The Forbidden Doctor

Chapter 1

Zeno

Eleven Months Ago

The warm, late-summer sun cast its rays through the massive picture window, illuminating the little girl playing with her toys on the floor. An ache pooled in my chest at the sight of her. “I can’t believe how big Chaya’s gotten.”

Arik turned his gaze to his daughter, the wide, beaming smile on his face cutting through me like a dull knife. That ache pulsed in my chest as he said, “She wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

That much was true. Three years ago, Chaya David had nearly died on the same day she was born. The feisty little girl hadn’t wanted to wait to make her debut, and had I not been there, both she and her mother would have lost their lives.

“It was nothing.”

Except, it was everything. This little family was everything I’d never have. Everything I’d promised myself couldn’t be mine.

My penance for failing my father.

Instead, I’d made the men and the women in the D’Angelo Syndicate my family. It was the only way I could repay my debt to the man who waged war on the men who murdered my father, then who took care of me and my mother in the aftermath of that hell.

I owed Paulo D’Angelo my life. It was why I freely gave everything I had to him. My time. My loyalty.

He only needed to ask, and I was there.

That’s why I was here, at his estate. He’d called us to his house, and as his lieutenant, there was no place I’d rather be than at his side.

Arik laughed as Chaya rolled over and stood, then flung her arms around her mother’s neck as Sarah dropped to her knees beside the girl. As if she’d been gone for a week instead of a short trip to the bathroom.

Where happiness should have flourished, I held nothing but pain in my chest. These two people alive, only because of my knowledge and skills. This family together, only because I’d been lucky enough to be at their sides when calamity struck.

That time, I’d been able to stop the hands of death. But pain took up residence in my heart, pounding out a reminder of every life I’d failed to save. My father. My mother. The men who counted on me to fix them up when life in the Syndicate had them forever risking theirs.

A pulsing ache thrummed to life inside me.

Energy thrashed through the room as the front door creaked open, and it hit me like a wave of thunder before the voices even reached my ears.

It took everything in me not to turn away from the little girl and her mother, not to look over my shoulder at the newcomers who ushered in that storm.

Adalberto Vinci, another of D’Angelo’s lieutenants, let his presence be known as he stepped through the front door.

His pretentious voice boomed through the space as if we were locked inside a tiny, dark cavern and he was our God, gracing us with his boisterous existence so we could bow down and worship at his feet.

His wife, Daphne, and son, Stephano, were close behind, their too-loud voices adding to the din.

But that raging energy that swept through the door followed silently on their heels, overtaking them as it spilled outward.

A dark cloud descending.

Turmoil and destruction written in those waves.

Unable to withstand the force stabbing at my being, I turned, only to be caught up in the intensity of Clara Vinci.

A goddess riding the crest of the storm she caused.

Like an apparition, she moved my way. Body floating, spirit thrashing.

Her energy zapped through the air, hot flashes of it hitting my skin as if her gaze were lightning and I the rod, summoning the force of her toward me as if I could protect the world from annihilation by taking the brunt of it myself.

Surely, I’d succumbed to her madness. To the dark refuge hidden behind her bright smile. It wrapped around me just like her arms did, wove through me to suffocate my lungs and still the thrashing of my heart.

“Zeno!” The sound was a symphony, my name on her voice a crash in my ears. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

My hands tingled with need, with the desire to touch this dangerous deity, as if doing so could harness her powers and calm her raging intensity. But doing so, giving in to that craving, felt like giving in to greed.

I did it anyway.

I touched her.

Settled my hands upon her back, at the slight curve of her waist that tempted me with thoughts of sliding lower, to the full curve of her ass.

Fuck.

The slinky dress she wore was disaster and temptation.

Black lace covering nude silk, the hem shimmering like a mirage as it tempted me to look at places I shouldn’t.

Like the long expanse of leg showing between her knees and the bottom of the dress.

Like the luscious swells of her breasts that the lace bore like a devilish secret.

Desire wasn’t a strong enough word for the horror show pulsing through me. Death might have been preferable to the storm of want raging through me as she pressed her palm into my gut and slid it up my chest.

I swallowed down the jagged rock that had shifted itself into my throat, then forced myself to push past the feelings holding Clara in my arms now brought.

“Hey, kid. Long time no see.”

Her smile was sunshine and golden skies, edging away her storm.

But that raging crash of thunder shook through me as she lowered her hand down, down, stopping just above my belt.

She pressed her palm there, lifting onto her toes until her lips were a brush against my ear.

On a whisper, she spoke. “I’ve missed you so much. ”

Fucking hell.

My dick kicked in my pants, and I knew I would burn in the hell she’d thrown me into the minute she came into my life. Wanting Clara was like wanting to climb dick first into a meat grinder. Though that pain might have hurt less.

I edged back, though with her sky-high shoes, she was still too fucking close. So I tried to put some much-needed space between us by hitting on the one subject I knew might set her off.

“Staying out of trouble?”

Could swear I heard her snarl as a wicked sneer cut across her pretty face. “Of course, I am.”

She used that moment to release me from her spell, tearing out of my grip and leaving me raw and aching in all the places her touch had burned into me. A rush of possessiveness pulsed through me as she went to hug Arik before lowering herself to the rug at Chaya and Sarah’s side.

Possessiveness I had no right to feel.

Clara wasn’t mine.

She could never be mine.

I’d told myself I didn’t want her so many times over the past three years that I almost believed it.

But being in her presence made my lie flare and flash until there was no believing anything but God’s honest truth: I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted her.

“Dr. Fierro?”

Jerking away from the hand that landed on my arm, I whipped around, spitting out a harsh, “What?” before tamping down a heavy lid on the guilt that rushed through me at the sight of Paulo’s steward, Maso.

The man dipped his head, ignoring my clenched fists and the way my shoulders had lifted toward my ears. “Mr. D’Angelo requests your presence in his office.”

My chest squeezed, and I eyed the front door like it could be my savior. “Of course.”

I ran a hand down my chest, then started off toward the long hall leading to his office, only to stumble as I realized the path my hand had taken.

The same one Clara’s had moments ago.

The same one that had led me to the depraved thoughts that threatened to steal my sanity.

I chanced a glance over my shoulder, and I found her watching me as I walked away. Her gaze blazed a path down my body, lighting up every inch and making me want to run.

But did I want to run away, or back toward her?

That was the problem.

The answer to that was my own personal hell.

At Paulo’s office door, I knocked three times, then pushed it open. He stood over the coffee table by the fireplace, pouring whiskey into two crystal tumblers. Parched as I was after my encounter with Clara, I went to him and gladly accepted my drink.

He raised his glass in a toast, and I tapped mine to his before taking that much needed sip.

“I’m assuming you didn’t bring me here just for a drink?”

Paulo’s lips quirked up as he lifted his chin. It made me feel like I was a kid again, being chastised by the man who took over the Syndicate my father had given his life for. “Ever the impatient one.”

I bristled under his stare, though rather than acting upon my impulses, I tossed back my drink and set my glass down on the table next to his decanter.

“Have a seat,” Paulo told me, gesturing with his glass toward one armchair as he backed toward another. “We’re still waiting on—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. The man we were waiting on was in the hall, his loud voice preceding him before he reached the room.

“The man of the hour,” Adalberto Vinci said, his gaze sweeping me briefly before locking on D’Angelo. “Good to see you again, Paulo.”

It wasn’t until Vinci stepped between me and the table to shake Paulo’s hand that I realized, it wasn’t only him we’d been waiting on. Daphne gave me a tight smile that lasted a half-second longer than Berto’s once-over.

“Zeno.” Vinci looked down his nose at me, and where I’d felt chastised when Paulo had basically done the same thing earlier, now I felt cast aside, like I was nothing more than the help. “Always a pleasure.”

I accepted his extended hand, thankful that the sweat that had pooled on my palms in Clara’s presence had dried up before I touched her father. “Likewise,” I responded, though it was anything but the truth.

Berto was a good twelve years older than me, and he’d always rubbed it in my face that he and Paulo had been fast friends. As if that had anything to do with anything. As if age could determine rank or the depth of friendship.

As if it made a difference in the amount of loyalty one had.

“Daphne.” Berto’s voice snapped like a whip, and his wife rushed behind my chair to Paulo’s side. She kissed his cheeks, clutched his hands like he was saving her from a thousand-foot drop, then scooted around his chair to take a seat on the couch beside her husband.

The woman could barely look at me. Nearly twenty years had passed since she’d spared me more than the slightest glance. It was something I would have loved to rub in Berto’s face if I ever stooped to his level or played his games.

The man in question crossed his legs, then stretched his arms out across the back of the couch, tugging Miss Prim-and-Proper an inch closer like he was staking his claim.

As if I’d want her.

As if either Paulo or I had any desire to take the woman he loved away from his side.

“Zeno,” Paulo said, turning his attention to me. “I’ve called you here tonight because Berto and Daphne have asked me for help with Clara.”

Outwardly, I stilled, though inside my chest, a storm raged. “What about her?”

“We need your help.” Still stretched out across the couch, the man looked like he needed nothing but a good kick in the ass. “Clara is… out of control.”

Beside him, Daphne made a pained sound and looked toward the empty fireplace.

“What do you mean, ‘out of control?’”

He heaved a heavy breath, and I swore he rolled his eyes. “Her grades are slipping. She’s more interested in partying than in studying, and we fear she’s going to ruin her life before it even gets started.”

“Then tell her to reign it in,” I offered, as if I had any right to be doling out parental advice. Me, a man who’d sworn off relationships and family in order to devote my life to Paulo and the Syndicate.

“We’ve tried. Believe me, we’ve tried.”

Daphne turned from the fireplace, and for the first time since I’d knelt between her legs in the back seat of Berto’s car, pulling a tiny baby girl from her womb nineteen years ago, she locked eyes with me for more than the briefest of seconds.

“You’re the only one she listens to, Zeno. You’re the only hope we have.”

“You’ve got some connection with her. Something no one else has. And we need you to use that to get her back on track.”

“The hell are you talking about?” The words rasped out of my throat, dragging their fucking feet across the dry desert of my tongue.

“It’s true, Zeno,” Paulo said, sticking his fucking nose where it didn’t belong. “I’ve seen it myself. Clara listens to you. She looks up to you. And I believe you have what she needs to get her life back on track.”

Shaking my head, I pushed myself deeper into my chair. “No. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I believe I do, actually.” He looked down his fucking nose at me again.

“Clara needs you, Zeno. She needs your guiding hand in her life. She’s expressed interest in becoming a doctor in the past, and I believe she can succeed in that if given the chance.

I’d like you to mentor her. She can be your apprentice.

You can help her with her studies, teach her the kinds of things she won’t learn out of a book or in a classroom.

Help her reach her full potential. Show her the world she’d never see otherwise. ”

Fuck.

Each word he said pounded a nail in my coffin.

Each word had taunting images popping through my head.

Teaching her the things she wouldn’t learn elsewhere. Show her things she wouldn’t see otherwise.

Fuck.

My dick acted like it was what she’d see and experience, and that was not fucking okay.

A quiet knock on the door shook loose those images, ushering in the raging storm. Clara stepped inside Paulo’s office, all sex in heels in that skimpy little dress. A tempest. This dark disaster that would surely bring my doom.

She looked my way, and the twinkle in her eyes told me I was destined for hell.

And she, this sinful siren, this dangerous woman who’d grown from the baby I’d delivered in the back of Berto’s car, would give me a first-class ride through those blackened gates, free of charge.