Chapter 2 - The Scent of Betrayal
Working under dim lamp light with a hostile criminal watching your every move requires a very specific kind of professional detachment. As I carefully sliced away the ruined, blood-crusted bandages, the true scale of his injury revealed itself. It wasn't just a clean gunshot wound. The tissue around the entry and exit points was necrotic, purple, and weeping foul-smelling fluid. Someone had botched an extraction or stitched him up in a hurry, leaving a jagged, infected mess.
“Who did this?” I asked quietly, pouring saline wash over the gaping wound. Dominic didn't flinch, though his breath hitched sharply at the sting.
“An amateur,” he rasped, his head dropped back against the pillows.
“This isn't amateur work. This is deliberate,” I corrected, shining a penlight closer. “The suture material is industrial-grade nylon, tied with a surgeon's knot, but the depth is completely wrong. Someone wanted this wound to fester. They wanted sepsis to do the job for them so they wouldn't have to pull a trigger.”
Dominic’s eyes snapped open, locking onto mine with sudden, razor-sharp clarity. The feverish fog seemed to clear for a split second, replaced by a cold, calculation that sent a chill down my spine. “Go on.”
“You weren't ambushed by a rival crew, were you?” I kept my hands steady, peeling away the infected tissue with forceps while maintaining a calm, clinical rhythm. “This came from the inside. One of your inner circle tried to take you out quietly, banking on the fact that you’d refuse hospital care out of pride or paranoia.”
“You talk too much for a nurse,” he murmured, though there was no real bite to it now.
“And you bleed too much for a kingpin,” I retorted smoothly. “Hold still. I need to debride the dead tissue, and I don't have local anesthetic strong enough to knock you out without dropping your blood pressure to zero. It’s going to hurt.”
It hurt worse than that. When I scraped the edge of the scalpel against the inflamed muscle wall, Dominic’s entire body went rigid. His massive hand shot out, wrapping around my wrist with a grip like a vice. His fingers burned with fever, and the sheer physical strength packed into his frame was terrifying. If he squeezed just a fraction harder, bone would snap.
“Touch me like that again and I’ll break your wrist,” he whispered, his voice dangerously low, hovering inches from my face.
I didn't flinch. I looked right back into his dark, furious eyes, my pulse hammering wildly against his thumb. “If you break my wrist, who’s going to stop your lungs from filling with pus by dawn? Release me, Mr. Rossi.”
We locked eyes in a silent, brutal war of wills. For five endless seconds, neither of us breathed. Then, slowly, the iron grip around my wrist relaxed. Dominic let out a long, shuddering exhale, his head sinking back into the dark pillows.
“Finish it,” he muttered.
By the time I finished packing the wound with clean antiseptic gauze and sealing it with fresh surgical tape, my scrubs were damp with my own nervous sweat. Dominic had passed out from the sheer exhaustion of pain, his breathing heavier, deeper, and thankfully more regular. I packed up my supplies, wiped my hands, and walked to the door.
May you like
As I cracked it open to signal Leo, a movement in the dark hallway caught my eye. A shadow slipped away from the opposite wall, melting down the corridor toward the grand staircase.
It wasn't Leo. It was someone wearing soft-soled shoes, moving with the practiced stealth of a ghost. And in their hand, they were carrying a small, silver tray containing a fresh pitcher of water—and a faint, bitter almond scent that didn't belong in a kitchen.
