No Nurse Lasted a Week with the Ruthless Mafia Boss — Until the Poor Nurse Broke the Rules
The Record at Obsidian Tower
Five nurses in five days—that was the record at the Obsidian Tower. They didn’t leave because of the long hours, and they didn’t quit because of the pay, which was triple the industry standard.
They ran because of him. Dante Moretti was a man with a bullet wound in his side and ice in his veins.
They called him the devil of Chicago, a man who chewed up the weak and spat them out. But they didn’t know Violet Sterling.
They didn’t know that a woman with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous creature on earth. She didn’t just walk into the lion’s den to change his bandages; she walked in to break every single rule he ever made.
And when the secrets of that penthouse finally come out, you won’t believe who was actually pulling the strings. Rain lashed against the cracked window of the tiny studio apartment in the South Side of Chicago.
Inside, the air smelled of stale coffee and impending doom. Violet Sterling sat at her chipped laminate table, staring at the bank notification on her phone screen.
Balance: twelve dollars and forty cents. She rubbed her temples, the headache that had been lurking there for three days finally blooming into full-blown agony.
On the counter lay a stack of medical bills, each envelope stamped with the terrifying red ink of “final notice.” They weren’t for her; they were for Toby, her younger brother, whose cystic fibrosis treatments were bleeding them dry.
An Offer from the Gold Coast
The insurance from her agency shifts had capped out two weeks ago. Violet was twenty-six, but tonight she felt eighty.
She was a trauma nurse by trade, one of the best at St. Jude’s before the budget cuts. But lately, she was just a woman drowning in debt.
Her phone buzzed. It was a private number.
Usually, she wouldn’t answer; it was likely a debt collector named Gary who liked to call at dinnertime. But something in her gut, a cold sharp instinct, told her to pick up.
“Violet Sterling?”
The voice was male, smooth, and clipped. It sounded like a suit speaking.
“Speaking,”
she said, her voice raspy from exhaustion.
“This is Arthur Vance, representing a private client in the Gold Coast district. Your agency, Med Staff Pro, listed you as a specialist in acute trauma and difficult patients.”
Violet frowned.
“I’m not on the active roster for private home care, Mr. Vance. I do ER rotations.”
“We know,”
Vance said.
“We also know about the outstanding balance at Chicago Children’s Hospital for Tobias Sterling: $34,000.”
Violet’s grip on the phone tightened until her knuckles turned white.
“Who is this? Is this a collection agency?”
“No, Miss Sterling. This is a job offer: a live-in position, seven days, $50,000 cash, tax-free.”
The room went silent. The only sound was the refrigerator humming and the rain hitting the glass.
$50,000—that would clear Toby’s debt and pay rent for a year. It was a lifeline thrown to a drowning woman.
“What’s the catch?”
Violet asked, her nursing instincts kicking in.
“Nobody pays fifty grand for a week of nursing unless the patient is radioactive or worse.”
“The patient is recovering from surgery,”
Vance said, his tone carefully neutral.
“He is particular. We have gone through five nurses since Monday.”
“Five nurses?”
Violet asked.
“In one week? Did he fire them?”
“Two resigned in tears. One threatened a lawsuit. The other two simply ran out of the building and left their coats behind.”
Violet looked at the bills on the table. She looked at the photo of Toby on the fridge, smiling despite the oxygen tube in his nose.
“When do I start?”
“A car is outside your building now. A black Mercedes Maybach. You have five minutes.”
Inside the Monolith
Violet didn’t pack clothes; she packed her scrubs, her stethoscope, and her pride. She walked out into the rain, leaving the crumbling apartment behind, unaware she was stepping out of poverty and straight into the line of fire.
The car ride was silent. The driver, a man with a neck as thick as a tree trunk and a scar running through his eyebrow, didn’t say a word.
He drove her to the Obsidian Tower, the tallest, darkest residential spire in the city. It was a monolith of black glass and steel that looked down on Chicago like a judgment.
They bypassed the lobby. The driver used a key card on a private elevator that had no buttons, only a retinal scanner.
As they ascended, Violet’s ears popped. The elevator doors slid open directly into a penthouse that was larger than her entire apartment building.
It was stark, modern, and freezing. The floor was polished marble, the furniture was Italian leather, and the view of the city was breathtaking.
But the air was thick with tension. Men in dark suits stood at key points in the room—security, obviously, but heavily armed.
She spotted the distinct outline of shoulder holsters under their jackets. Arthur Vance was waiting for her.
He was older than he sounded on the phone, with silver hair and eyes that assessed her worth in seconds.
“Miss Sterling. Punctual. Good.”
“Where is the patient?”
Violet asked, skipping the pleasantries.
“Down the hall, master bedroom. His name is Dante Moretti. You are to address him as Mr. Moretti.”
“You do not speak unless spoken to. You do not ask personal questions.”
“You administer the antibiotics and pain management, change the dressings, and ensure he doesn’t tear his sutures.”
“If you see or hear anything regarding his business dealings, you forget it immediately. Sign this.”
He shoved a non-disclosure agreement toward her. Violet scanned it; the penalty for leaking information was more money than she would make in ten lifetimes.
She signed it without hesitation.
“One warning,”
Vance said, lowering his voice.
“He is in a foul mood. He hates doctors, he hates hospitals, and right now he hates everyone. Do not take it personally; just do the job.”
Meeting the Devil
Violet nodded, took a deep breath, and walked down the long, dimly lit hallway. The master bedroom smelled of rubbing alcohol, iron, and expensive whiskey.
The curtains were drawn, leaving the room in shadows. In the center of the room lay a king-sized bed with black silk sheets.
A man was lying there, propped up by pillows, his chest bare and heavily bandaged. Even in the dim light, Violet could see he was physically imposing: broad shoulders, defined muscle, and a landscape of old scars crossing his skin.
His face was turned toward the window, his sharp jawline clenched tight.
“Get out!”
he growled. His voice was a low rumble, like thunder trapped in a canyon.
Violet didn’t flinch. She walked to the bedside table and set down her medical bag.
“I can’t do that, Mr. Moretti. I haven’t checked your vitals yet.”
Dante Moretti turned his head slowly. His eyes were dark, almost black, and burning with a feverish intensity.
He looked at her not like a person, but like an annoyance—a fly to be swatted.
“I told Vance to stop sending me these incompetent little girls in scrubs. I don’t need a babysitter.”
“I’m not a babysitter,”
Violet said, snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves.
“I’m the person keeping you from going septic. Now, I need to check the drain on that wound.”
She reached for the blanket. Dante’s hand shot out, grabbing her wrist.
His grip was iron-hard despite his injury.
“Do not touch me.”
Violet looked at his hand on her wrist, then up at his eyes.
“Mr. Moretti, your heart rate is elevated, you’re sweating, and based on the pallor of your skin, you’re in significant pain.”
“You can break my wrist if you want, but then you’ll have to explain to Vance why you need a sixth nurse. And honestly, I don’t think you have the patience for another interview.”
Dante stared at her for a second. She thought he was going to throw her out the window.
The silence stretched, heavy and dangerous. Then he released her wrist with a shove.
“You have five minutes. If you hurt me, you’re done.”
A Feverish Standoff
Violet didn’t waste time. She pulled back the sheet.
The wound was on his left side, a jagged, ugly tear that had been stitched up with precision but was clearly agitated. It wasn’t a surgical incision; it was a gunshot wound, graze or through-and-through, she couldn’t tell yet.
The area was red and angry.
“It’s inflamed,”
she stated clinically.
“You’ve been moving too much.”
“I have work to do,”
he muttered, reaching for a glass of amber liquid on the nightstand.
Violet’s hand intercepted the glass before he could touch it. She moved it to the far side of the table, out of his reach.
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
“Give that back.”
“Alcohol thins the blood and interferes with the antibiotics,”
Violet said, pulling a thermometer from her bag.
“You’re bleeding. No scotch.”
“I didn’t ask for your permission,”
Dante snarled. He tried to sit up, wincing as pain shot through his side.
“I said, ‘Give me the drink!'”
“No.”
The word hung in the air. The security guard standing by the door stiffened.
Nobody said no to Dante Moretti. Dante looked at her, truly looked at her, for the first time.
She was small, with messy brown hair tied in a bun and scrubs that had seen better days. But her eyes, hazel and sharp, were steady.
“Do you know who I am?”
he asked, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“I know you’re a patient with a fever of 102 who is acting like a toddler,”
Violet said, popping the thermometer cover.
“Now open your mouth, or I’ll check your temperature the other way. And trust me, you won’t like that.”
The guard by the door actually coughed to cover a gasp. Dante stared at her, stunned.
A flicker of something crossed his face—shock, amusement, rage; it was hard to tell. But slowly, grudgingly, he leaned back against the pillows.
He didn’t open his mouth for the thermometer, but he didn’t reach for the scotch, either.
“Get on with it,”
he spat.
