Chapter 3 - Under the Knife
The smell of antiseptic and scorched tissue filled the luxurious bedroom as Nora worked with absolute, terrifying speed.
Luca stood by the double doors, his hand locked around his gun, his eyes darting between the hallway monitors and the bedside table where blood-soaked gauze was piling up on silver trays.
Gabriel had swallowed a leather strap from one of his high-end duffel bags to keep from screaming. His knuckles were white where he gripped the wooden frame of the headboard, his entire body rigid as iron as Nora made the initial incision.
"I've got the pocket," Nora whispered to herself, her fingers working with the steady, practiced precision of a trauma nurse who had spent eight years in city emergency rooms before taking private duty. "Hold his hips steady, Luca! Don't let him shift!"
Luca rushed over, using all his weight to pin Gabriel’s heavy lower body against the mattress.
Nora used surgical forceps to dig carefully past the infected muscle layer. She felt metal.
Clink.
The tiny sound echoed in the quiet room.
Using a pair of elongated curved clamps, Nora lifted the foreign object out of Gabriel’s spine.
It was a small, cylindrical titanium capsule, roughly the size of an pencil eraser, wrapped in a micro-perforated silicone membrane that had ruptured. Yellow, foul-smelling fluid bubbled from the incision behind it.
"There it is," Nora said, dropping the capsule into a glass cup. It pinged loudly against the bottom. "A slow-release chemical irritant combined with a concentrated neurotoxin. It was designed to slowly paralyze his central nervous system while creating a localized infection that looked like an internal abscess from the bullet path."
Gabriel collapsed back onto the soaked mattress, his jaw dropping open as the leather strap fell from his mouth. His chest heaved in deep, ragged gulps of air as the pressure on his spinal column instantly relieved itself.
Nora didn't waste a second. She flushed the deep wound with two full bottles of sterile saline, suctioned the fluid, and applied a topical antibiotic paste directly onto the raw tissue before deftly stitching the incision closed with double-knotted surgical thread.
By the time she tied off the last suture and slapped a clean, sterile pressure bandage over his lower back, her navy scrubs were stained with sweat and blood.
She stood back, wiping her brow with her forearm, her legs trembling slightly from the sheer tension of the last thirty minutes.
Gabriel lay still, his eyes closed, his breathing finally slowing from a frantic gasp into a heavy, deep, rhythmic sleep.
Nora checked his vitals.
Heart rate: ninety-two.
Oxygen: ninety-four percent and rising.
His fever was already beginning to drop as his body fought off the remnants of the localized fluid.
Luca looked down at his boss, then slowly raised his head to stare at Nora.
"You actually did it," Luca murmured, his voice laced with profound awe. "You saved him."
"We're not finished," Nora said, washing her hands thoroughly at the master bathroom sink. "The capsule was meant to kill him by tomorrow morning. Whoever put it there will expect a call from Dr. Vale or the nurse reporting his death. When that call doesn't come, they will know something went wrong."
"Vincent," Luca growled, his face twisting in betrayal. "I'll go to his apartment right now—"
"No," a deep, raspy voice cut through the room.
Nora and Luca both turned.
Gabriel was looking at them. His skin was still pale, but the deadly gray haze had vanished. His eyes were clear, dark, and filled with a cold, terrifying intelligence that made the air in the room feel heavy.
He slowly pushed himself up on his elbows. He looked down at his feet.
He wiggled his toes. Then he pulled his right knee up toward his chest.
The paralysis was broken.
Gabriel looked up, his gaze bypassing Luca entirely and locking onto Nora, who was standing by the bathroom doorway with a towel around her hands.
"Who are you?" Gabriel asked softly.
"Nora Bennett," she replied simply. "Your night nurse."
May you like
Gabriel stared at her broad shoulders, her unpolished hair, her blood-stained scrubs, and the absolute lack of fear in her eyes.
"No, Nora Bennett," Gabriel said, a faint, dangerous smirk touching the corner of his lips. "You're the woman who just saved my empire. And starting right now, nobody leaves this room until we take it back."
