My name in his ruined voice frightened me more than anything else.
I had never told him my name directly. Not once.
Of course, he had heard it from charts, from doctors, from guards. Still, hearing it from him felt like being caught in a locked room with a ghost who had memorized my life.
“You should be examined,” I said, reaching for the call button.
His hand moved fast again, catching my sleeve this time.
“Don’t.”
“You could have brain swelling. A stroke. Seizure activity. You need—”
“I need to stay dead.”
Those six words emptied the room of air.
Outside, thunder rolled again. The lights flickered from red to white as the hospital power stabilized. The luxury wing returned to its polished calm, but nothing inside Room 412 was calm anymore.
Nicholas slowly turned his head toward the ceiling. Even that small movement made pain tighten his jaw.
“They tried to kill me once,” he whispered. “They’ll finish it if they know.”
“Who?”
His eyes shifted toward the door.
I swallowed.
“You think your own men—”
“I know.”
I stepped back from the bed, suddenly aware that I had crossed some invisible line. Until tonight, I had been a nurse. A poor, tired, overworked nurse, yes, but still just a nurse.
Now I was standing beside a mafia boss who had returned from the dead and chosen me as the first person to know.
That felt less like luck and more like a trap closing.
“I can’t be part of this,” I whispered.
Nicholas looked at me for a long time.
“No choice now.”
Anger cut through my fear.
“Excuse me?”
His voice was barely audible. “Enzo saw the spike. If he reports it, they watch you. If you act scared, they know. If they know, you die first.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath me.
“You’re threatening me?”
“No.” His eyelids lowered briefly, exhaustion dragging at him. “Warning you.”
I hated that I believed him.
I hated that the marks on my wrist still throbbed.
I hated most of all that beneath the fear, some reckless part of me was relieved he was alive. For months, I had spoken into silence. Now the silence had answered, and its answer had teeth.
“What do you want?” I asked.
His gaze moved to the book.
“Tomorrow. Same time. Read.”
“That’s your plan?”
“Tonight I listen. Tomorrow I speak.”
“You can barely move.”
His eyes hardened.
“I moved enough.”
I should have called someone. I should have run out of that room and told the first doctor I found that Nicholas Castellano had awakened.
Instead, I lowered the bedrail, adjusted his pillow, and checked his pupils with my penlight.
He endured it without complaint, though sweat beaded along his hairline.
“You’re in pain,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I can increase your medication.”
“No.”
“You need rest.”
His mouth twitched again.
“I had enough.”
The absurdity of it almost made me laugh. Almost.
I tucked the blanket around him because my hands needed something to do. Then I sat back in the chair, opened the book, and kept reading while Nicholas Castellano watched me through half-lidded eyes, no longer a corpse, not yet a king, but something far more dangerous.
A secret.
By morning, he was still.
When Dr. Ellison made rounds, Nicholas gave no sign of life beyond the coma everyone expected. His pupils reacted. His vitals remained stable. His body did nothing unusual.
I stood at the foot of the bed while the doctor checked him, my nails biting into my palms.
“No changes,” Dr. Ellison said, scribbling notes on his tablet. “Continue supportive care.”
No changes.
The lie sat between us, breathing.
Across the room, Enzo watched me from beside the door.
I felt his eyes on my wrist.
I pulled my sleeve lower.
For the rest of the day, I moved through my tasks as if underwater. Every beep startled me. Every camera seemed to tilt toward me. Every man in a dark suit looked less like protection and more like a question waiting to be answered wrong.
At midnight, I returned with two books.
One was the novel I had been reading.
The other was a blank notebook I had taken from the nurses’ station and hidden beneath my sweater.
Nicholas opened his eyes before I reached the chair.
“Lock?” he whispered.
I checked the door. “I can’t lock it. They’d notice.”
