No Nurse Lasted a Week with the Ruthless Mafia Boss — Until the Poor Nurse Broke the Rules
The Ambush at Lower Wacker
She took a step toward him. She didn’t know what she was doing.
She just wanted to touch him, to verify that the ruthless mob boss who threatened to shoot her on Monday was the same man who saved her brother on Friday. She reached out, placing her hand on his uninjured shoulder.
“Thank you.”
Dante went still. He looked at her hand, then up at her lips.
The tension in the room shifted instantly from gratitude to something much hotter. The air felt charged, like the seconds before a lightning strike.
“Be careful, Violet,”
he warned, his voice rough.
“You don’t know who you’re thanking. I’m not a hero.”
“You are to me,”
she whispered.
Dante leaned in. His hand came up to cup the back of her neck, his thumb tracing the pulse point under her jaw.
He pulled her closer. Violet’s breath hitched.
She could feel the heat of his skin, smell the soap and danger that clung to him. Just as their lips were about to touch, the door burst open.
“Boss! We have a problem!”
It was Vance. He stopped dead in the doorway, taking in the scene.
Violet jumped back, her face burning. Dante let out a growl of frustration that shook his chest.
“This better be good, Arthur,”
Dante said, his voice deadly quiet.
“It’s Silas,”
Vance said, looking pale.
“He knows about the girl. He knows about Violet, and he knows she’s going to the hospital.”
Dante’s face hardened into stone. The tenderness vanished instantly.
“How?”
“We have a leak in the transport team. Silas has a hit squad sitting on the I-90 offramp near the hospital. If she goes to see her brother, she’s walking into a kill box.”
Violet gasped.
“I have to go! Toby is going into surgery!”
“No,”
Dante said, swinging his legs out of bed. He stood up, wincing only slightly.
“You can’t go alone.”
“I’m not missing this, Dante! He’s scared. He needs me!”
“I know,”
Dante said. He walked to the walk-in closet and grabbed a Kevlar vest.
He winced as he pulled it on over his bandages, but he didn’t stop. He threw a fresh button-down shirt over it.
“What are you doing?”
Violet asked.
“I’m taking you,”
Dante said, grabbing a heavy trench coat to conceal the vest and his sidearm.
“Vance, ready the armored SUV. We’re taking the Lower Wacker route. Call the tactical team. Nobody touches her.”
“Dante, you can’t leave!”
Violet protested.
“Your stitches—”
He turned to her, grabbing her shoulders. His grip was firm, possessive.
“You kept me alive for five days, Violet. Today I keep you alive. Let’s go.”
The convoy consisted of three black SUVs. Violet and Dante were in the middle vehicle, a custom-built Cadillac Escalade with bulletproof glass an inch thick.
The interior was silent. Dante sat stiffly, scanning the mirrors.
He held a submachine gun, a compact MP5, resting on his lap. It looked terrifyingly natural in his hands.
“Stay down,”
Dante told her as they merged onto the highway.
“Below the window line.”
“This is insane,”
Violet whispered, crouched on the floorboard.
“This is Chicago, not a war zone.”
“In my world there’s no difference,”
Dante muttered. They descended into Lower Wacker Drive, the subterranean labyrinth of streets that ran beneath the city.
It was a place of shadows, pillars, and speeding cars. The GPS signal cut out.
The orange street lights flickered overhead like dying stars.
“Eyes up,”
Dante said into his earpiece.
“Silas knows this route. It’s a choke point.”
As if on cue, a garbage truck pulled out from a service tunnel ahead, blocking both lanes.
“Ambush!”
the driver screamed.
“Reverse!”
Dante roared.
But behind them, a white van slammed into the rear SUV, pinning the convoy. Gunfire erupted instantly.
It was deafening. Bullets hammered against the armored glass of their car, sounding like hail on a tin roof.
Spiderwebs of cracks appeared, but held.
“Get down!”
Dante shouted, pushing Violet’s head lower.
The doors of the garbage truck flew open. Men in ski masks poured out, carrying assault rifles.
“They’re swarming!”
Vance yelled from the front seat.
“We can’t hold them!”
“We’re not staying,”
Dante said. He kicked his door open, using the armored door as a shield.
“Violet, when I say ‘move,’ you run for the service tunnel on the left. Do not stop. Do not look back.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
she screamed over the noise of the gunfire.
“Go!”
Dante fired a burst from his MP5, dropping a man who was rushing their car. He grunted, clutching his side.
The recoil was tearing his wound open. Violet saw the blood seeping through his coat.
“You’re bleeding!”
“Move!”
He grabbed her arm and shoved her out of the car onto the concrete. The noise was overwhelming: screams, tires screeching, and the relentless pop-pop-pop of automatic fire.
The Sewer Standoff
They sprinted toward the service tunnel. Dante moved with a terrifying grace, firing with one hand while shielding Violet with his body.
He took a hit to the shoulder. The Kevlar caught it, but the impact staggered him.
“Dante! Keep moving!”
They reached the heavy steel door of the maintenance tunnel. Dante kicked it open.
They spilled into a damp, dark corridor that smelled of rust and sewage. Dante slammed the door shut and wedged a metal pipe through the handle to barricade it.
He slid down the wall, gasping for air. His face was gray.
Violet fell to her knees beside him.
“Let me see.”
She tore open his coat. The stitches had ripped.
He was bleeding heavily again.
“We need to cauterize this or apply pressure,”
she said, her hands shaking but her mind clear. She ripped the hem of her scrub top to make a compression bandage.
“Leave me,”
Dante wheezed.
“Follow the tunnel. It comes out near the Navy Pier parking garages. You can lose them in the crowd.”
“Shut up,”
Violet said, pressing the cloth hard against his side.
“I didn’t keep you alive all week just to let you die in a sewer.”
Dante looked at her, his eyes hazy with pain.
“Why are you so stubborn?”
“Professional hazard.”
Suddenly, the door behind them buckled—boom! They were using a battering ram.
“They’re coming,”
Dante said. He reloaded his weapon.
“Violet, listen to me. Silas wants me. If they get through, I’ll draw their fire. You run.”
“No!”
A voice echoed from the other end of the corridor. Violet and Dante spun around.
Standing at the far end of the tunnel, blocking their exit, was a man in a beige trench coat. He was flanked by four heavily armed mercenaries.
He had a scarred face and a smile that looked like a jagged wound. It was Silas Thorne.
“How touching,”
Silas drawled, his voice echoing off the damp walls.
“Romeo and Juliet in the sewers.”
Dante tried to raise his gun, but he was too weak. One of Silas’s men stepped forward and kicked the weapon out of his hand.
Another kicked Dante in the chest, sending him sprawling.
“No!”
Violet screamed, throwing herself over Dante’s body.
“Get off him, darling!”
Silas said, walking closer. He clicked the safety off his pistol.
“Don’t touch her,”
Dante rasped, trying to push himself up.
“Take me. Let her go.”
Silas laughed. It was a cold, dry sound.
“Oh, Dante. You still don’t get it. I don’t want to kill you. Not yet. I want your territory. I want your shipping routes. And I want the codes to your offshore accounts.”
“Go to hell,”
Dante spat.
“I thought you might say that,”
Silas said. He looked at Violet.
“That’s why I’m not going to torture you, Dante. I’m going to take her.”
Two men grabbed Violet, hauling her up. She kicked and screamed, landing a solid punch on one man’s jaw, but they were too strong.
They dragged her away from Dante.
“Let her go!”
Dante roared, struggling to stand. But a rifle butt to the back of his head knocked him down again.
“Here’s the deal,”
Silas said, leaning over Dante.
“You have 24 hours to transfer the assets to me. If you don’t… well, the nurse gets to see just how good her anatomy knowledge really is.”
Silas turned and walked away, his men dragging a screaming Violet into the darkness.
“Dante!”
she screamed one last time before a heavy hand clamped over her mouth.
