Chapter 1 - The Night I Saved the Devil
A wounded man grabbed my hand on a marble table and whispered:
"Don't let me die."
When Chicago crime boss Adrien Russo was brought into the penthouse, he found a terrified nurse holding a stolen trauma kit and a broken scalpel.
But carved into the handle were four tiny letters:
"R.H."
Adrien suddenly realized this wasn't a random rescue.
The first thing I noticed about Adrien Russo was not his reputation.
It was the amount of blood.
It covered the Italian marble floor beneath the dining table. It soaked through the white fabric of his expensive shirt. It dripped from his fingers as he tried to hold himself upright.
For a moment, I forgot everything I had heard about him.
I forgot the rumors.
I forgot the whispered conversations in the hospital hallways.
I forgot that people said Adrien Russo was the kind of man who could destroy someone’s life with a single phone call.
All I saw was a man who was dying.
My name was Helena Jenkins.
Three years earlier, I had been a normal trauma nurse at Cook County General Hospital. I had spent countless nights under fluorescent lights, listening to machines beep and watching strangers fight for their lives.
I knew blood.
I knew panic.
I knew how to keep my hands steady when everyone else was shaking.
But nothing prepared me for that night.
Nothing prepared me for being taken from the hospital parking garage at 2:00 a.m. by men with guns.
Nothing prepared me for waking up inside a luxury penthouse with a dying mafia boss staring directly into my eyes.
"Fix him," the large man standing behind me ordered.
His name was Mateo.
I would learn later that he was Adrien’s closest enforcer.
At that moment, he was just the man pointing a gun at Dr. Harrison Hayes’s head.
The same doctor who had dragged me into this nightmare.
"Helena," Hayes whispered, his voice trembling. "Please."
I looked at him.
Then I looked at Adrien.
The man on the table was barely conscious.
His breathing was uneven.
His skin was pale.
Two bullets had entered his upper chest during an assassination attempt.
I should have been afraid.
I was afraid.
But my brother Toby’s face appeared in my mind.
The hospital bills.
The treatments.
The impossible amount of money I needed to keep him alive.
Three hours earlier, Dr. Hayes had grabbed my arm in the hospital break room.
He looked terrified.
"Your brother’s surgery copay," he had said. "I can make it disappear."
I remembered the desperation in his voice.
I remembered thinking something was wrong.
Then I remembered Toby lying in that hospital bed.
That was how I ended up there.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I was running out of choices.
I opened the emergency trauma kit.
My hands shook for half a second.
Then they stopped.
"Move," I told Hayes.
He looked at me.
"What?"
"You heard me."
For the first time that night, everyone in the room became silent.
I pushed past the doctor.
I cut away Adrien’s shirt.
And I saw the damage.
The bullet wounds were serious.
Too serious.
"You need surgery," I said.
Adrien opened his eyes.
They were darker than I expected.
Cold.
Focused.
Like he could see through every lie in the room.
"No anesthesia."
I froze.
"What?"
"No drugs."
"You’re going into shock."
"I need my mind clear."
I stared at him.
"You’re bleeding out."
His hand suddenly closed around my wrist.
The strength surprised me.
Even injured, he was powerful.
"Do it."
I swallowed.
Then I started.
For the next two hours, I worked while armed men watched every movement.
I removed the bullets.
I controlled the bleeding.
I repaired what I could.
And through everything…
Adrien watched me.
He never looked away.
Most patients looked at the ceiling.
They looked for something else.
Anything else.
Adrien looked directly at me.
Like I was the only thing keeping him connected to reality.
"Stay awake," I whispered.
His breathing was rough.
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
Something almost like a smile appeared on his face.
Nobody spoke to him that way.
Not his men.
Not his enemies.
Nobody.
When I finally finished, my entire body felt empty.
I stepped away from the table.
The adrenaline disappeared.
My knees almost gave out.
Mateo placed an envelope filled with cash on the counter.
"Take it."
I stared at the money.
"I don't want it."
His expression changed.
Everyone in that room expected fear.
They expected obedience.
But I was too tired to pretend.
"I just want to go home."
I turned around.
I almost reached the elevator.
Then I heard his voice.
Weak.
Different.
Not the voice of a powerful man.
The voice of someone who was afraid.
"Wait."
I stopped.
Adrien was trying to sit up.
I rushed back.
"You’re going to tear your stitches."
I pushed him down gently.
And then something strange happened.
The moment my hand touched his shoulder…
He stopped shaking.
His breathing slowed.
The tension disappeared from his body.
The heart monitor beside him changed.
The frantic beeping became steady.
Adrien looked at my hand.
Then he looked at me.
"I haven't slept in eight months."
I frowned.
"You need rest."
"No."
His eyes stayed on mine.
"Every time I close my eyes, I see my father burning."
The room became quiet.
"I hear the explosion."
His voice dropped.
"I hear him screaming."
For the first time, I saw something beneath the reputation.
Not a monster.
A wounded man.
"I haven't slept," he whispered, "until you touched me."
I pulled my hand away.
"That’s trauma."
"No."
He grabbed my wrist again.
Not violently.
Desperately.
"It’s you."
I didn’t know what to say.
Then he made the offer that changed my life.
"I will wire fifty thousand dollars into your account every week."
I stared at him.
"No."
"No questions."
I said nothing.
"No sex."
My eyes narrowed.
"You’re serious?"
"You just lie beside me until the sun comes up."
I thought he was hallucinating.
I thought blood loss had finally taken him.
But the next morning, while sitting beside Toby’s hospital bed, my phone received a notification.
A deposit.
Fifty thousand dollars.
My hands went cold.
The money came from a company I didn’t recognize.
But I knew exactly who sent it.
The devil had kept his promise.
May you like
And somehow…
I had agreed to stay beside him.
