Chapter 3 - The Ghost Clinic
The cabin was freezing, but it was dry. The air smelled of old pine, dry rot, and mice.
Sarah scrambled to her feet, her hands shaking violently. She found a box of emergency matches and a half-burned candle on a shelf. Lighting it, she cast a dim, flickering glow over the room. There was a small iron stove in the corner, a pile of dry firewood, and a rusted cot with a bare mattress.
"Dominic," she called out, dropping the formal titles.
He didn't answer. He had slipped into unconsciousness, his breathing shallow, his skin dangerously blue around his lips.
Sarah went into survival mode. She built a fire in the iron stove with practiced efficiency, knowing that within twenty minutes, the small space would begin to trap the heat. Then, she turned her attention to the dying mafia prince.
She dragged him onto the cot, ripping away the blood-soaked clothes entirely. In the corner of the cabin stood her old plastic trunk—the one she had hidden away when she took the maid's job. Inside were her old nursing textbooks, a stethoscope, and an advanced medical first-aid kit she had stolen from the hospital university clinic before dropping out.
Sterile saline. Suture kits. Local anesthetic. Antibiotics. Ivy lines.
"Thank God I was a thief," she whispered to herself.
She hooked a bag of saline to a rusty nail above the cot and deftly found a vein in Dominic’s muscular arm, starting the line to combat his hypovolemic shock. Then, she washed her hands with rubbing alcohol, lit a small camping burner, and sterilized her instruments.
The wound was ugly. The first bullet had passed clean through his oblique muscle, leaving an exit wound in his back. The second bullet, however, was still lodged deep near his pelvic bone.
"This is going to hurt," she said to the silent room.
She injected the local anesthetic around the wound, but she knew it wouldn't reach the depth of the bullet. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the forceps.
For the next two hours, Sarah Jenkins wasn't a maid. She wasn't an invisible girl scraping dried food off expensive plates. She was a surgeon in a war zone. Her hands, despite being stiff from the cold, became steady, precise instruments. She worked by the light of three candles and the glow of the iron stove.
Dominic stirred once, a brutal, guttural scream tearing from his throat as she located the lead slug against his bone. He clamped his uninjured hand onto the metal frame of the cot, bending the rusted steel with pure, agonizing pressure.
"I’ve got it," she whispered, her sweat dripping onto her apron. With a sharp click, she dropped the bloody bullet into a metal dish.
She flushed the wound with saline, packed it with sterile gauze, and began the meticulous process of suturing his flesh back together. Every stitch was perfect. Every knot was secure.
By the time the window began to show the first pale, gray light of dawn, Dominic’s fever had broken. His breathing was deep, steady, and natural. The saline bag was empty, replaced by a fresh one, and his color had returned to a healthy, olive hue.
Sarah slumped into a broken wooden chair beside the cot, her uniform covered in blood, soot, and sweat. She looked at her hands. They were covered in the blood of the most dangerous family in the country.
The storm outside had finally died down to a gentle, silent snowfall.
The door to the cabin suddenly creaked open.
Sarah bolted upright, reaching instinctively for the heavy iron fire poker.
Standing in the doorway, surrounded by four men with drawn assault rifles, was Carmine Rossi. The Don. He looked older than his photographs, his gray hair immaculate despite the weather, his long cashmere coat pristine. He looked into the cabin, his eyes sweeping over the fire, the IV lines, the sutures on his son's chest, and finally, falling on Sarah.
Carmine stepped inside, his men forming a wall behind him. He walked to the bed, pressed two fingers to his son's pulse, and let out a long, slow breath.
He turned to Sarah, his expression unreadable, terrifying, and profoundly heavy.
"Who did this?" Carmine asked.
"I did," Sarah said, tightening her grip on the fire poker. "And if your men don't lower those guns, they're going to wake him up, and he needs to rest."
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Carmine looked at the poker, then at the perfect stitches on his son’s abdomen. A slow, chillingly respectful expression crossed his face. "You’re the housekeeper's girl. The one who cleans the library."
"I am Sarah Jenkins," she said, her voice ringing out in the small cabin. "And I just saved your son's life."
