The blood pooled beneath her gloves before she could even ask his name.
"Gunshot wound. Chest entry. No ID," the nurse said, breathless.
Dr. Elara Voss didn't flinch. She never did. Not during emergencies, not during chaos, not even when the world turned red at her feet.
She adjusted her mask, pushing down the rising nausea. It wasn't the blood. It was the silence.
This man had been dropped at the back entrance of a level-one trauma center like a bag of garbage. No 911 call. No ID. No name.
Just bleeding.
"Vitals dropping," said Marko, the trauma nurse at her side.
She reached for the chest tube. "Let's crack him. We're losing time."
"Wait-Doctor Voss-look."
Marko pulled the torn shirt down lower, revealing a massive black tattoo inked across the man's ribs.
A snake. Twisted around a dagger.
Cold sweat touched her spine.
She knew that symbol. Everyone in New York knew it.
The Moretti family.
Mafia.
She stared for half a second too long. Long enough to make a choice.
She could walk away. Let the trauma team take over. Pretend she never saw the ink.
But her hands moved anyway.
"We cut now. Get OR 3 prepped," she said, voice razor-sharp.
I don't have time to be scared. I just have to save him.
That's what she told herself. But in her gut, she already knew-this wasn't just another patient. This wasn't just another save.
This was the beginning of the unraveling.
---
> Three hours later
He was still unconscious.
The surgery had been brutal-collapsed lung, a shattered rib, massive internal bleeding. She had stitched and suctioned and ordered, all while pretending her hands weren't shaking under the surface.
Now, the stranger lay beneath white sheets in post-op recovery, hooked to machines keeping him alive.
Elara stood alone at the observation window, arms folded across her scrub top, face unreadable.
Marko approached quietly, holding two coffees. "Here. You look like you need it more than I do."
She took it with a nod. "Thanks."
"You knew, didn't you?" he said. "Who he was."
She didn't answer.
Marko continued, dropping his voice. "Lucian Moretti. Only son of Enzo Moretti. Rumor is, he disappeared two years ago. Either went rogue or... undercover."
"Undercover?" she asked, bitter.
"In what world do mafia sons go undercover?"
"Exactly."
The hallway lights flickered. Somewhere, a monitor beeped.
"You shouldn't have taken that case," Marko said after a beat. "They're going to question it. Hell, they might investigate it."
She sipped her coffee and stared into the glass. "Let them."
But in her chest, she felt something different. Guilt? Curiosity? Fear?
Maybe all of it.
---
> Later that night
She returned to her office to find someone already waiting.
A man in a black suit leaned against the window, badge out, expression sharp.
"Dr. Elara Voss?"
"Yes?"
"Special Agent David Raines, Organized Crime Division."
Her heart skipped.
"You operated on Lucian Moretti tonight," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"I saved a patient with no ID," she replied flatly.
"He's not just any patient."
"He's not dead either. You're welcome."
Raines smiled thinly. "If he wakes up, we'll need to question him. Immediately."
"He nearly died on my table."
"I know. And you might want to ask yourself why someone tried that hard to kill him. It wasn't random."
He turned to leave but paused at the door.
"Just a heads-up, Doctor. You saved someone with more enemies than blood in his body. You should watch yours."
Then he was gone.
---
> Hours passed. She couldn't sleep.
At 4:17 AM, her pager buzzed.
Patient 3C awake. Unstable. Asking for the surgeon.
She pulled on her coat and walked back into the hospital, her pulse already rising.
The air around Room 3C felt heavier than the rest of the ICU.
She stepped inside.
Lucian Moretti turned his head slowly toward her, bandaged, pale, yet alert.
His eyes locked on hers-dark, unreadable, dangerous.
"You saved me," he said, voice rasping.
She nodded once.
He studied her, his gaze too sharp for someone barely clinging to life.
"Why?"
Her answer was immediate, clinical. "Because that's my job."
He gave a small, humorless smile.
"Bad job," he whispered. "You just tied yourself to a corpse."
She stared at him, frozen.
And in that moment, Elara Voss realized:
She hadn't saved him.
She had invited him in.
And now he was bleeding into her world, whether she wanted him to or not.
🩸 What would you do if your patient turned out to be a mafia heir?
Would you walk away... or get closer?
💬 Drop your theories 👇
🖤 Do you trust Lucian?
🧠 What do you think Elara's hiding?