Chapter 2 - The Price of Saving a Stranger
Marco moved fast.
“Get her through the staff exit,” he ordered.
The security guard hesitated. “Who exactly are you?”
“A man trying to keep her alive.”
Emma stared at Marco.
“This is a hospital,” she said. “You cannot bring guns into—”
A loud crash echoed from the lobby.
Then someone screamed.
Every instinct inside Emma told her to run.
Marco grabbed her wrist, not painfully but firmly.
“Miss Richardson, I know you do not trust me. You should not. But if you stay here, those men will find you.”
“What do they want from me?”
“To know what Dante said to you.”
“He barely spoke.”
“That may not matter to them.”
Emma pulled her arm free.
“I’m not leaving my patients.”
“You are not safe here.”
“And neither are they if your enemies start shooting.”
Marco’s face hardened with reluctant respect.
“You are right.”
He turned to the security guard. “Lock down the east corridor. Move patients away from the entrance. Call the police, but do not tell them Dante Moretti was here.”
The guard blinked. “Why not?”
“Because some police officers answer to men who would prefer her dead.”
Emma’s blood went cold.
Marco looked back at her.
“Now, you come with me.”
This time, she did not argue.
They moved through a supply corridor while the hospital alarm began to sound. Marco spoke into a small earpiece, giving orders in Italian and English. Two more men appeared near the staff exit, both armed, both scanning every shadow.
Emma had never been surrounded by bodyguards.
She hated it.
She hated the fear on Tasha’s face when Emma passed the nurses’ station. She hated that someone had brought violence into the place where she worked. Most of all, she hated that a man she had saved twelve hours earlier had somehow turned her life upside down.
Outside, rain had begun to fall.
Marco guided her toward the SUV.
“Get in.”
“No.”
He stared at her.
“No?” he repeated.
“You are taking me somewhere unknown with armed men. I need to call my brother.”
Marco’s expression shifted.
“Your brother is Noah Richardson?”
Emma’s anger flared. “How do you know his name?”
“Dante had your background checked.”
“You what?”
“It was to make sure you were safe.”
“You investigated me after I saved his life?”
Marco looked uncomfortable for the first time.
“Dante does not survive by trusting strangers.”
“Well, I do not survive by being treated like property.”
She pulled out her phone.
Noah did not answer.
She called again.
Still nothing.
Marco’s earpiece crackled. His face changed.
“What?” Emma demanded.
He looked at her carefully.
“Your brother left his warehouse forty minutes ago.”
“So?”
“He never made it home.”
Emma’s phone slipped from her hand.
“No.”
“We are looking for him.”
“You said you were protecting me.”
“We are.”
“Then find him!”
Marco nodded once.
“I already sent men.”
Emma stepped close enough that Marco had to look down at her.
“If anything happens to Noah because I helped Dante Moretti, I will never forgive any of you.”
Marco’s voice was quiet.
“If anything happens to your brother, Miss Richardson, neither will Dante.”
Inside the SUV, Emma sat rigidly in the back seat while Chicago blurred behind rain-slicked windows.
Marco sat across from her.
“Tell me everything Dante said,” he asked.
“He said one word. ‘Why?’”
“That was all?”
“Yes.”
“And you told him?”
“Because he came through my door.”
Marco studied her face.
“You had no idea who he was.”
“No.”
“Most people in Chicago do.”
“Then most people are not emergency-room nurses.”
Marco looked away.
For a few moments, only rain and traffic filled the silence.
Then Emma asked, “Who is he really?”
Marco did not answer immediately.
“Dante Moretti owns restaurants, freight companies, construction firms, and half a dozen properties downtown.”
“That sounds legal.”
“Some of it is.”
Emma gave him a sharp look.
“And the rest?”
Marco’s scar pulled when his jaw tightened.
“The rest is why people do not say his name carelessly.”
The SUV turned through a private gate and entered the underground garage of a luxury high-rise overlooking Lake Michigan.
Marco led Emma through a private elevator. When the doors opened, she stepped into a penthouse that felt less like an apartment and more like a guarded command center.
Two men stood near the windows.
A doctor stood beside a sofa.
And Dante Moretti sat in a black leather chair, pale from surgery, one hand pressed against his bandaged side.
He should have been in bed.
Instead, he looked like a king refusing to die.
His eyes found Emma immediately.
For one long second, neither spoke.
Then Dante said, “You came.”
Emma stared at him.
“Your men kidnapped me from my hospital.”
Marco cleared his throat. “Technically—”
“Marco,” Dante said quietly.
Marco stopped talking.
Dante looked back at Emma.
“You are right. I apologize.”
The word sounded unfamiliar in his mouth.
Emma folded her arms.
“Where is my brother?”
Dante’s expression changed.
“We are searching.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No,” he said. “It is not.”
He reached for a phone on the table, then winced from pain.
“Sit down, Emma.”
“I’m fine standing.”
“You have been working for almost two days. You are frightened, angry, and likely have not eaten.”
Emma hated that he had noticed.
“I said I’m fine.”
Dante looked at her with the same intensity he had shown in the trauma bay.
“No,” he said softly. “You are not.”
Before she could respond, Marco’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, then looked at Dante.
“We found Noah.”
Emma stopped breathing.
“Where?”
Marco’s eyes moved to her.
“He is alive.”
The relief nearly made her collapse.
“But,” Marco continued, “he is being held in an abandoned warehouse near the river.”
Dante rose despite the doctor’s protest.
“Get the cars.”
Emma looked at him in disbelief.
“You cannot go anywhere. You were shot yesterday.”
Dante reached for a gun on the side table.
“And your brother is being held because my enemies want something from you.”
Emma stepped in front of him.
“You are not going.”
His eyes narrowed.
“No one tells me—”
“I do.”
The room went silent.
Emma stood inches from the most dangerous man in Chicago, her hands shaking but her voice clear.
“You nearly died because you refused to slow down. You need medical care. If you go out there, you could bleed internally and die before you reach the warehouse.”
Dante stared at her.
Then something unexpected appeared in his eyes.
Trust.
He looked at Marco.
“You lead the operation.”
Marco blinked. “Dante—”
“That is an order.”
Emma exhaled.
Dante sat back down slowly.
Then he looked at her again.
“We bring your brother home,” he said. “And after tonight, no one ever comes near you again.”
But Emma knew enough now to understand the truth.
May you like
In Dante Moretti’s world, promises were never simple.
They were declarations of war.
