Page 88 of Broken Vows

Or interrogation that went exactly as planned.

The pattern matches what I've seen before.

"Doctor?" Elena's voice cuts through the flashback. "His pressure's dropping."

I blink, forcing myself back to the present. Patient first. "Get me two units of O-neg and prep for emergency surgery. This one's going upstairs."

My hands are steady as I work, establishing IV access, controlling bleeding, stabilizing vitals for transport. The kid doesn't respond to questions—either unconscious or smart enough to stay quiet. In this city, silence keeps you breathing.

"Beautiful work," Dr. Martinez observes, watching me thread a chest tube between ribs with surgical precision. "You always this calm under pressure?"

"Pressure's just perspective," I reply, securing the tube. "Some situations require steadier hands than others."

The surgery takes three hours. I remove two bullets, repair a nicked intestine, and close everything with stitches that'll heal clean if he's smart enough to rest. He'll live, probably walk again, maybe even think twice about whatever choices led him to my table.

Afterward, I find Elena in the break room, nursing coffee that smells like motor oil. She looks up when I enter, and I see the question in her eyes before she voices it.

"That pattern of wounds," she says carefully. "I've seen it before. Usually on guys who crossed the wrong people."

I pour my own coffee, buying time. "Trauma patterns repeat. Violence has its own logic."

"Melinda." Her voice drops. "We've worked together long enough. I know when you're dodging."

I sit across from her, studying the steam rising from my cup. Elena deserves honesty, or at least some version of it. She's covered for me, protected me, treated me like family when my actual family felt like a prison.

"You ever wonder how I know so much about treating unconventional injuries?" I ask. "Why I can field-dress a gunshot wound like I've done it a hundred times?"

She's quiet, waiting.

"Because I have done it a hundred times. Before medical school, before I tried to build a clean life." I meet her eyes. "The Hippocratic Oath says 'do no harm,' but what happens when the people you love are the ones causing the harm?"

"You tried to leave that world."

"I did leave. For years. But it followed me back." I touch my wedding ring, Vincent's mother's diamond that now marks me as permanently claimed. "Sometimes the choice isn't between right and wrong. Sometimes it's between protecting the innocent and surviving long enough to keep protecting them."

Elena processes this, her expression shifting from concern to something like understanding. "The patient upstairs—you know who did this to him."

"I know the methodology. The precision. It's professional work." I pause. "And professional work in this city usually traces back to families like mine."

"Your husband's family."

"My family now too." The admission tastes like copper pennies. "I can save the ones who make it to my table, Elena. But I can't save them all. Sometimes the best you can do is make sure the good guys have better armor than the bad guys."

She nods slowly. "The security upgrades, the armed drivers, the way you check corners when you walk—you're not just protecting yourself."

"I'm protecting my daughter. My husband. The future we're trying to build." I stand, empty coffee cup in hand. "And sometimes that means accepting that the tools you use to save lives came from the same place as the tools that end them."

Back home, the penthouse buzzes with controlled activity. Vincent's in his office coordinating security rotations while I sort through wedding planning materials spread across the dining table. Small ceremony, we agreed. Family only, minimal exposure, maximum protection.

I'm reviewing catering options when I spot papers that don't belong—intelligence reports mixed in with venue contracts. My name appears in several documents, along with security assessments and threat analyses. I shouldn't look, but my eyes catch on a familiar name: Marco Russo.

The file is thick, recent. Photos of safe house surveillance, medical reports from his recovery, and at the bottom, a single line in red ink: "Subject relocated. Current whereabouts unknown."

My blood turns to ice. Marco's escaped.

"Melinda." Vincent's voice from the doorway, carefully controlled but tight with tension. He's seen me with the files.

"How long?" I ask, not turning around.

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