I never expected to see him alive.
Not after the way he’d looked when I found him — broken and pale, a lifeless body hooked up to machines as if someone had decided he wasn’t worth saving. He wasn’t a patient, he wasn’t even a person. He was a project. A challenge. A mistake, I’d thought. I never imagined I’d see those dark eyes flicker open again.
But here he was. In front of me.
I didn’t know his name. There were no records, no ID, just a man, dressed in a blood-soaked suit and left for dead. He didn’t speak when I worked on him, but I remember the strange calm I felt as I cut through his shirt and stabilized him after he flatlined. It had been touched and go — I’ve seen people come back from worse, but I didn’t think he would. Maybe I didn’t want him to.
But now, with those same eyes staring back at me, I wasn’t so sure.
His gaze felt like it could slice through me, as though I were nothing but a puzzle he intended to solve. The room was quiet, too quiet, save for the faint beeping of the monitors, and I couldn’t help but feel small beneath the weight of his stare.
“Who are you?” I asked before I could stop myself, the words sounding more breathless than I wanted.
He blinked slowly; his gaze sharp as ever. "I don’t remember.”
I wasn’t surprised by the answer. I’d seen it before — the fog of trauma. But this man? There was something different in his eyes. Something cold. Unwavering. Like he didn’t really care whether he remembered his own name.
“I’m Dr. Kapoor,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. “You’re in the hospital.”
He didn’t move. Just continued to stare at me with that unnerving calm. There was no panic in his eyes, no fear. Just... observation. It was like he was measuring me. Studying me in a way that made my pulse quicken, despite my best efforts to stay unaffected.
“You saved me,” he said, the words rolling off his tongue with a detached indifference. It wasn’t gratitude. It wasn’t even acknowledgment. It was just a fact.
“I did,” I replied, not sure what else to say.
He blinked again, as if the action took more effort than it should. His eyes were heavy, dark, and unnervingly focused. “Why?”
I didn’t answer immediately. Why had I saved him? I didn’t know. I didn’t even know his name. What did I owe him? I didn’t have the luxury of caring about strangers who walked into the ER with life-threatening injuries. But him? This man? There was something about him that made me want to stick around. Maybe it was the way his body had been tossed aside like a piece of trash. Maybe it was the way his eyes had locked onto mine in that moment — intense, challenging.
But I didn’t admit that. Not to myself. Not to him.
Instead, I took a deep breath and said, “It’s my job.”
“Is it?” He looked at me like I’d just lied through my teeth.
I stared at him, unwilling to give anything away. He was studying me now, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as if he could see straight through the mask I’d put on. I felt my chest tighten. But I didn’t flinch. I never did.
The moment stretched, the quiet of the hospital room suffocating around us. For the first time in my life, I wanted to break the silence. I wanted to ask him why he was so calm. Why he didn’t show the kind of vulnerability everyone else did when they were brought back from death’s door. I wanted to ask him who he was, what he’d done, what he was involved in — because I knew it wasn’t normal to be so... distant from the world. From everything.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I moved to the edge of the bed and checked his vitals again, forcing myself to focus on something — anything — other than the piercing gaze that never left me.
“You’ll be fine,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure he would be. But I wasn’t going to let him see that. “You need to rest.”
He didn’t respond. His eyes fluttered closed once more, and for a second, I almost thought he’d fall asleep. But the moment didn’t last long. I could feel his attention on me even as his body lay still, and I couldn’t stop the shiver that ran down my spine.
I stayed for a few more minutes, watching him, not sure if I wanted to leave. But eventually, I pulled myself away. I had work to do. This wasn’t my problem anymore. He wasn’t my problem.
At least, that’s what I told myself as I walked out of the room.
The rest of the shift was a blur. A few hours later, I was walking down the cold, tile-lined corridors, a cup of coffee in my hand and the familiar thrum of exhaustion tugging at my shoulders. But even as I tried to shake off the lingering feeling from earlier, I couldn’t. He was still in my mind, his gaze still burning into me. That damn, unnerving gaze.
I was getting to my apartment when a man in a dark suit approached me in the hallway. He looked out of place in the hospital, all polished and pristine. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses, and I immediately felt a sense of wrongness about him.
“Dr. Kapoor?” he said, his voice smooth but clipped.
I stopped in my tracks. “Yes?”
He handed me a thick envelope. Unmarked. Heavy. I didn’t take it right away.
“You’re now Mr. Moretti’s personal physician,” he said, as though the words should mean something to me. “No questions. You will follow his orders. You’ll answer to no one but him.”
I felt a chill run down my spine. “Moretti? Who the hell is he?”
“No questions,” the man repeated, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. “Effective immediately. His security will be in touch.”
The man didn’t wait for me to respond. He turned and walked away as quickly as he had arrived, leaving me standing there with nothing but a nameless envelope and the overwhelming sense that something had just shifted — something I had no control over.
I went into my apartment, still holding the envelope in my hand, my mind racing. I’d heard the name before. Moretti. It wasn’t exactly common in Florence. And suddenly, the pieces were starting to fall into place.
I wasn’t just his doctor. I wasn’t just responsible for his health. No. This was bigger. It was a warning. And I was trapped in the middle of something I couldn’t even begin to understand.
I dropped the envelope on the kitchen counter and checked the locks on the door, feeling the weight of his eyes still on me, despite the fact that he was miles away.
It wasn’t until later that night, after I’d crawled into bed and tried to forget everything, that I realized I wasn’t alone. The apartment was quiet, but it wasn’t empty.
Someone had been here.
The realization hit me like a punch to the gut.
They were watching me.
And it was his people.
Adrian Moretti.
The moment my heart skipped, I knew — I was in deeper than I’d ever intended to be.
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