His gaze held mine.
“I did.”
For a moment, I did not understand.
Then he looked at the notebook. At my hands. At the book in my lap.
“No,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I’m not one of your people.”
“That is why.”
I stood so abruptly the chair legs scraped the floor.
“You are insane.”
“No. Weak. Temporarily.”
“I am a nurse. I change dressings. I document urine output. I do not smuggle messages for crime families.”
Nicholas watched me without blinking.
“You already lied for me.”
“That was panic.”
“Still counts.”
His calm made me want to throw the notebook at him.
“I could walk out right now.”
“You could.”
“And tell Enzo.”
“You won’t.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
His eyes moved over my face with unnerving patience. “You talk to coma patients because silence hurts you. You read stories to a man everyone feared because you could not stand him being alone. You hide your fear badly but your kindness worse.”
My throat tightened.
“That doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”
“No,” he whispered. “It means you are dangerous to men like Marco.”
I hated him for making that sound beautiful.
He moved his fingers against the page. Slowly, painfully, he wrote another word.
SOFIA.
Then a number.
I stared at it.
“Who is Sofia?”
“My daughter.”
The word landed softly, but the room seemed to shake around it.
I had seen no daughter. No young woman crying by his bed. No family photos. No mention in the newspapers. Nothing.
“You have a daughter?”
“Hidden.”
“From who?”
“Everyone.”
I looked at the phone number, then at him.
“How old?”
“Sixteen.”
My stomach clenched. “And Marco?”
“Doesn’t know.”
“What do you want me to tell her?”
For the first time since waking, fear crossed his face.
Not fear for himself.
That was worse.
“Tell her the wolf is wearing my face.”
I repeated it because it sounded like something from one of the old dark fairy tales my grandmother loved.
“The wolf is wearing my face?”
“She’ll know.”
“And then?”
“She runs.”
I should have refused. I should have torn out the page, burned it, forgotten the number, and requested a transfer before sunrise.
Instead, at 2:17 a.m., I stood in a stairwell two floors below the private wing, holding my phone with shaking hands.
The number rang only once.
A girl answered.
She did not say hello.
She said, “Who died?”
My mouth went dry.
“No one,” I whispered. “Are you Sofia?”
Silence.
Then, colder, “Who is this?”
“My name is Clara Jenkins. I’m a nurse at St. Jude’s.”
Another silence.
I could hear wind on her end, maybe traffic.
Then she said, “Prove it.”
I looked up the stairwell, half expecting Enzo to appear above me with his hand inside his jacket.
“Your father told me to say… the wolf is wearing his face.”
The girl inhaled sharply.
For three seconds, she sounded sixteen.
Then she became something else.
