The hospital entrance was in chaos.
Doctors barked orders. Nurses scrambled with oxygen tanks. The elderly woman on the stretcher had gone pale—her lips tinged blue, her breath shallow and rapid.
"Code blue! Her heart rate's dropping!"
Victor Blackwood stood at the edge of the chaos, a rare crease of panic cutting across his otherwise unreadable face. His eyes, dark and sharp, locked onto his grandmother's still form. The staff was failing her. Fast.
"Where's Dr. Hsu?!" one nurse yelled.
"He's stuck in traffic!"
Another medic fumbled with the defibrillator. "We can't wait. We'll lose her before the ambulance transfer is even approved."
From the crowd, Isabella stepped forward.
Her presence wasn't loud. It wasn't dramatic.
It simply cut through the noise.
"I can save her."
Several heads turned. A young girl—barely an adult—stood between two nurses with calm eyes and steady hands. She had no ID, no white coat, no authority. Just… certainty.
A doctor sneered. "Who the hell are you?"
Isabella pulled her black medical gloves from her pocket and began slipping them on. "Someone who doesn't need a nametag to fix your mess."
"You're a kid," another snapped. "This woman is going into cardiac failure. This isn't a game!"
"Then stop playing and move," Isabella said coldly.
Victor's eyes narrowed. For a second, recognition flickered—those eyes. That voice. But he couldn't place her.
Isabella crouched beside the stretcher, assessing the woman's vitals faster than the medics had managed in five minutes. "She has a rare cardiac arrhythmia. You're treating the wrong condition and making it worse. She needs immediate vagal stimulation—pressure on the carotid sinus—and a temporary chemical blocker."
"You're bluffing."
"Fine," Isabella said. She stood up straight, calm and cold. "Let's bet. If I fail, call security and have me arrested. But if I'm right and she stabilizes in under three minutes... I get full access to her records, and you'll list me as the attending medic."
The lead ER doctor looked like he'd swallowed a lemon. "You're insane."
Victor stepped forward then. "Let her try."
Everyone turned.
No one questioned him.
His authority was absolute.
Isabella nodded once and returned to work.
Every movement was swift. Efficient. Confident.
She used pressure points on the elderly woman's neck, combined with subtle manipulation of her left wrist—a traditional technique only known to certain Eastern specialists. Then, she prepared a precise mix from the emergency drugs the nurses had already laid out, calculating by eye.
One minute passed.
Two.
The monitor beeped—a steady, even rhythm.
The woman's pale cheeks flushed with a hint of color.
She exhaled, gently, for the first time in what felt like hours.
A stunned silence fell over the emergency bay.
The attending doctor blinked, speechless. A nurse stammered, "She… she's stabilizing."
Victor stepped closer, watching Isabella like she'd stepped out of a hallucination.
"What's your name?"
She looked up, meeting his gaze without flinching.
"Isabella."
No last name. No titles. No explanations.
Just that.
Then she turned away, walked past the still-stunned crowd, and disappeared down the hallway without looking back.
Victor didn't know it yet, but the girl who saved his grandmother's life… was already his.
Next Chapter Teaser: Isabella wasn't supposed to return—but when Amelia's foolish mistake endangers the same woman again, Victor demands answers… and fate puts Isabella right back into his path.