Chapter 4 - THE GHOSTS OF SAINT JUDE MEMORIALThe name Saint Jude Memorial hit my ears like a physical blow.
Two years ago, Saint Jude was supposed to be my fresh start—a high-profile trauma center where I was head nurse of the emergency wing. Then came the night of the blackout. The night a senator's son died on my operating table because the oxygen tanks were empty. The night the hospital board pinned the negligence entirely on me, revoked my license, and buried me under half a million dollars in fraudulent lawsuits.
"Agent Vance didn't buy the hospital to run it," Matteo said, walking slowly toward me, his voice dangerously soft. "He bought it to wipe the records. Because three years ago, your hospital was laundering money for a black-ops federal task force using pharmaceutical supply chains."
I shook my head, backing up until my spine hit the cold stone wall. "No. That's impossible. I was just a nurse. I worked seventy-hour weeks. I saved lives!"
"You saved too many lives," Matteo corrected, stepping closer until I could feel the heat radiating from him. "You caught a discrepancy in the narcotics log—a signature that didn't match. You filed a quiet internal report. Do you remember who signed off on suppressing it?"
A memory flickered violently in the dark corners of my mind. A crisp, expensive suit. A cold handshake. A man with sharp gray eyes who told me to drop it for the good of the institution.
Agent Thomas Vance. Julian's brother.
"He destroyed me," I breathed, tears hot and blinding in my eyes. "He took my career, my home, my reputation..."
"And then he tracked you down when you crawled out of the gutter," Matteo finished, his hand finally reaching out, his fingers calloused and firm as they gripped my shoulder. "He realized you wouldn't stay quiet forever. So he engineered a scenario where you'd have to run. He pushed you right to my front door, hoping you'd either fail to save my son and get executed by my guards, or succeed and become his ultimate inside asset."
The room spun. Every single puzzle piece clicked into place with horrifying precision. The locked doors, the sudden appearance of the security chief, the way I was watched—I wasn't just a nanny. I was a Trojan horse.
"And you?" I choked out, looking up into his dark, unreadable eyes. "If you knew all of this... why did you keep me here?"
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Matteo’s thumb brushed lightly across my cheek, wiping away a tear I hadn't realized had fallen.
"Because," he murmured, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper, "I wanted to see whose trap would snap first."
