Chapter 4 - The Platinum Promise
For two days, Clara did not leave the mansion.
She slept on a leather sofa in the corner of Victor’s medical suite.
She changed his dressings, monitored his vitals, and forced him to drink water when he stubbornly refused.
On the third morning, Victor finally sat up on his own.
The fever had broken completely.
The color had returned to his face, making him look even more intimidating.
He was bare-chested, his powerful torso wrapped in white bandages that Clara had meticulously applied.
Clara was sitting by the window, reading a medical journal she had found in the library.
"You left this," Victor said.
His voice was clear, deep, and steady.
Clara looked up.
Victor tossed something across the room.
Clara caught it perfectly in her right hand.
It was the platinum Patek Philippe watch.
"I didn't leave it," Clara said calmly.
"You left it in my apartment, and your men took it when they packed up my things."
"I don't want it."
Victor tilted his head, studying her with an intense, unnerving focus.
"It is worth eighty thousand dollars."
"It is payment for saving my life."
Clara stood up and walked over to his bed.
She placed the heavy watch on his bedside table.
"My fee was a hundred dollars."
"You already paid me."
"I don't take money I didn't earn, and I don't accept gifts from men in your line of work."
Victor leaned back against the pillows, crossing his arms over his chest.
No one spoke to him like that.
Not his enemies, and certainly not his employees.
"You lost your license because a senior surgeon botched a procedure and blamed you."
Victor stated it as a fact, not a question.
"I know everything about you, Clara Hayes."
"I know you live in a slum, I know you patch up junkies for pennies, and I know you are better than any doctor in my network."
Clara’s eyes flared with a sudden, rare anger.
"If you know everything about me, then you know I want to go home."
Victor’s expression hardened.
"You can't."
"The Colombians know someone saved me."
"If you go back to the Narrows, they will torture you to death to get to me."
He reached out and wrapped his large, calloused hand gently around her wrist.
"You belong to the Syndicate now."
"You are my personal physician."
Clara looked down at his hand, feeling the immense, coiled power beneath his skin.
"I am not a prisoner," she warned him.
"No," Victor agreed smoothly, his thumb brushing over her pulse point.
May you like
"You are a protected asset."
"And I protect what is mine."
