Chương 3
Dominic waited until the doctors finished before returning.
He did not enter immediately.
He stood outside the room with his hand near the handle, almost like he was afraid of what waited on the other side.
Enzo watched him from the hallway.
“You look nervous.”
Dominic did not look away from the door.
“I am not.”
“You are.”
“I am deciding what to say.”
“That is nervous.”
Dominic finally glanced at him.
“You always talk this much when people are dying?”
“Only when they are pretending they are not afraid.”
Dominic ignored him.
That was usually how Enzo knew he was right.
Inside the room, Clara was awake.
That fact should have been good news.
Instead, it created a new problem.
A living person could ask questions.
A living person could remember.
A living person could refuse to accept the explanation given to them.
Dominic entered quietly.
Clara looked at him immediately.
She had the kind of eyes that made people uncomfortable because she paid attention.
Most people saw his clothes.
His security.
His reputation.
Clara looked at his face.
“You were there.”
It was not a question.
Dominic stopped beside the chair.
“Yes.”
“You know me?”
“No.”
Her eyebrows tightened.
“That does not make sense.”
“No.”
“Then why have you been here?”
He looked at the floor for half a second.
Because there were many answers.
None of them were simple.
“You saved my mother.”
Clara looked away.
“I did what anyone would do.”
“No.”
The answer was quiet.
That made it heavier.
“Not everyone would.”
She did not know how to respond to that.
People had thanked her before.
Customers at the diner thanked her for remembering their coffee order.
Her boss thanked her for covering shifts.
Her mother thanked her for calling every night.
Nobody had ever looked at her like she had done something impossible.
“I need to call my mother.”
Dominic nodded.
“She has been trying.”
“Trying?”
“Your phone was destroyed.”
Clara looked down at her hands.
She suddenly noticed the hospital bracelet.
She noticed the IV.
She noticed the bandages.
Reality returned slowly.
“How long?”
“Six days.”
Her face changed.
“My job.”
Dominic frowned slightly.
“What?”
“My job.”
“Clara.”
“I cannot lose my job.”
“You were shot.”
“That does not pay rent.”
The answer came too quickly.
Too honestly.
For a moment, Dominic had no response.
He was used to people asking for protection.
Money.
Favors.
Access.
He was not used to someone waking up after nearly dying and worrying about a catering schedule.
“The hospital bills are handled.”
Her expression hardened.
“By who?”
“Me.”
“No.”
Dominic looked surprised.
“No?”
“I cannot accept that.”
“You almost died.”
“That does not mean you own the consequences.”
The words landed harder than she intended.
Dominic did not become angry.
That somehow bothered her more.
“You think I am trying to own you.”
“I think I do not know you.”
“That is fair.”
“And I do not know why a man I have never met is paying my medical bills.”
Dominic was silent.
Because the real answer involved things he could not tell her yet.
The shooting had not been random.
The attack had been aimed at Isabella.
But the shooter had known something.
Something about Clara.
The investigators had found a photograph in the attacker’s apartment.
A photograph of Clara leaving the diner two weeks before the shooting.
Not Isabella.
Not Dominic.
Clara.
He had not told her.
Not because he wanted control.
Because he was still trying to understand how a woman who had accidentally entered his world had already been inside someone else’s plans.
The sentence pulled him back.
“You do not have to.”
“Yes.”
Her voice was weak, but her eyes were steady.
“Yes, I do.”
Dominic looked at her.
For the first time since the shooting, he almost smiled.
Not because it was funny.
Because she was lying in a hospital bed with seven bullets removed from her body and still arguing about responsibility.
“You are difficult.”
She blinked.
“That is rude.”
“It is accurate.”
“You are the first person who has ever said that after I saved someone’s life.”
“I am the first person who knows how expensive your stubbornness can become.”
She studied him.
“You talk like you know me.”
The room went quiet.
Dominic looked away.
That was enough of an answer.
Clara noticed.
She noticed everything.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Look away.”
He did not answer.
A doctor entered before he had to.
The interruption should have been a relief.
Instead, Dominic walked out with a new problem.
Clara was awake.
And she was already asking the right questions.
Outside the hospital room, Enzo handed him a folder.
“Bad news.”
Dominic opened it.
Inside was a printed photograph.
The same one investigators had found.
Clara walking home from work.
Taken from across the street.
Dominic’s expression changed.
“When?”
“Two weeks before the attack.”
“Who took it?”
“We are working on that.”
Dominic looked through the remaining pages.
There was another photograph.
Then another.
Clara at the diner.
Clara entering her apartment building.
Clara sitting beside her mother during a hospital visit.
A woman who believed she was invisible had been watched for weeks.
Dominic closed the folder.
“Find out why.”
Enzo hesitated.
“And if the reason is connected to something from before?”
Dominic looked back through the glass window at Clara.
She was staring at the ceiling, alone with questions she did not know were dangerous.
“Then we tell her the truth.”
Enzo frowned.
“You sure?”
“No.”
It was the first honest answer Dominic had given all night.
Then he placed the folder under his arm.
“But she deserves the chance to hate me for the real reason.”
Then he placed the folder under his arm.
But the truth Dominic planned to give Clara was not something that could be spoken in a hospital hallway.
Not yet.
There were too many missing pieces.
May you like
Too many people who had reasons to lie.
And too many ways the wrong sentence could put a target on Clara’s back before she was strong enough to stand.
