Dr

Dr. Cole went pale with anger.

Then Gabriel’s eyes opened.

Bloodshot.

Feverish.

Still terrifying.

“Give her scissors,” he whispered.

Cole stared at him.

“Mr. Falcone—”

“Give.”

He coughed.

“Her.”

Another breath.

“The damn scissors.”

Five minutes later, my hands were inside Gabriel Falcone’s shoulder.

I had never attended nursing school.

Never taken anatomy.

Never performed surgery.

But I knew thread.

I grabbed the first black knot with forceps.

Pulled.

Snipped.

A slick length of braided cord slid from the muscle.

Black liquid leaked from it.

Carmine stopped breathing.

I removed another.

Then another.

Six total.

When the last one dropped into the steel basin, the room became so quiet I heard rain ticking against the glass.

Dr. Cole backed away.

“You’ve killed him.”

Carmine drew his pistol.

“Then I guess we’ll find out together.”

Two minutes passed.

Gabriel’s heart monitor slowed.

His breathing deepened.

The gray color in his face began to lift.

The black seepage stopped.

Cole stared at the monitor.

“No.”

Carmine looked at him.

“Oh, yes.”

By midnight, Dr. Cole was gone.

By one in the morning, the six stitches were sealed inside evidence bags.

By sunrise, three private labs were testing them.

And by breakfast, Carmine dropped a stack of hundred-dollar bills on the kitchen counter beside my cold egg sandwich.

I pushed it back.

“I don’t want it.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Most people don’t refuse Falcone money.”

“Most people don’t understand that Falcone money comes with Falcone problems.”

For the first time, he almost smiled.

Then his face changed.

“You think you can go home?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

My hand froze around my coffee cup.

Carmine leaned closer.

“Whoever paid to kill Gabriel will learn he survived.”

I stared at him.

“They’ll learn why.”

The refrigerator hummed behind us.

A housekeeper loaded dishes into the dishwasher like this was a normal Tuesday morning.

Carmine pointed toward the ceiling.

“They’ll come for the person who ruined the assassination.”

My coffee suddenly tasted like metal.

“You mean me.”

“I mean you.”

I looked toward the long hallway.

At the cameras.

At the guards.

At the locked front doors.

Twenty-four hours earlier, I had been worried about my phone bill.

Now somebody might murder me over sewing thread.

That should have been the worst part.

It wasn’t.

Because three days later, Gabriel Falcone asked me to sit down and showed me who had bought the stitches.

And the name belonged to someone he called family.

PART 2: Gabriel paid my debt, then uncovered a surgical assassination

Gabriel was sitting up when Carmine brought me into the library.

No fever.

No delirium.

Just a black sling and the kind of stare that made you understand why grown men lowered their voices around him.

“You’re Sadi,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“The maid.”

“I prefer Sadi.”

His mouth moved slightly.

Fair enough.

He tapped a folder on the desk.

“The laboratory confirmed cadmium, arsenic compounds, and a synthetic necrotizing agent inside the thread.”

I crossed my arms.

“So I was right.”

“You were extremely right.”

He pushed another paper toward me.

It was a debt statement.

Mine.

Balance: zero.

My head snapped up.

“What did you do?”

“Paid it.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“You saved my life.”

“That doesn’t mean you get to buy mine.”

His eyes narrowed.

Not angry.

Interested.

Most people probably thanked Gabriel Falcone before he finished terrifying them.

I wasn’t most people.

“My mother died owing that hospital,” I said. “I was paying it.”

“And now you aren’t.”

“That isn’t your decision.”

“No. Staying alive is.”

He slid another photograph across the desk.

The magnified black stitch.

“You recognized this.”

I leaned closer.