Chapter 1 - The Six Words
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“Please… don’t let me burn again.”
The words left Vincent Mercer’s lips not as a command from a mafia king, but as a fractured plea from a terrified man. His fingers, smeared with his own blood, gripped my wrist with a desperate, bruising strength. He was shaking. The man who controlled the city’s docks, politicians, and shadows was trembling beneath my palm like a frightened child.
“You’re not burning,” I said, keeping my voice entirely level. I didn't pull away. I didn't flinch. I just held his gaze. “You are in a hospital. You’ve been shot. I need to pack these wounds before your heart stops, Vincent.”
His eyes, a pale and stormy gray, searched my face. He was looking for pity, for disgust, or for the hesitation that had driven every other doctor out of the room. He found none of it. I had spent my entire life being judged by the world. I knew how to look at a person without making them feel like a monster.
Slowly, the violent tension in his jaw relaxed. His grip on my wrist loosened, though he didn't let go. It was as if my pulse was the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.
“Do it,” he breathed, closing his eyes.
I moved with absolute precision. I narrated every single movement before I made it. “I’m applying pressure now. It’s going to burn, but it is not fire. It is just gauze.”
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When I pressed down on the deepest bullet wound, his entire body arched off the table. A guttural groan tore from his throat. His hand tightened around my wrist again, almost hard enough to snap the bone, but he didn't push me away. He let me work.
Outside the glass doors, the heavy-hitters of the Chicago underworld watched in stunned silence. The untouchable boss was bleeding, broken, and clinging to the hospital’s most overlooked nurse as if I were a lifeline thrown into a raging sea. By the time I stabilized his blood pressure and the surgical team finally found the courage to re-enter, Vincent Mercer had passed out. But his hand was still locked around my wrist.
