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Then life drained from his eyes.
As a doctor, I knew from the moment I saw him that it was too late. Even in my first year of residency, I’d already witnessed death come for scores of other patients, but this was my brother.
Raving, I went against every bit of common sense from medical school, grabbed his body, and shook it while screaming at him to wake. I had to be pulled off him by a fresh-faced nurse and put on compulsory leave to deal with my grief.
After burying my only family member, I locked myself in his apartment, scouring through his notes for those initials. I never found them, but what I did find—documents, research, surveillance logs—made it clear that Matteo had been digging into some very dangerous people. The kind who roll into hospitals with gunshot wounds and carry tattoos like insignias.
My teeth sink into my lower lip before I peer into the patient’s eyes and flash the fakest but hopefully still convincing disarming smile I can manage.
“Cool tattoo. What does the design mean?” I keep my voice neutral and ignore my heart rate, which rises too fast and thuds loudly in my ears.
The man’s eyes go cold, and he mumbles in gravelly Russian. Thankfully, Noah’s high-society upbringing makes him fluent in a number of languages, including Russian, so I turn to him and raise an eyebrow. The young doctor looks from my face to the patient’s and then back again before he clears his throat. “He says you’re a curious little doctor. And that curiosity killed the cat.”
“Tell him this isn’t a back alley. He’s in my ER, and I don’t scare easily.”
Noah’s eyes widen with worry, but he translates. The man barks out a bitter laugh—sharp, humorless, and meant to make the other person feel small—then sputters in surprisingly articulate English, “Interesting.”
Interesting indeed.
“You speak English? That should help with your statement to the police about the shooting.” I scan his bandage. “You want whoever did this to you arrested, don’t you?”
He shakes his head before baring the upper row of his sparkling-white teeth. That grin shoots cold tingles down my spine. “Stop asking and do your job.”
The warning in his tone rings clear, so I decide to back off. Asking him too many questions would only cause him to clam up more, and though I told him I don’t scare easily, I know a lethal man when I see one.
After a nod, I let Jenna and Noah finish the checkup and retreat back into the hallway. My legs don’t stop wobbling until I get to the ladies’ room. I grip the cold porcelain of the sink, staring at my bright-eyed reflection in the mirror, my mouth set in a hard line.
I drag in a couple of heavy breaths, willing myself to get it together. Matteo was clever, and he still ended up in a casket with a closed case file. I’m a doctor in a public hospital with no plan, no contacts, and apparently, no sense of self-preservation.
Just as this calming routine starts to work, a soft knock rattles the bathroom door.
“Mason’s here!” Jenna’s cheery voice filters through the door, snapping me back to reality.
Once upon a time, the mention of that name would fill me with some semblance of hope. I would’ve rushed out of the bathroom to share my new findings with him, but I no longer trust him or anyone else.
Grief has a way of hollowing a person out until friends and lovers have to give up a part of themselves to try to fill you up. Every time they want to go on a date with you or laugh with you or have any sort of fun, they have to go the extra mile, watch for pitfalls, and walk on eggshells around you. The problem is, the gap doesn’t get filled, and you only take more and more from others until they become miserable, realize they can’t give anymore, and start asking you to forget or deaden your grief.
I’m not ready to do either of those, so I’ve come to the chilling realization that no one’s coming to save me. And the only way I know how to save myself is to piece together my brother’s mystery.
I didn’t need to keep dating Mason to be able to do that, and it was better to let him go than to keep him in the constant pits of misery with me anyway.
“Tell him I’ll be right out.”
I cup my hands, cradle some water in my palms, and splash my face. My hands tremble, but I tell myself I’m just being paranoid. Mason already said my brother’s case was closed.
Matteo was caught up in gang violence. A simple instance of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It would be easier if I could accept that. I can’t, though. Every time I remember Matteo’s last moments or read through his journals, the world seems so fundamentally complicated.
I slip out of the restroom and hasten past the nurses’ station to my office, where I find Mason leaning against my desk. He studies my face. “You okay?”
“Define okay.”
He hesitates. “With all the chaos going on…want me to walk you to your car?”
“I’m fine.”
The words barely leave my lips before chaos erupts in the corridor. Mason startles at the blaring alarms, but I’m already waving my goodbyes while hurrying out. We dated for three years before we broke up, so he knows the drill.
