Chapter 1 - THE BLINDS
Six nurses had quit in five weeks, and one of them had left the mansion sobbing so hard she forgot her coat.
By the time I arrived, everyone expected me to run too—but I needed the money badly enough to face a ruthless mafia boss, and before the week was over, I would do the one thing he had forbidden every nurse from doing.
The town car smelled like leather and stale cigarettes as it carried me beyond Chicago into miles of dark evergreens.
My hands rested against my worn scrubs while I thought about the final notice on my kitchen counter and my younger brother Tommy lying ninety pounds thin in a hospital bed.
His leukemia had stopped responding to standard treatment.
The experimental trial that might save him cost more than I could earn in three lifetimes.
Then an anonymous caller offered me $10,000 a week in cash.
The rules were simple:
Live on the estate.
Carry no phone.
Ask no questions about my patient’s injuries.
Ignore the armed men guarding the property.
I said yes.
A man named Leo met me outside the stone mansion.
“Your predecessor lasted two days,” he said as he led me upstairs. “The nurse before her lasted a shift and a half.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
Leo stopped outside a pair of heavy doors.
“Liam Mercer hates being helpless. He’ll insult you, refuse medication, throw things.”
Then his voice lowered.
“Do your job. Don’t try to fix him. Don’t talk back.”
He paused.
“And never touch the blinds.”
“Why?”
“He wants the room dark.”
I shifted my cheap duffel higher on my shoulder.
“As long as Friday still means ten thousand dollars, he can growl all he wants.”
Leo opened the doors.
The room smelled of iodine, sweat, and infected flesh.
From the darkness came a voice rough enough to scrape skin.
“Tell her to leave.”
Leo looked at me once, then shut the door behind him.
I switched on a lamp.
A glass exploded against the wall beside my head.
“Turn that light off.”
“No.”
His icy blue eyes narrowed.
“I need to inspect your wound.”
“Get out.”
I washed my hands instead.
“From the smell, you’re developing an infection. So unless dying dramatically is part of your schedule, I’m changing that dressing.”
When I peeled the gauze back, the skin beneath it was angry red and beginning to break down.
Liam grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t touch me.”
“You’re cutting off circulation.”
His grip tightened.
“I said don’t.”
I met his stare.
“If I leave that tissue untreated, bacteria enter your bloodstream and you die.”
I leaned closer.
“And I need you alive until Friday.”
Something shifted in his expression.
Slowly, he released me.
I cleaned the wound, checked the antibiotic order, inspected every pin in his leg, and sat in the corner with a paperback.
“Turn the light off.”
“When I finish the chapter.”
For the first time in five weeks, nobody ran from Liam Mercer’s room.
By day four, he had stopped throwing things.
Instead, he punished me with silence.
“Pain from one to ten?” I asked, holding his prescribed medication.
Nothing.
I stared at him.
“Fine. You can be stubborn in pain.”
His jaw flexed, but he still refused to answer.
That afternoon, I noticed something I had missed before.
Every time sunlight slipped through the tiny gap between the curtains, Liam turned his face toward it.
Not away.
Toward it.
I looked at the sealed blinds.
Then at him.
“Don’t,” he said quietly.
It was the first word he had spoken to me in hours.
My hand closed around the cord anyway.
Then I pulled.
Sunlight flooded the room.
Liam cursed and lifted one hand over his eyes.
Not because the light hurt him.
Because for the first time since I arrived, the room revealed everything darkness had been hiding.
The deep bruising along his ribs.
The exhausted grayness of his face.
The weight he had lost.
And something on the inside of his upper arm.
A perfect pale square.
Four centimeters wide.
The unmistakable outline of an adhesive medication patch that had recently been removed.
I froze.
“Liam.”
“What?”
“Who put a patch on your arm?”
His hand dropped.
“What patch?”
I moved closer.
“Here.”
I pointed.
He looked down.
His expression changed.
“I don’t use medication patches.”
My pulse accelerated.
“You’re sure?”
His stare sharpened.
“I know what goes on my own body.”
I thought of the medication administration record.
Oral pain medication.
Antibiotics.
Anticoagulation.
A sleep medication as needed.
Nothing transdermal.
I went directly to the wastebasket beside his bed.
Tissues.
Gauze wrappers.
Disposable gloves.
Then, caught beneath a folded newspaper, a thin foil backing.
I did not touch it with bare hands.
I pulled on gloves and lifted it.
The printed label had been torn across the middle.
Enough remained to show one thing.
A prescription number.
And initials that did not belong to Liam.
J.M.
“Leo!”
The door opened almost immediately.
His hand went beneath his jacket.
“What happened?”
“Stop reaching for a gun and get me a specimen bag.”
He blinked.
Liam almost smiled.
Leo brought one.
I sealed the backing inside.
Then checked Liam’s arm again.
“How long have you been this tired?”
“Since the hospital.”
“Worse lately?”
“Yes.”
“Dizzy?”
“Sometimes.”
“Confused?”
His face hardened.
“People keep telling me I am.”
That answer stopped me.
“Who?”
“My doctor.”
“Family.”
“The board.”
“What board?”
He looked away.
“Nothing.”
I stared.
“No.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“You don’t get to say nothing after I find an undocumented medication stuck to your body.”
Leo closed the door.
Then said:
“There’s a board vote Monday.”
Liam’s jaw tightened.
I turned.
“Vote for what?”
Leo answered reluctantly.
“Temporary executive authority.”
“To whom?”
Silence.
Liam finally spoke.
“My cousin Julian.”
“Why?”
“Because apparently I’m not recovering fast enough to remain in control.”
My stomach went cold.
“How long have they been discussing this?”
“Three weeks.”
Exactly when Liam said the dizziness had worsened.
I looked at the foil backing.
Then at him.
“This doesn’t prove anybody is drugging you.”
“I know.”
“But it proves something was administered that isn’t on my chart.”
“Yes.”
“And until we identify it, nobody gives you anything that hasn’t been reconciled against an independent pharmacy record.”
Leo frowned.
“Independent?”
I looked directly at him.
“Not his regular doctor.”
That was when Liam said:
“Why?”
I turned.
He was staring at me strangely.
“Why what?”
“Why not Dr. Kline?”
I paused.
“Because he wrote the medication orders I’m questioning.”
The room became silent.
Then Liam looked at Leo.
“Call Mira Shah.”
Leo’s expression shifted.
“Your old trauma consultant?”
“She never worked for the family.”
Good.
Then Liam looked at me.
“For four days, you’ve been the only person in this house who didn’t treat me like I was already incompetent.”
I held up the sealed evidence bag.
“Don’t make me regret it.”
He smiled for real.
Barely.
Then his expression vanished as footsteps sounded outside.
The door opened.
A man in an expensive navy suit stood there.
Thirty-eight.
Dark hair.
Same blue eyes as Liam.
He looked first at the open blinds.
Then at the evidence bag in my hand.
His face changed.
Just for a fraction of a second.
But I saw it.
Liam saw it too.
The man recovered quickly.
“What happened?”
Leo answered.
“Nothing yet.”
Liam watched him.
Then introduced us.
“Nora Bennett, meet my cousin.”
He paused.
“The man who gets control of everything if a doctor decides I can’t make my own decisions.”
Julian Mercer smiled at me.
It never reached his eyes.
May you like
And that was when I understood the forbidden blinds had not hidden Liam from the world.
They had hidden what the world was doing to Liam.
