Chapter 1 - The Dark Trade
My hand hovered over the heavy cord of the window blinds, my fingers locking around the coarse nylon. Behind me, the steady, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor spiked, a sudden rapid staccato that signaled a spike in Liam Mercer’s adrenaline.
"I said don't," he repeated. His voice was lower this time, stripped of the booming rage he had used to drive away the previous six nurses. It sounded hollowed out, carrying a raw, jagged edge that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
"You told Leo you wanted the dark," I said, my voice steady despite the adrenaline coursing through my own veins. I didn't let go of the cord. "Leo said it was a rule. But you don't turn away from the light, Liam. You lean into it."
"You don't know anything about what I want, Nurse," he spat, his hand gripping the silk sheet hard enough to turn his knuckles gray. "Drop the cord and walk over here to give me the dose, or pack your cheap duffel and get the hell out of my house."
"If I pack my duffel, I don't get paid," I replied smoothly, turning my head to look him dead in the eye. "And I'm not leaving without that ten thousand dollars. So we have an impasse. You want me to do my job, but my job includes keeping my patient from turning into a subterranean corpse before his surgical wounds even close."
Before he could fling another warning across the dim room, I pulled the cord down with a sharp, decisive snap.
The wooden slats tilted open. Afternoon sunlight poured through the glass like liquid gold, slicing through the heavy, stagnant air of the bedroom. Dust motes danced in the bright beam, illuminating the heavy mahogany furniture, the dark Persian rug, and the sheer scale of the man lying trapped in the center of the bed.
Liam flinched, his icy blue eyes squeezing shut as the light washed over his face. He looked like a creature dragged out of a cave—pale, hollow-cheeked, with dark violet shadows bruised deep under his eyes. But he didn't scream. He didn't throw his water glass.
Slowly, almost painfully, his eyelids parted. He stared into the shaft of light cutting across his chest, watching the dust float in the air. His chest rose and fell in a slow, jagged breath.
"It's been six weeks," he murmured. It wasn't an order or a threat. It was an admission, spoken so softly I almost missed it over the hum of the air purifier.
"Six weeks since what?" I asked, stepping away from the window and picking up the syringe of broad-spectrum antibiotic I had drawn up earlier.
"Six weeks since I saw the sun without a gun pointed at my head," he said, his gaze shifting from the window to me. The anger in his eyes hadn't vanished, but it was overlaid with something far more dangerous: curiosity. "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm Clara," I said, wiping an alcohol swab over his IV port. "And I'm the person making sure you don't go septic."
"Leo hired a stubborn bitch."
"Leo hired a desperate professional," I corrected, sliding the needle into the port and slowly depressing the plunger. "There's a difference."
Liam watched the clear fluid enter his vein, his jaw flexing as the cold medication hit his system. "Desperate for what? Nobody takes a job in this house unless they're running from the law or starving to death."
"My brother is dying," I said simply. I didn't see any point in lying to a man who owned half the illicit operations in the Midwest. "He's seventeen. He has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and the only trial that can save him is at a private clinic in Switzerland. It costs three hundred thousand dollars."
Liam stared at me, his icy eyes searching my face for any sign of deception. I didn't flinch. I didn't look away. I let him see the cold, unyielding reality of what was driving me.
"Ten thousand a week isn't going to get you to three hundred thousand fast enough, Clara," he said quietly, the gravel in his voice settling into something almost calculating.
May you like
"It gets him onto the waiting list by Friday," I said, pulling the needle out and capping it with a click. "The rest, I'll figure out."
Liam leaned his head back against the stacked pillows, his pale lips curving into the faint, razor-sharp ghost of a smile. "Maybe you will, Nurse. Maybe you will."
