Nyra
You ever have that feeling — the slow crawl of realization, like frost creeping up a windowpane?
That was me.
Standing outside Room 415 in St. Jude’s private ICU, reading a name that hadn’t been there yesterday. A name that meant absolutely nothing to most people but felt like thunder to anyone who watched international news or whispered about men who controlled things from behind velvet curtains.
Adrian Moretti.
I’d saved him?
Of all the dying men Florence could have thrown into my ER, fate handed me the heir to the Moretti crime empire. Poisoned, no less. Betrayed. And now, lying in a hospital bed under my care with his life tangled in my hands.
The corridor suddenly felt too quiet. Too narrow.
I pushed open the door and stepped in.
He was sitting up now. Pale, but not fragile. His body was lean but laced with coiled strength, like a panther at rest. I noticed how his fingers gripped the edge of the blanket — like they didn’t trust softness. His eyes, sharp as cut obsidian, lifted to mine.
And in that instant — I froze.
Because those weren’t the eyes of a man recovering from organ failure.
They were the eyes of someone who saw too much. Who missed nothing.
“Dr. Kapoor,” he said smoothly, like he already knew the name. “Or do you prefer Nyra?”
That voice.
Low. Precise. Cool like water trickling down marble.
I should have corrected him. Drawn a professional line in the sand. But the sound of my name in his mouth scattered every rational thought like a gust of wind through loose papers.
“Doctor is fine,” I said, finally.
He tilted his head slightly. “You look tired.”
“You almost died.”
“And you look tired,” he repeated, lips twitching in amusement. “What a trade.”
I cleared my throat and walked to the monitor. “Your blood pressure’s stabilizing. Liver function is still a concern, but you’re responding better than expected.”
He watched me the whole time I worked. Not just watched — studied. Like I was a puzzle he’d already halfway solved.
“I was poisoned,” he said finally.
I hesitated. “Yes.”
“No one told me that. I just assumed. The nausea, the cardiac episode, the pain in my liver — it wasn’t random.”
“I can’t speak to the details,” I said.
“I think you can.”
There was no threat in his tone. Just certainty. And somehow, that made it worse.
“I think,” I said tightly, “you need rest.”
I turned to leave, but his voice stopped me.
“Why did you save me, Dr. Kapoor?”
That made me pause. My hand on the doorframe. My heart — annoyingly loud in my chest.
Why did I?
Because I took an oath?
Because I couldn’t let a man die alone, nameless, bleeding from the inside?
Because... he was beautiful even in agony?
I looked back at him. “Because it’s my job.”
He smiled then — a slow, sardonic curve of his lips.
“I think it was more than that.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I just walked out, pulse skipping, mind racing.
And then, just as I reached the end of the hall, a man in a dark suit stepped in front of me. No name tag. No clipboard. But his shoes were more expensive than my rent.
“You’re to continue as Mr. Moretti’s personal physician,” he said.
“I have other patients,” I snapped.
He didn’t blink. “Not anymore. You’ll be compensated.”
“And if I say no?”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “That would be... unwise.”
I stared at him. “Is that a threat?”
“No,” he said smoothly. “It’s a courtesy.”
And then he walked away.
By the time I got home that night, my hands were still shaking. I went straight to my closet and pulled out my backup phone — the one I’d kept off-grid since moving to Florence. Kabir had insisted I carry it “just in case the mafia tries to adopt you.”
I’d laughed.
I wasn’t laughing now.
And when I sat down on the couch to collect my thoughts — I noticed it.
The vent above my kitchen counter was slightly ajar.
I climbed up on a chair, pulled it open.
Inside, nestled between the duct and the slats, was a tiny black box with a red blink.
They’d bugged my apartment.
Adrian
Waking up had been like dragging myself from a frozen sea.
Consciousness came in slow fragments — pain first, then light, then her face.
I knew immediately she wasn’t one of them.
Too soft. Too sharp. Too human.
Her voice was calm, but her hands? They trembled, just a little.
It amused me.
She was trying not to care. And failing.
Now, I sat in the clean, white quiet of the hospital while the world spun in chaos outside, watching her try to pretend I was just another patient.
“Dr. Kapoor,” I said.
She flinched like I’d reached into her chest and touched something raw.
She was beautiful, in a way that made you stare twice. Not the kind of beauty that smiled for cameras — the kind that had edges. Depth. She looked like she’d survived things no one had asked her about.
I wanted to know what they were.
When I asked why she saved me, she gave the expected answer.
“It’s my job.”
Bullshit.
There was a moment in that OR — I remember the pressure in my chest, the taste of blood at the back of my throat, the fading light — and I remember her.
She didn’t move like someone doing a job.
She moved like someone fighting the inevitable.
And I’ve seen enough people die to know what that means.
She saw me, even then. A stranger. A threat. And still, she fought to keep me alive.
I made a note of that.
Later, when she left, Matteo stepped in.
“She’s smart,” I said.
“Too smart,” he replied.
“Keep an eye on her,” I ordered. “But don’t interfere. Not unless you have to.”
He nodded.
I laid back against the pillows and closed my eyes.
Nyra Kapoor.
She had no idea what she’d done — saving me.
But she’d made herself part of my world now.
And there’s no leaving it.
Nyra
It didn’t stop.
The next day, Room 415 became a fortress.
Two men outside the door. The glass turned opaque. Cameras unplugged.
And inside, Adrian Moretti sat like a king in exile — bruised, bandaged, and still impossibly composed.
He didn’t flirt.
He didn’t smirk.
He just watched.
And every time our eyes met, it felt like something old and dangerous had stirred awake.
I told myself it was nothing.
I told myself I was being stupid.
But I also kept dreaming about the way he’d said my name.
That night, Kabir called.
“Hey, Kapoor. You alive or did Florence finally chew you up?”
I hesitated. “I’m fine.”
“You sound... weird. Not like tired weird. Like ‘I’ve seen some shit’ weird.”
“Maybe I have.”
“Don’t make me fly out there. I swear to God—”
“I’m fine,” I repeated.
A lie.
Because nothing was fine anymore.
The man I’d saved wasn’t just a patient.
He was Adrian Moretti.
And I wasn’t just his doctor now.
I was a piece on a board I hadn’t agreed to play on.
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