The rhythm of the heart monitor was the only music I understood. It was a steady, electronic lullaby that kept the chaos of the world at bay.
"Suction," I commanded. My voice was muffled behind the mask, void of emotion.
The nurse moved instantly. The canister hissed, clearing the crimson pool that obscured my view. To most, blood was a terrifying signal of mortality, a violent alarm. To me, Dr. Seraphina Laurent, it was simply data. It was iron, oxygen, and fragile plumbing. It was the fuel of a machine I was currently repairing, and I was good at it. Perhaps too good.
"BP is dropping, Doctor," the anesthesiologist announced, tension tightening his vocal cords. "Eighty over fifty."
I didn't flinch. I had spent my entire life learning to be cold. My father, Lorenzo Laurent, ruled the city's underworld with fire and rage. I had countered his legacy by becoming ice. While he spilled blood on the streets, I washed it off in scrub sinks. While he broke bones, I set them.
"Push two units. I have the bleeder," I said, my hands moving with a mechanical precision.
As I clamped the artery, a strange sensation washed over me. It wasn't the air conditioning. It was a sudden, crushing heaviness in my chest, as if the room had suddenly been submerged underwater—a profound sorrow, ancient and inexplicable, pressed against my ribs.
Focus, Seraphina, I scolded myself. It's just fatigue.
"He's stabilizing," I whispered, watching the monitor's line return to a rhythmic peak.
I stepped back, stripping off my latex gloves with a sharp snap. "Close him up."
I pushed through the swinging doors into the scrub room. I needed the scalding water. I needed to scrub until my skin was raw, to wash away the feeling of impending doom that had settled in my marrow. I turned the tap to the highest setting, steam clouding the mirror instantly.
But as I looked up into the foggy glass, my reflection seemed wrong. My eyes—usually a warm honey-brown—looked darker, dilated, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
Zzzzt. Pop.
The lights died.
Total, suffocating darkness swallowed the room. Then, the red glow of the emergency backup kicked in, bathing everything in the color of fresh arterial blood.
The silence that followed was unnatural. The hum of the ventilation, the distant chatter of nurses, the squeak of gurneys—it all vanished. It was the silence of a tomb.
I dried my hands, my heart hammering against my ribs. Power failure? No. The generator hum is too quiet.
I stepped out into the hallway.
Empty.
The nurses' station was abandoned. A chart lay open on the desk, a pen still rolling across the surface as if dropped mid-sentence.
"Hello?" I called out. My voice was swallowed by the shadows that seemed to stretch, twist, and reach for me.
I walked toward the main lobby. The air grew colder with every step, smelling less like antiseptic and more like a storm—ozone, wet earth, and something metallic. Like old pennies.
When I reached the atrium, I stopped dead.
They were waiting.
Dozens of men in black suits stood in a perfect circle, motionless as statues. They didn't breathe. They didn't shift. They were predators who had already trapped their prey and were simply waiting for the command. These weren't my father's street thugs; these men stood with a terrifying military discipline.
In the center of the room, on his knees, was Marco. My father's most loyal enforcer. A man who was built like a tank. Now, he looked like a husk. His skin was gray, his eyes wide and vacant.
"Dr. Laurent," a voice spoke from the shadows.
It was a voice that vibrated in my bones. Low, smooth, and terrifyingly calm.
A figure stepped out from the darkness near the grand piano.
He was tall, wearing a charcoal suit cut to razor-sharp perfection. His face was angular, pale, and devastatingly handsome in a cruel way. But it was his stillness that unnerved me. He didn't just stand; he loomed, like a cliff face waiting for the sea to crash against it.
His eyes were green. Piercing, intelligent, and utterly devoid of warmth.
"Where is the staff?" I demanded, fighting to keep my voice steady. "What have you done to them?"
"They have been... escorted out," the man said. "I prefer my business private. No witnesses. No noise."
He looked at Marco. "Unlike your father's associates, who were far too loud."
Marco slumped forward, hitting the floor with a dull thud. He didn't move to break his fall.
I rushed forward, my doctor's instinct overriding my fear. I knelt beside Marco, pressing two fingers to his carotid artery.
Nothing. Cold.
But there was no blood on the floor. No bullet wound. No knife mark. I turned his head and saw two small, dark bruises on the side of his neck, right over the jugular.
What kind of weapon does that? My mind raced. It looks like... a double injection? Or a taser burn? But the pallor of his skin suggested massive blood loss. Hypovolemic shock. But where is the blood?
"You killed him," I whispered, looking up at the stranger.
"He was an obstacle," the man replied indifferently. "I removed him."
"You're the Vane," I said, realizing who stood before me. Kaelen Vane. The new King of the City. The man who had dismantled the rival syndicates in a single night. Rumors said he was a ghost, that he never slept. Looking at the dark circles under his eyes and his pale skin, I believed he was an insomniac. A dangerous, violent insomniac.
"I took back the city," Kaelen replied. He took a step toward me. He moved with a silence that was unnerving for a man of his size. "And now, I am here for the final debt."
He stopped inches from me. The cold radiating from his suit was intense, as if he had been standing outside in the winter air for hours.
"My father is dead," I said, standing up to face him. I refused to cower before a mobster, no matter how terrifying. "I have no money. The accounts are frozen. If you're here to collect, you're late."
"Money?" Kaelen laughed, a dry sound. "I have enough wealth to buy this city ten times over, Seraphina. I do not want your money."
He leaned in, his face so close I could see the flecks of gold in his emerald eyes. He was studying me, not with lust, but with a strange, clinical curiosity. Like a scientist looking at a rare specimen.
"Then what?"
"You," he whispered.
He reached out. I flinched, stepping back until my hip hit the reception desk.
"Don't touch me," I warned.
He paused, his hand hovering near my face. For a split second, a look of confusion crossed his features. He tilted his head, his nostrils flaring slightly.
"Lenore?" he breathed. The word was so soft I almost missed it.
"My name is Seraphina," I snapped. "And if you think you can just walk in here and kidnap me—"
The confusion in his eyes vanished, replaced instantly by a wall of ice.
"Seraphina," he corrected himself, his voice dropping an octave. "Yes. Of course. The surgeon."
He stepped closer, boxing me in against the desk. "Your father signed a contract, little bird. He pledged his 'greatest treasure' as collateral for the power I lent him. He failed to pay. Now, the asset belongs to the Vane Syndicate."
"I am a person, not an asset," I hissed.
"In this world, you are whatever the man with the gun says you are." He leaned down, his lips grazing my ear. "Or in my case... the man with the power."
"I have a use for you," he murmured. "My men... they get hurt. This war for the city is messy. I need someone who can stitch them back together. I need a surgeon who isn't afraid of blood. Someone who can keep her mouth shut."
"I won't work for a criminal," I said, my voice trembling.
Kaelen pulled back, his eyes flashing. "You are Lorenzo Laurent's daughter. You were born into crime. You've just been pretending to be clean."
He turned to the men waiting in the lobby. "Burn it."
"What?" I gasped. "No! This is a hospital!"
"The patients are gone. This building was bought with your father's dirty money. It is tainted. It burns tonight."
Smoke began to curl from the vents. The scent of burning plastic filled the air.
Kaelen extended his hand to me. His skin was pale, his fingers long and elegant—pianist's hands, not a killer's. But I knew better.
"Come with me, Seraphina. You have a choice. You can stay here and burn with the past. Or you can come with me and pay your debt."
I looked at the flames beginning to lick up the curtains. I looked at Marco's body. And then I looked at Kaelen.
There was something terrifyingly inevitable about him. I felt a strange pull, a gut instinct telling me that running was useless. "I hear the violence coming, turn and run," a voice screamed in my head. But another voice, deeper and quieter, whispered: Stay.
If I stayed, I would die. If I went with him... I would be a prisoner. But at least I would be alive.
I reached out and took his hand.
It was freezing.
"You're cold," I murmured, surprised.
"Circulation issues," Kaelen said dismissively, his fingers closing around mine with a grip of iron. "Let's go."
He pulled me close, shielding me from the falling debris as the fire alarm finally began to wail. As he guided me out of the burning building and into the night, into the back of a sleek black car that looked more like a hearse, I realized my life was over.
Dr. Seraphina Laurent was dead.
Now, I was the property of Kaelen Vane. The Mafia King, who looked at me as if he knew my soul, even though we had just met.
As the car pulled away, I touched my neck, a phantom sensation lingering there. I didn't know why, but sitting next to him felt like waking up from a long, dark dream... only to find the nightmare was real.