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In the seconds before security arrives, the corridor holds a thick silence. My savior leans against the opposite wall, arms loose by his sides, watching everything. He doesn’t look at Taylor again. His focus is on me now, assessing me.

I straighten my scrub top, smooth my hair back, adjust my badge.

“I’m fine,” I tell him.

He nods once, accepting the report, then pushes away from the wall.

“I’ll see you in 7V,” he says. And then adds. “Georgina.”

He walks off down the corridor without waiting for my response, disappearing around the corner like he never appeared at all.

Security arrives two minutes later. Two guards in dark uniforms, faces alert but unbothered. I explain that Taylor is behaving violently, that he is not handling his grief well and is at risk of disturbing patients. I leave out the part where he pinned me. The guards see enough in his posture, in the way his eyes dart, to follow through.

They lift him gently but firmly. He doesn’t resist. He keeps glancing back at me with pleading eyes.

I watch them guide him toward the lift. The doors close on his face, still twisted between remorse and confusion.

When he is gone, I straighten, grab a fresh dressing tray from the nurses station, and check that it contains everything I need: gloves, saline, gauze, tape, sterile pads.

My legs carry me down the corridor toward the wing where they placed Alessio.

I pass a window and catch my reflection again. Georgina walks toward a patient with a bandage to change.

I adjust my grip on the tray and reach for the handle of Alessio’s door.

CHAPTER 10

BROX

The steam from my shower still clings faintly to the air when I step out of my bedroom and into the main space of the penthouse. It’s nearly one in the morning.

With Lana deciding to work after such a short notice, Rio and I have nothing better to do than head to the Boarpit.

Rio has already dressed up. Tailored three piece suit, crisp shirt buttoned high with a tie. His hair is slicked back, black and precise, every strand exactly where he wants it. He looks ready to host a summit, not to go downstairs to work.

I tug on the cuff of my own jacket, smoothing the fabric over my wrist. My hair refuses to obey any civil rule, waves still messy from the towel. I leave it.

Waddington’s words keep looping in my head, same fragment over and over, lodged there since his call.

I step farther into the room. My shoes sound dull against the floor.

Rio lifts his gaze, then turns toward me. His eyes sweep over my suit, then up to my face.

“Are you going to tell me more?” I ask, skipping any preface. My voice comes out rougher than I planned.

His brows nudge together. “About what?”

I approach, stopping a few paces away, close enough to see the details of his collar, the set of his jaw, and the tattoos on his neck.

“About what Waddington said,” I answer.

Rio’s eyes narrow slightly, not in surprise, more in calculation. He looks at me fully now, no more hiding in reflections.

“Thought you would bring this up,” he says.

“You knew. Did you?”

Silence stretches between us for a beat. He doesn’t rush to fill it. He never does. That control used to comfort me. Tonight it grates.