Chapter 6 - The Midnight Triage
The storm that hit New York that night wasn't snow, but a cold, driving spring rain that turned the asphalt into black glass.
By 1:14 AM, the service elevator at the back of the hospital annex groaned under a heavy load. The doors slid open, and the reality of Dominic’s world burst into Sarah’s clean, white sanctuary.
Three Rossi soldiers, their dark coats soaked with rain and crimson blood, carried a fourth man between them. A second wave followed—men with gunshot wounds, lacerations from shattered glass, and broken bones.
"Move them to Tables One and Two!" Sarah shouted, her voice commanding the room with absolute authority. Her residency students, young doctors who had been bought and paid for by Rossi scholarships, moved instantly, their faces pale but their hands steady.
Sarah cut away a soldier's jacket, her fingers moving in a blur of precision. "Pressure dressing here! Get me a chest tube, he’s developing a tension pneumothorax!"
She worked for three hours without a break, the clean white floor of her clinic turning into a mirror of the library marble from fourteen months ago. She didn't think about the legality; she didn't think about the morality. She only saw lives that needed to be anchored to the earth.
Then the elevator bell rang again.
A single soldier stepped out, supporting Dominic.
Dominic’s suit was torn, his face covered in soot and blood that wasn't his own. But he was limping heavily, his left hand pressed hard against his old wound.
Sarah dropped her forceps into a tray and rushed to him, her heart stopping for a terrifying beat. "Dominic! I told you—"
"I'm fine," he gasped, his teeth gritted as he let her guide him to a private examination chair in the corner. "It's not a bullet. A container crane... snapped. A steel cable whipped across the deck. Took me out at the hip."
Sarah tore his trousers away, her heart hammering. The bruising was already forming—a massive, deep purple map of trauma across his left thigh and pelvic crest. She pressed her fingers against the bone; Dominic let out a sharp, breathless curse, his hands gripping the armrests until the leather groaned.
"It’s not broken," she breathed after a minute of careful palpation, relief washing over her so intensely she felt dizzy. "But the hematoma is massive. You’ve re-injured the scar tissue from the blizzard. If you don't stay off this leg for a month, Dominic, I will personally sedate you and tie you to your bed."
Dominic looked up at her, his breathing ragged, his face inches from hers. Despite the pain, his eyes were burning with a dark, primal intensity. "We won, Sarah. Maroni’s docks are gone. His lieutenants are dead or in custody. The Rossi family owns the entire waterfront now."
"I don't care about the waterfront," Sarah whispered, her professional mask finally cracking. She reached up, her fingers trembling as she wiped a streak of black grease from his cheek. "I care about you, you idiot. You almost died in my arms once. I'm not watching you do it again."
Dominic caught her hand, pulling it to his lips, his kiss warm and fierce against her palm. "You saved me again, Sarah. Every time I bleed, you’re the one who holds me together."
Before she could answer, the clinic door exploded inward.
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Two men in dark raincoats, carrying silenced submachine guns, stepped into the triage room. They weren't Rossi men. They wore the red silk ties of the Maroni family.
The remnants of the ambush had followed them into the sanctuary.
