This couldn't be happening!

There must be a mistake!

My ex-husband?

Here?

Had the fearsome mob boss arrived with his army of hitmen to kill us all?

Or just me?

I nearly broke my neck, running down three flights of stairs to get to the ER. What was he planning? Was the Man-Formerly-Known-As-Ashlen-Dask going to rain a barrage of bullets down on me as soon as I showed my face? My thoughts were spinning out of control and my heart was beating at a mile a minute.

Should I have called security instead?

What was security going to do?

Our security guard was a sixty-year-old man named Barry who smoked too much and wheezed from standing up too fast. No, there was no use in sounding any alarms. There was no one here to protect me now. I saw Ashlen take on three armed thugs with his bare hands last night.

I swung open the double doors leading to the ER main desk from the trauma bay. There he was, like the devil himself, crafted out of brimstone and smoke. Ashlen was wearing the same pitch-black coat I had seen him in the night prior. It accentuated his broad shoulders and substantial height. It was as though he had gathered all the shadows of the night and brought them into the glaring light of the ED with him.

Looking at this man now, I could believe he was a notorious crime boss who struck fear into the hearts of the hardest of criminals.

Perhaps I was the only one in that room who saw him for who he was. The nurses and receptionists at the front desk patted each other on the backs and giggled at a joke he had just told. He was leaning against the counter and flirting with Melinda, our short and stout head nurse, who had been the one to call me from my office.

She had even forgotten her half-eaten tuna salad sandwich to bat her eyes at my ruthlessly charming ex-husband.

Ashlen turned his gaze to me and didn't drop his façade of a loving significant other. A helpless smile appeared on his lips. I wanted to scuff at his games. Even as he smiled, his eyes remained hard and unfeeling. I finally saw it now, the darkness underneath, that which no one else could see.

"Lia, there you are," Ashlen sheepishly glanced back at Melinda, who vigorously waved me over to reunite with my dear spouse. I supposed they assumed I was lingering by the door because I was annoyed to be bothered at work. Melinda was trying to assure me that no one was troubled by my family member cutting the line at the ER to speak to me. "I told you she was mad at me for getting out too late last night to take her to dinner."

"You better make it up to her, Mr. Rhodes," Melinda sternly reprimanded him. "She expects flowers—at least two dozen. Not to mention gourmet chocolates. She could use some meat on that skinny frame of hers."

I slowly force my feet to carry my unwilling body closer to the monster at the front desk. Ashlen didn't move a muscle in my direction. I waited for him to reach into his coat pocket to draw out a concealed gun or a knife to end my life with. No, he did no such thing. He was holding his left hand firmly with his right while his elbow rested against the wooden ledge of the desk.

I placed my hands in the pockets of my white coat and approached him. I wondered if anyone would remark on the fact that I was wearing no wedding ring. Then again, many surgeons didn't wear jewelry on their hands. Ashlen, on the other hand, was clearly wearing his wedding band.

I wanted to roll my eyes. I would have allowed them to roll out of my head if I didn't think it was going to get us all killed.

"Firefly, my apologies for bothering you at work. I had an accident . . . while clearing snow from a car window," Ashlen grinned sheepishly as he rolled up the sleeve of his coat.

Oh, there I saw it, the smarmy charlatan. He had a cut on his forearm about three inches long. I wanted to make a catty remark about breaking into strangers' cars, but I held my tongue.

"Do you think you can give me something to keep it from the infection away?" Ashlen asked, his eyes as innocent as a newborn puppy.

"Your man needs stitches, Dr. Rhodes. That's a nasty cut if I have ever seen one," Melinda chipped. "There's no one in Room Six. You can stitch him up in there."

"He doesn't need stitches," I groaned. I did not want to take Ashlen to a second location. Even with the cut on his arm, I didn't doubt that he could strangle me in three seconds flat once the door to Room Six was closed. I had seen the way he hit Yellow Flannel's windpipe with such force he nearly decapitated the man last night. "Just an antibiotic ointment will do. You're a tough one, aren't you, Ash?"

"Oh, come on, Dr. Rhodes, you're not going to have me send a student PA in there to stitch up your husband, are you? It's some kid who probably learned to do it through YouTube videos last night. Don't you want to make sure it's done right?"

No, I honestly didn't care if it was done right. I would let a thoracic surgeon who learned his craft on YouTube perform heart surgery on my ex-husband right now if that was an option. Yet, even as I stood there, I could feel their judgmental eyes on me.

Dr. Rhodes, the big, important surgeon, thinks it is beneath her to perform a simple favor for her sweet-as-honey husband, whom she never, ever talks about at work. No wonder women like her end up alone.

"Let's go," I sighed and stormed towards Room 6. "And just so you know, I'm not wasting my time getting any topical anesthetic."

"We've already set up a tray in the room!" one of the nurses chirped, and the rest of the crowd laughed.

"Don't be so hard on him. Valentine's Day was a Wednesday this year. He's not the only one who forgot," a third female voice chipped in.

We entered Room 6, and I reflexively gestured for him to sit down on the stretcher. It was easy to turn my mind off, rip off the packaging of the suture tray, set up the instruments on the blue towels, and draw up the anesthetic. I left the door open.

"We need to talk," Ashlen whispered as I prepped his forearm with betadine. He was more muscular than I remembered. I wondered what the rest of him looked like under all that dark, expensive fabric.

"Is that all?" I asked wearily. Yes, I knew that if he wanted me dead, I wouldn't be standing here right now. All the same, we had to keep our voices down. The walls here were thin, and I was well aware that anyone in the next room in this busy ER could hear every syllable. "Perhaps you should have tried to text or call instead."

"No, I need to talk to you in person, Lia. Tonight? Dinner?"

I outright laughed now. I jabbed the needle for the lidocaine into his arm. He winced just a little. It was more at the sight of the needle than any actual pain. I recalled he was always afraid of needles. Most men were.

"There will be a car at your apartment at 8 p.m."

"Did you really think I would jump into an unmarked car with one of your helpers? To go, God knows, where?"

"Coworkers," Ashlen corrected with a slight cough. "It will take you to Misla, in Columbus Circle."

Yes, I heard of Misla. It was a new three-Michelin-starred restaurant that was impossible to get reservations at. I supposed that for a crime lord, it wasn't hard to muscle his way to the top of the waitlist.

"The next time you self-inflict a wound, maybe try to cut along the muscle instead of across it," I remarked. "You may heal faster."

I noticed there were scars across his knuckles, but other than some redness, there were no wounds on his hands. He had been wearing gloves last night while he beat Yellow Flannel's face in. He had learned his lesson from his youth when I used to find him with bloody knuckles in our kitchen. He used to complain he dropped his keys under his car and had a hell of a time digging them out. I was stupid enough to believe him. Now, I saw him for who he was: a seasoned mobster and liar.

"Will you come to dinner with me or not?" Ashlen repeated. "I will have you home by ten. Promise."

I wondered if I should believe that I wasn't going to end up dismembered and buried in Central Park by midnight like the victims in the photos I saw.

"I have leftover Chinese in my refrigerator, and it will go bad. Sorry, maybe ask that redhead you were with."

Ashlen chuckled and waved his hand to dismiss my jab. He placed his left hand down an inch away from my thigh. The platinum band looked aged and scratched as if he had worn it all these years.

Did he expect me to believe it had never left his finger?

"She's no one. You'll never see her again."

"I'm not jealous of your relationship with her," I snapped and finished tying off my suture thread. The cut was closed now, and I had even used the self-dissolving thread, so he had no excuse to come back here. I didn't know why his laughter annoyed me to such an extent. Did Ashlen seriously think I was jealous that my criminal ex-husband had a new girlfriend? No, I was overjoyed that someone had taken out that trash. "You could be dating Kim Jong Un for all I care."

"Lia, please. Come to dinner. I have so much to say to you but I can't. Not here," Ashlen reached over and wrapped his hand around mine. I flinched at his touch but he gave me a light squeeze. "You know I would never hurt you."

I ripped my hand out of his grasp. I backed away from him and pointed at the door. Suddenly, I had an overwhelming desire to run my hand under boiling water. "Get out."

Ashlen slowly pushed himself into a standing position and casually walked to the door. He leaned in as he stood in the doorway. His lips were an inch from mine, and I could feel his breath on my cheek. Even though his appearance had changed dramatically, his skin and hair still smelled the same. I couldn't describe it; it was such a quintessentially familiar smell, like the comforting scent of a home after an impossibly long day. "Very well, but believe me when I say this — while I control this city, you have nothing to fear. I know I have lied about many things, but I would not lie about that."

I stared into the distance in silence. Ashlen sighed and turned toward the exit.

"The car will be waiting outside at 8. It's up to you whether you want to join me."