The medical wing of the estate didn’t smell like a hospital. There was no scent of industrial bleach, no hint of the stale, recycled air that had defined the small-town clinic in Maple. It smelled like nothing—a terrifying, expensive vacuum.Leo was already settled. The monitors surrounding his bed were silent, high-tech ribbons of light that merely pulsed with a soft, blue glow. He looked small against the five-hundred-thread-count sheets. His breathing was steady, assisted by a machine that cost more than Bella’s first car, but his face remained pale. The specialist, a woman with a face as neutral as a stone wall, had already performed the intake. She hadn’t asked about insurance or a birth certificate. She had simply looked at Dante, received a single nod, and disappeared into a private lab with Leo’s blood samples.Bella watched through the observation glass, her fingers tracing a smudge on the pane. She couldn’t breathe in there. Every hum of the equipment felt like a line of c
Read more