Chapter 1 - The Fifth Nurse Never Left the Mansion, and the Man Holding the Gun Knew Where She Was Buried
The first stitch I cut revealed something that should never have been inside Gabriel’s body, and seconds later, a man with a silenced pistol appeared in the doorway. But the most terrifying part wasn’t the gun or the metal capsule buried beneath Gabriel’s skin. It was what he whispered when he finally opened his eyes: “Ask Lucas what happened to the fifth nurse.”
“Vincent?” Lucas repeated beside me, his voice suddenly tight.
Gabriel’s eyes drifted shut again. His breathing turned ragged, each breath scraping from his chest as if his body were fighting a battle none of us could see.
I forced myself to focus on the second incision along his back. The skin around it was swollen and burning hot beneath my fingertips, but when I gently pressed near the stitches, I felt something that made my stomach tighten.
It wasn’t soft like infected tissue.
It was hard. Narrow. Artificial.
“I need scissors,” I said.
Lucas immediately handed them to me, but I noticed his fingers trembling. I didn’t have time to ask why.
The moment I cut the first stitch, Gabriel jerked so violently that I nearly dropped the scissors. His body twisted against the bed, and a strangled groan escaped his throat.
“Hold him.”
Lucas stared at me. “I thought nobody was supposed to touch his back.”
“Tonight we’re breaking traditions.”
He moved beside Gabriel and carefully pinned his shoulders while I separated the edges of the incision. Blood immediately welled between the stitches, warm and dark against my gloves.
I expected pus. Damaged tissue. Maybe some kind of surgical complication.
Instead, something beneath the blood caught the light.
Metal.
For a second, I forgot how to breathe. I leaned closer, convinced exhaustion was playing tricks on me, but the tiny metallic object was unmistakably real.
“What is that?” Lucas whispered.
“I don’t know.”
Using forceps, I reached carefully into the incision. Gabriel groaned beneath Lucas’s hands as I gripped the object and slowly pulled it free.
A tiny capsule landed in my palm.
It was barely larger than a grain of rice.
Lucas stared at it as if I’d just pulled a bullet from Gabriel’s spine. “What the hell is that?”
“I said I don’t know.”
But fear had already begun crawling through me because someone had deliberately placed it there. Whatever was happening to Gabriel suddenly felt much bigger than an infected wound.
Then I heard a click behind us.
It was quiet, almost delicate.
I knew exactly what it meant.
Lucas and I froze.
I slowly turned toward the doorway and saw Vincent Carter standing there. His suit was immaculate despite the late hour, his expression almost unnervingly calm.
In his hand was a suppressed pistol.
“You should’ve left when security warned you,” Vincent said.
Lucas’s hand moved toward his jacket.
“Don’t.”
Vincent raised the pistol slightly. “You’ll be dead before you touch it.”
My pulse hammered so violently that I could hear it. Behind me, Gabriel whispered something I couldn’t understand.
Vincent’s mouth curved into a cold smile.
“You were always stubborn, cousin.”
Then Gabriel’s fingers suddenly closed around my hand.
I looked down.
His eyes were open.
The confusion was gone. So was the delirium.
Gabriel was completely awake.
“Ask him,” he murmured.
I leaned closer. “Ask him what?”
His grip tightened around my fingers.
“Who hired the nurse before you.”
Vincent’s smile disappeared.
I slowly turned toward Lucas, expecting confusion, but what I saw frightened me more than Vincent’s gun.
Lucas had gone completely pale.
That was when the memory hit me.
There had been five nurses before me.
Everyone said the fifth nurse had fled after becoming frightened by what was happening inside this house.
But she hadn’t fled.
She had disappeared.
And Lucas had been the last person anyone saw with her.
Vincent ordered me to put the capsule down.
I kept my fist closed.
It was the only decision I could make.
If he wanted it badly enough to kill us, I needed to know why.
“Put it on the tray,” he said.
I glanced at Gabriel.
His eyes were open again.
He moved two fingers beneath the blanket.
Toward the red alarm button.
I leaned against the bed, hiding his hand.
“Are you going to shoot a nurse?” I asked.
Vincent tilted his head.
“That depends on the nurse.”
My name was Evelyn Hayes.
I was thirty-one.
I had worked in emergency rooms for eight years.
I knew what blood loss looked like.
I knew what fear did to people.
And I knew Vincent wasn't bluffing.
“Then tell me what it is,” I said.
He stepped forward.
Lucas moved between us.
“You promised nobody else would get hurt.”
Vincent laughed without warmth.
“That's what you remember?”
The monitor began to chirp.
Gabriel's pulse climbed.
I watched his thumb find the button.
One press.
A bell rang somewhere beyond the door.
Vincent turned toward the sound.
Lucas slammed the medicine cart into his knees.
The pistol struck the floor.
I dragged Gabriel's blanket across his chest.
Vincent crashed against the doorframe.
A guard shouted from the hallway.
Lucas seized my wrist.
“Move!”
“I can't leave him.”
“Then help me move the bed.”
We rolled Gabriel toward the service elevator.
The wheels snagged on a rug.
I tore it away.
Behind us, Vincent was shouting orders.
The elevator doors opened.
A woman in a gray housekeeping uniform stood inside.
She looked at my bloody gloves.
Then at the capsule in my hand.
Her face changed.
“Where did you get that?” she whispered.
“From his wound.”
She reached into her apron.
I braced for another weapon.
Instead, she showed me a photograph.
Five nurses stood outside the mansion.
The woman at the end wore my uniform.
Someone had scratched out her face.
May you like
“I am Nurse Five,” the housekeeper said.
And the elevator doors closed.
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