The fluorescent lights hummed faintly above, sterile and cold, their white glow settling over the room like a veil. Matteo DeLuca sat shirtless on the examination bed, blood drying around the gunshot wound carved into his side. His tailored suit jacket lay discarded over the chair, silk ruined, the crimson stain crawling through the fabric. He didn’t flinch, didn’t grimace. Pain was an old friend to him, one that visited often and never overstayed its welcome.

The door creaked open. She walked in. White coat. Hair pulled back neatly. Steady, unbothered eyes that swept over him as though he were nothing more than another case file. The kind of gaze he was used to commanding submission with—except hers barely lingered before sliding past him to the computer.

She sat. Fingers flew across the keyboard. The soft clacking was the only sound for a moment. Matteo arched a brow, waiting for her to acknowledge him properly. She didn’t.

Instead, without so much as glancing up, she asked, “Smoke?”

The question landed sharper than expected. Her tone wasn’t sweet. Not even politely professional. It was clipped, efficient—bordering on disdain.

His lips twitched, the ghost of amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah.”

That made her pause. Not long. Just long enough for Matteo to catch the faint wrinkle of her nose, a quick flicker of disapproval she didn’t bother to mask. She kept typing, expression smooth again, but he’d seen it. He saw everything.

And then—before he even knew why—the words slipped from him, uncalculated and raw. “I’m quitting.”

The room went still.

He blinked, almost as if realizing too late what had left his mouth. Matteo DeLuca didn’t explain himself. Didn’t answer to anyone. And yet, here he was, offering a promise to a stranger who hadn’t asked for one. He wasn’t sure if it was the sterile lights or the way she didn’t look at him like every other woman did—with awe, fear, or hunger—but something had pushed the words past his defenses.

Her typing slowed, just slightly. She glanced up at him for the first time, brows faintly raised, her gaze steady and unimpressed. “Good,” she said simply, like she didn’t know—or didn’t care—who he was. Then she turned back to the screen, dismissing him like smoke dissipating into the air.

For a man like Matteo, silence was a weapon, and so was attention. People fought for both from him. Yet here she was, doling them out like scraps, and he realized—strangely, frustratingly—that he wanted more.

The sharp scent of antiseptic filled the room as she stood and tugged on gloves. “Lie back,” she instructed briskly. “We’ll need to clean the wound before I take out the bullet.”

Matteo reclined slowly, his dark eyes never leaving her. The surgeon. Efficient. Detached. Not once did her expression flicker in recognition of his name, his reputation. Not once did she hesitate. She didn’t ask how it happened. She didn’t ask who he was. She didn’t even ask if he could handle the pain without anesthesia. She just worked.

And Matteo found himself, for the first time in years, unsettled. Because in her presence, for reasons he couldn’t explain, he felt like a man—not a don, not a monster, not a name that silenced rooms. Just a man with a wound, and a doctor who seemed to care less who he was than whether the sutures were precise.

He told himself he wouldn’t see her again. He told himself she’d be a passing shadow, just another pair of hands that had stitched him back together. But deep down, Matteo DeLuca knew better. Men like him didn’t make promises, especially not to themselves. And yet, even as she pressed gauze against his wound, his words echoed in his head—sharp, final, confusing.

I’m quitting.