Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary of Silence
Rhett did not answer her plea. He shifted his weight, sitting back on his heels while keeping one large hand firmly anchored against her back, supporting her spine so she didn't have to strain against the floor. With his free hand, he reached into the inner breast pocket of his tailored charcoal suit and pulled out a sleek, black encrypted satellite handset.
His thumb moved across the glass screen, dialing the three-digit direct emergency extension for the private trauma wing at Northwestern Memorial—a facility owned entirely by Valin corporate subsidiaries.
Before his thumb could press the call icon, a small, trembling hand clamped around his wrist.
Rhett stopped.
Isa’s slender fingers, cold as river stones, were locked around his forearm. Her fingernails dug through the fine cotton of his black shirt, pressing against the dark ink of a crowned serpent tattooed into his skin. She was shaking so violently that her teeth clicked together, her wide brown eyes dilated with a wild, hysterical panic that surpassed the agony of her broken shoulder.
“Please,” Isa choked out, her voice breaking into a ragged, desperate sob. “Please… no police. No hospitals. Mr. Valin, I’m begging you… no police.”
Rhett’s thumb hovered half an inch above the display. He looked down at her small, trembling fingers gripping his arm, then into her eyes.
In Chicago, when someone begged for no police, it meant one of two things: they were a criminal avoiding a warrant, or they were prey who knew that the law was a paper shield that would only get them slaughtered faster. Looking at Isa Voss—at her modest clothes, her clean background check, her terrified soul—Rhett knew with mathematical certainty which one she was.
“If you have a dislocated shoulder, Isa, it needs to be reduced,” Rhett said, his voice level, reasoned, and completely calm. “You have a concussion. You need radiographs of those ribs. The city hospital will report a domestic assault by mandatory protocol.”
“No!” she cried out, the sound tearing from her throat with enough force to make her cough, her hand clutching his wrist tighter, her knuckles turning translucent white. “They’ll file a report. They’ll put my name in the system. If my name enters the county registry… he’ll see it. He has friends in the precincts. He monitors the municipal filings! That’s how he found me… that’s how he tracked me from Detroit!”
The revelation dropped into the cold kitchen like a lead weight into deep water.
Detroit.
Her background file had listed her as a lifelong Illinois resident, orphaned at nineteen, moving between temporary administrative positions before applying to his domestic agency. Every single document—her social security card, her lease, her employment references—had been pristine.
Forged, Rhett realized instantly. She bought an entire life to erase her track.
Rhett did not ask for the details. He did not cross-examine her. He simply watched the tears stream down her bruised, beautiful face, feeling the fragile, desperate strength in the hand holding his wrist. She had run across state lines. She had lived in poverty on Damen Avenue, working as a maid for the most terrifying man in the Midwest, all to hide beneath the radar of a monster she feared far more than Don Valin.
Slowly, deliberately, Rhett lowered his thumb from the emergency icon.
He slid the handset back into his pocket, his dark eyes never leaving hers. He leaned down, placing his other hand over hers where it gripped his wrist, his warm skin covering her cold, bruised fingers.
“No police,” Rhett said.
The promise was absolute, spoken with the finality of a contract signed in blood.
He pulled a secondary, non-traceable burner handset from his trouser pocket, pressed a single speed-dial button, and brought it to his ear. The line connected on the second ring.
“Dr. Vance,” a cultured, elderly voice answered.
“Alan,” Rhett commanded, his tone low, flat, and vibrating with sovereign authority. “Bring a field surgical kit, local anesthetics, and a mobile fluoroscopy unit to 1422 South Damen. Apartment 2B. Come alone. Tell Marco to bring two perimeter units and seal the alley.”
“On my way, Don Valin.”
Rhett tapped the screen, cutting the call, and slipped the phone away. He looked back down at Isa, whose fingers had slowly begun to unclench from his sleeve as the realization settled in that he was not going to throw her to the wolves.
May you like
“My private doctor,” Rhett murmured, his hand gently smoothing a stray, damp curl away from her split lip. “He answers only to me. He does not keep records. He does not ask questions. You are safe here, Isa.”
Isa’s chest heaved in a shuddering breath, her head sinking slightly against his arm. But even as the panic of the hospital receded, her brown eyes did not soften. Instead, they drifted past Rhett’s broad shoulder, staring through the narrow archway of the kitchen into the dim, shadow-draped hallway leading to the front door.
