The fluorescent lights in Saint Catherine's Hospital parking garage buzzed overhead. My heels clicked against concrete as I dug through my purse for car keys that always disappeared when I needed them most.
Twelve hours. That's how long I'd been managing staff shortages, insurance nightmares, and Mr. Peterson trying to leave against medical advice for the third time this week. My feet screamed. My head throbbed. All I wanted was my couch, sweatpants, and whatever takeout Marcus ordered.
My phone buzzed.
Marcus: Pizza? I know we said healthy but I'm dying here babe
I smiled despite my exhaustion.
Me: We have a dress fitting in two weeks. You want me to look like a marshmallow in white?
Marcus: You'd look beautiful in a garbage bag. Pizza it is then?
Two weeks until our wedding. Two weeks until we escaped to Connecticut and pretended New York never happened. No more late-night phone calls Marcus wouldn't explain. No more men in expensive suits showing up at our door. Just normal. Safe. Boring.
I couldn't wait.
My Honda sat three rows away under a flickering light. Marcus kept saying we should get something safer. I told him we'd buy a minivan when we had kids.
The thought made warmth spread through my chest.
Tires screeched.
The sound was wrong. Too fast. Too violent. In a hospital parking garage, wrong sounds meant someone needed help.
I stopped walking. My training kicked in before fear could. Six years in emergency medicine rewired your instincts. When people screamed, you ran toward the chaos.
The screaming started a second later.
I sprinted for the stairwell door. Shoved it open. Cold night air slapped my face as I burst onto street level.
Bodies.
Three of them scattered across asphalt like toys thrown by an angry child. A black SUV sat sideways in the middle of the road, doors hanging open, engine growling. Smoke curled from underneath. Glass glittered everywhere, catching streetlight like scattered diamonds.
Blood pooled dark and spreading.
My heart forgot how to beat.
One of those bodies wore the gray jacket I'd bought Marcus for his birthday. The one that made him look professional instead of dangerous. The one with the small tear in the left sleeve I kept meaning to sew.
"Marcus."
I was on my knees beside him before I remembered moving. His face pointed away from me. I reached for his shoulder. My hands shook.
"Ma'am, don't touch him."
A hand clamped around my wrist. A police officer materialized beside me, his face grim and practiced. Behind him, more cops ran toward the scene. Sirens wailed closer.
"That's my fiancé." My voice sounded hollow. Distant. Like someone else spoke through my mouth. "I work at the hospital. I can help him. Let me help."
"Ma'am, we need to keep this a crime scene."
Crime scene.
The words bounced off my brain without sticking. Crime scenes were for criminals. Gang violence. Drug deals. The life Marcus swore we were leaving behind.
We were getting married. Moving to Connecticut. Having three kids and a golden retriever and a normal life.
"Please." The word cracked. "Let me see his face."
The officer's grip loosened. Maybe he heard something in my voice that made him human. Maybe he had someone he loved and understood. Maybe he just pitied me.
He let go.
I touched Marcus's shoulder gently. Like waking him from sleep. His body was still warm. Warm meant alive. Warm meant chances.
I rolled him toward me.
His eyes stared at nothing. At everything. At the sky he couldn't see anymore.
The hole in his chest bloomed dark and final where his heart should be. Blood soaked through gray fabric, spreading like oil.
"No." I pressed my hands against the wound even though I knew. Even though six years of emergency medicine told me he was already gone. "No, no, no."
"Ma'am, please step back."
Hands pulled at me. Voices spoke words that didn't penetrate. Someone was crying. High and desperate and broken.
The sound was coming from me.
I looked around wildly. The other bodies were strangers in expensive suits with guns still in their hands. The SUV had bullet holes punched through the windshield. Shell casings littered the ground like confetti at the world's worst celebration.
This wasn't an accident.
This was an execution.
"Who did this?" I grabbed the officer's arm. "Who shot him? Where are they?"
"We're investigating." His voice was careful. Professional. "Do you have someone we can call? Family?"
Family. Marcus's family. The ones who called at three in the morning for jobs he wouldn't discuss. The ones who scared him enough that he wanted to disappear to Connecticut and pretend we'd never lived in New York.
"His mother." My voice came from somewhere far away. "Her number is in his phone."
But Marcus's phone was gone. His wallet. His keys. Even the watch I'd given him last Christmas had been ripped from his wrist.
They killed him and robbed him like he was nobody.
Like he meant nothing.
Ambulances arrived even though there was nothing left to save. EMTs moved through the scene checking pulses, shaking heads. A detective in a wrinkled suit approached.
"Gang crossfire." He spoke quietly to the officer. "Wrong place, wrong time. The targets were those three." He gestured at the dead men near the SUV. "Your guy was collateral damage."
Collateral damage.
Marcus was a mistake. A number. Bad luck.
I stared at my hands. They were covered in his blood. Red and sticky and still warm. I'd touched him. Held him. Now he was gone and I was standing here with his blood on my skin while strangers called it bad luck.
"Miss Rossi?" The detective looked at me now. "Isabella Rossi?"
I nodded.
"We'll need you to come to the station. Answer some questions about Marcus's movements tonight."
"He was coming home." The words felt like broken glass in my throat. "We were supposed to eat pizza and argue about the wedding playlist. He texted me twenty minutes ago."
The detective wrote something down. "Did Marcus have enemies? Anyone who might want to hurt him?"
I almost laughed.
Because the answer was yes. Marcus had enemies. Debts. Secrets I'd been ignoring because I loved him and I wanted to believe his promises about leaving.
But I'd been lying to myself.
Now he was dead on a New York street and I was the fool who thought love could save him.
"I don't know." The lie tasted bitter.
The detective studied me, then nodded. "We'll be in touch. Someone will drive you home."
Home. The apartment we shared. Where his clothes hung in the closet and his coffee mug sat in the sink and wedding invitations waited on the kitchen table.
I couldn't go there.
But cops were already guiding me toward a patrol car. Marcus's body was being covered with a white sheet. My entire future disappeared under that fabric like it never existed.
I looked back one last time.
That's when I saw him.
A man standing in shadows across the street. Tall and broad in a suit that probably cost more than my car. He watched me with eyes that looked black in the darkness. His face was all sharp angles and hard edges, beautiful in a way that made my stomach flip despite everything.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stared at me like he was memorizing every detail.
Heat crawled up my spine. Not fear exactly. Something else I didn't have a name for.
Then he turned and walked away, disappearing into the night.
I didn't know who he was.
But something in my bones whispered I'd see him again.
And when I did, nothing would ever be the same.