SERAFINA
Itell myself last night was an anomaly.
Except it wasn't last night. It was forty minutes ago. The body is barely cold and I'm still in the same scrubs, still have the same dead man's secret sitting in my gym bag, and I'm standing in the Bellevue corridor trying to look like a doctor who has everything under control.
I check my bank app between patients.
Account access temporarily suspended. Please contact your financial institution.
Shit.
I stare at the screen for a full ten seconds.
Then I try my building's security app — the one that lets me see the lobby camera. The doorman on screen is nobody I've ever seen before. Young. Blank-faced. Standing very still in a way that has nothing to do with being bored and everything to do with being trained.
My stomach goes cold.
I close both apps and go back to work, because what else am I going to do? I have zero time for a meltdown while my carefully constructed civilian life unravels around me in the middle of the night.
Totally fine. Completely under control.
Fuck.
I've been lying to myself since I was eighteen. I'm very good at it.
The SUV is theretwenty minutes later when I step outside for air.
It's barely 1 a.m.
Black. Tinted windows. Idling at the curb directly outside the staff exit I always use. The one that isn't on the main entrance map. The one that zero people outside this hospital should know about.
I go back inside without breaking stride.
I run the math. Bank account locked. Stranger in my lobby. Car outside my private exit. All within an hour of a dead man pressing a drive into my pocket.
Either someone is sending a very clear message, or I'm developing a paranoia problem.
Given what's sitting in my gym bag, I'm going with option one.
I'm halfway backto the surgical floor when I hear my name.
"Serafina."
Not Dr. Virelli. Not the way anyone at this hospital says it.
The way my father's world says it. Soft. Familiar. Like we're old friends who just bumped into each other at the grocery store, and isn't this lovely.
It's not lovely.
I turn around.
Marco Succi. Fifty-something, silver-haired, always smiling in a way that never reaches his eyes. My father's velvet hammer. The man he sends when he wants something done with a pleasant face on it.
"Marco." I keep my voice neutral. "You're a long way from Brooklyn."
"Your father wanted me to check on you." He falls into step beside me like I asked for it. "After what happened tonight. Terrible business. He's worried."
"Tell him I'm fine."
