Chapter 1 #2
His gaze drops to my mouth, then drags slowly back up to my eyes. The visual sweep is heavy. It feels like a physical touch dragging over my skin.
"You own the clinic." It is a statement, not a question.
"I do."
"You work late on Thursdays."
The cold returns, slicing through the heat of his proximity.
"You've been watching my clinic." The keys in my hand shift. My thumb slides over the panic button on my car fob.
His eyes track the micro-movement of my hand. The plastic fob doesn't earn so much as a flicker.
"I was watching the building next to yours."
The hollowed-out shell. The mafia firebomb. The collateral damage.
My stomach plummets. The rigid structure of my life wavers. Danger doesn’t look like chaotic thugs with spray paint. Danger looks like a man in a gold watch with military posture.
"The building is empty," I say, my voice dropping its sassy lilt. The defensive bite is gone. This is a fact-finding mission now. "It's been empty for two years."
"Nothing is ever completely empty."
He takes half a step forward.
The three-foot buffer disappears. His scent intensifies, drowning out the exhaust and the damp concrete. He is too close. He is too large.
My spine stiffens. "If you take another step, I'm pressing the panic button on this fob. It's connected to an alarm inside the clinic that will wake up half the neighborhood."
It’s a bluff. The fob only honks my horn a block away.
He knows it’s a bluff.
A dangerous amusement flickers deep in his eyes. It is there and gone in a flash, swallowed by the cold assessment.
"You shouldn't bluff a man who knows exactly how your security system is wired."
The statement drops between us like an anvil.
My mouth parts. The sharp comeback dies on my tongue.
He knows my security system. He knows my schedule. He came to watch the gutted ruin next door, and instead, he has been mapping my life.
"Who are you?" The question is a demand. The fear tries to choke it, but my anger pushes it out. I refuse to be collateral damage again. I refuse to be a pawn for the men who burn down buildings in the night.
He looks at me. Really looks at me.
The assessment is gone. The evaluation is over. The look he gives me now strips the paint off the walls. It is ruin. The shift is so sudden, so absolute that my knees almost buckle.
He was doing a job. He was watching a target.
Then I stepped out onto the sidewalk and didn't run.
The job is gone. The target is irrelevant. The focus of a man built for war, honed over decades, has snapped onto me.
"Nico."
The name is a low rumble in his chest.
"Nico what?" I demand, my grip on the keys turning white-hot with tension.
The watch gleams as he slides his hands into the pockets of his jacket.
"Just Nico for now. And you need to go home, Priya."
My name on his lips is a violation. It is an intimacy I did not grant.
"How do you know my name?"
"I know a lot of things." He steps back. The loss of his proximity is a physical shock. The cold Chicago wind rushes back in to fill the space he leaves behind. "Lock your car doors. Take the Stevenson Expressway. Don’t take the surface streets tonight."
He is giving me orders.
My sassy indignation flares right back up. "I take the route I want to take. You don't get to lurk in a doorway, stalk my clinic, and then play traffic cop."
Nico stops. He turns back.
The streetlights catch the deep pepper in his hair. The shadows cling to the brutal lines of his face.
"Take the Stevenson, Priya. Or I will follow you home to make sure you do."
The threat is not empty. It is a promise.
He turns and walks away, melting into the shadows. The darkness swallows him whole, leaving only salt, iron, and sun-baked earth on the cold air.
My hand shakes. The keys rattle against my palm.
I don’t walk to my car. I march.
The fury is hot and bright. A stalker. A highly trained, tattooed, terrifying stalker who knows my name and my security system. I slam the car door shut. The locks engage with a sharp clack.
My hands grip the steering wheel.
I'm a physical therapist. I rebuild things. I follow protocols. I don't deal with shadow men who smell like war and tell me which highway to take.
The engine roars to life.
I pull away from the curb. My eyes dart to the rearview mirror.
The street is empty. The shadows are just shadows.
But the weight remains. The heavy anchor of his focus is still sitting squarely on my shoulders.
I flick my turn signal on.
I merge onto the Stevenson Expressway.
Dammit.
He won the first round. But if Nico thinks I’m just going to roll over and let some stranger dictate my life, he picked the wrong woman to watch.
The highway stretches out before me. The city lights blur into streaks of red and white.
My clinic is my sanctuary. My life is my own. I rebuilt it from the ashes, and I will not let a man in shadows drag me back into the fire.
The heat of his gaze still burns against my skin.
The heater in the car blasts, but it can’t chase away the phantom scent of salt, iron, and sun-baked earth.
He stopped watching the building.
He started watching me.
The realization clicks into place as I speed down the highway. The mafia firebomb next door was the catalyst for my rigid, controlled life. Now, the danger has evolved. It is no longer a faceless explosion in the night.
Danger has a name.
Danger has a face.
Danger told me to take the expressway.
My foot presses harder on the gas pedal. The engine whines in protest.
I will go to the clinic tomorrow. I will treat my patients. I will lock my doors. I will maintain my structure.
But deep down, beneath the sassy comebacks and bright colors, a terrifying truth takes root.
The structure is already compromised.
Nico is in the walls.