day.”
I walked away before she could ask anything else and before I could freak out. They were deliberately playing mind games with me, chipping away at my sanity. There were so many of them and just me. I had no defense mechanism against the Morozov Bratva.
An alarm sounded down the corridor, alerting staff to an emergency. A nurse rushed past me.
“Trauma incoming. MVC. ETA: three minutes.”
Just like that, Sergei vanished from my mind as cleanly as if he’d never been there.
There was blood to stop and a life to stabilize.
That, at least, was something I could control.