By January, Clara noticed changes on the fourth floor.

Nicholas’s longtime bodyguard, Matteo Russo, looked exhausted.

The loyal, stone-faced protector rarely left the hallway outside Room 412, but now unfamiliar men occasionally replaced him.

And those men frightened Clara.

They smoked in stairwells.

They stared too long at nurses.

They looked at Nicholas not with loyalty—but impatience.

One icy Friday evening, the elevator doors opened and a man stepped out wearing a camel-colored cashmere coat and an expensive smile.

Leo Rossi.

Even Clara knew his name.

Nicholas’s second-in-command.

The man now running Chicago’s underworld while his boss lay unconscious.

Leo entered the room slowly, hands in his pockets, studying Nicholas with cool amusement.

“Any changes?” he asked Clara.

“No,” she answered carefully.

“That’s unfortunate.”

The words chilled her.

Leo moved closer to the bed, staring down at Nicholas for several long seconds.

Then he smiled faintly.

“You know what the problem with kings is, Nurse Jenkins?” he asked softly.

“Eventually people realize the throne looks better empty.”

Clara said nothing.

Leo leaned closer to Nicholas’s unconscious face.

“If you can hear me, old friend,” he whispered, “you should know your empire already belongs to me.”

Then he walked out.

That night, Clara couldn’t sleep.

The next evening, she found Matteo outside Room 412 rubbing his eyes with trembling hands.

“You need rest,” Clara said gently.

Matteo laughed bitterly.

“Rest gets people killed.”

He glanced toward Nicholas’s room before lowering his voice.

“Nick trusted the wrong men.

That’s what put him here.”

Clara hesitated.

“Leo?”

Matteo looked at her sharply but didn’t answer.

That silence was answer enough.

Later that night, Clara sat beside Nicholas and continued reading aloud from The Count of Monte Cristo.

Her voice shook slightly.

“Maybe Edmond Dantès had the right idea,” she whispered.

“Maybe betrayal changes people forever.”

For the first time, she saw unmistakable movement.

Nicholas’s finger twitched against the bedsheet.

Clara’s breath caught.

“You can hear me,” she whispered.

A single tear slid down her cheek.

“Dear God… you’ve been in there this whole time.”

Part 3: The Night the Devil Woke Up

Three nights later, the storm came.

Rain slammed against the windows just after midnight while thunder rolled across the city.

The fourth floor felt strangely empty.

Matteo was gone.

Two unfamiliar guards stood downstairs smoking cigarettes near the ambulance entrance.

And inside Room 412, Clara felt something terribly wrong.

She had just finished reading another chapter when the door creaked open behind her.

A tall man in black stepped inside.

“Visiting hours are over,” Clara said automatically.

The man locked the door.

Then Clara saw the syringe.

Her blood turned cold.

“What are you doing?”

The assassin moved fast.

Clara lunged toward the emergency button beside the bed, but the man struck her hard across the face.

Pain exploded through her skull as she crashed to the floor, tasting blood instantly.