Chapter 1 – The Man with No Name

Dr. Sienna Blake hated Tuesday night shifts. Not because they were busy—they weren’t. That was the problem. Nothing but quiet corridors, half-lit trauma bays, and the soft, unsettling hum of fluorescent lights overhead. It left her alone with her thoughts, which were often worse than the blood and broken bones.

She sat at the nurses' station, sipping stale coffee and flipping through an old patient chart just to stay awake. Her scrub pants were a size too loose, tied tight with a knot she’d retied twice already, and her ponytail was doing its best to fall apart. Still, she looked like she had her life together—because that’s what people expected from a trauma surgeon. Calm. Clean. Controlled.

The ER doors slammed open with a bang so loud her coffee jumped out of the cup.

“Coming in hot!” a paramedic shouted, wheeling in a gurney that looked like it’d barely survived a warzone.

Sienna was on her feet instantly. “Vitals?”

“BP’s crashing. GSW to the abdomen. Lost a lot of blood before we even got to him. No ID, no name. Wouldn’t talk.”

She looked down at the man on the stretcher—and her breath caught.

Tattoos snaked across his chest and arms, vivid black ink soaked with blood. He wore the tattered remains of a leather cut, the words Hellborn MC barely visible under the crimson smear. His jaw was clenched, teeth bared in pain, but his eyes—

Dark. Sharp. Watching her.

Not just a glance. He looked through her.

“Get him into Bay Three!” she snapped, already pulling on gloves. “And someone page Dr. Rami—this one’s gonna crash.”

They wheeled him in fast, nurses moving like muscle memory. Sienna leaned over him, trying to find a pulse.

“Sir, can you hear me?” she asked, pressing against his neck. “I need to know what you were shot with. Where it happened. Anything.”

He didn’t speak, didn’t even flinch.

Just grabbed her wrist.

His grip was weak—but commanding. And somehow, even with blood pouring from a hole in his side, he smirked.

“You touch me… I walk out.”

“What?”

His hand dropped. He passed out.

Sienna blinked, heart thudding too loud in her chest. What the hell had that meant?

The surgery was chaos. One bullet lodged in his lower abdomen, another having grazed a rib. The bleeding was aggressive, the damage messy. But he was lucky—somehow. No organs shredded, no spinal cord involvement.

It took her two hours to stabilize him. Two more to watch over him in recovery.

No ID. No name. No one came asking.

The police hadn’t shown up either, and Sienna didn’t call them.

Because she couldn’t.

She’d seen the patch. Hellborn MC. She wasn’t stupid.

Everyone in the city knew that name.

Everyone knew you didn’t get involved.

And yet… she had.

It was after 4 AM when she stood by his bedside again. He was asleep—no, sedated. His chest rose and fell slowly beneath the white sheet, clean bandages across his side now instead of open wounds. His face had relaxed into something almost human.

Almost beautiful.

She hated herself a little for thinking it.

Sienna had seen thousands of patients in her career. She’d learned to forget faces. To protect her own heart. But this one—

This man burned into her.

Before she realized it, her hand reached out, fingers brushing the ink along his arm. A snake curled into a skull. The letters “VP” inked into his shoulder. Not just any biker—he was second-in-command.

And she had just broken every hospital rule to keep him alive.

“Stupid,” she muttered under her breath, pulling her hand back like she’d touched fire.

He didn’t move. Didn’t stir.

Still, she felt like she’d just made a deal she didn’t understand.

By the time her shift ended, the sun was rising in shades of peach and gold over the city skyline. Sienna had already filled out the chart with an alias—“John Doe”—and left explicit instructions not to speak to police unless she was present.

Not that anyone was asking questions yet.

Which made it worse.

She returned the next night.

He was gone.

No discharge papers. No wheelchair roll out. No cameras showing him leaving.

Just gone.

Like a ghost made of blood and smoke.

Three days passed.

She couldn’t shake him.

She kept replaying his voice—raspy, low, almost teasing. “You touch me… I walk out.” What the hell did that even mean?

By Friday, she had almost convinced herself it didn’t matter. He was probably dead in a ditch somewhere, or hiding in whatever outlaw bunker Hellborn called home. Her job was to save lives, not obsess over criminals.

But she couldn’t sleep.

She barely ate.

The face behind her eyelids when she blinked wasn’t one of the children she’d lost on the table.

It was his.

Friday night. Rain tapped at the window of her tiny apartment like impatient fingers. She curled up on the couch, wine untouched on the coffee table, medical journal open but unread.

Her phone buzzed.

Blocked number.

She didn’t answer.

Then a knock.

Not the usual tap-tap from the delivery guy. This one was heavy. Slow. Measured.

Like whoever was on the other side wasn’t in a rush. Like they already knew she was there.

Sienna froze.

Another knock.

Thunder rolled in the distance.

She reached for her phone but didn’t dial. Instead, she crept to the door and peered through the peephole.

Her blood turned to ice.

It was him.

Soaked from the rain. Wearing the same blood-stained leather cut. One hand gripping his side again—he was hurt. But still standing. Still watching her with those black, unblinking eyes.

Sienna opened the door halfway, heart pounding. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He didn’t answer. Just leaned against the frame like he belonged there.

“You’re supposed to be resting. In a hospital. Somewhere not here.”

“You touched me,” he said simply.

She stared at him. “I’m a doctor. I touch a lot of people.”

He smirked again. A flash of teeth. “Not like that.”

“You’re bleeding. Again.”

“I’ll live.”

“You left without telling anyone—”

“Because I had to. People are watching.”

Her stomach twisted. “Who?”

His eyes darkened.

And then, without asking, he stepped into her apartment.

She backed up instinctively, fists clenched at her sides. “You can’t just walk in here.”

“Yes, I can,” he said.

Then he turned toward her, slow and deliberate, dripping rainwater onto the hardwood floor. “You saved me. That means something where I come from.”

“I don’t want it to mean anything,” she whispered.

He leaned in closer. “Too late.”

She smelled blood, rain, and Smoke.

But there was something else underneath it all—something she couldn’t name. A pull in her chest. A thrill down her spine.

“I don’t even know your name,” she said.

His lips twitched.

“Jax,” he murmured. “Jax Maddox.”

Her eyes widened. “You're Jax Maddox?”

She’d heard that name before.

Whispers in hospital corners. Headlines buried after lawsuits. Stories about a military op gone bad, a biker war no one wanted to acknowledge.

And now he was standing in her living room.

Jax watched her reaction closely. “Yeah, that name usually gets a look.”

“I should call the police.”

“You won’t.”

“Why not?”

He pulled something from his jacket—a folded-up photo, wrinkled and wet from the rain.

Sienna snatched it before she could think.

Her breath left her.

It was a picture of a little girl. No more than seven. Brown curls, big dark eyes.

“What is this?” she whispered.

“She’s missing,” Jax said, voice flat. “I think your hospital helped cover it up.”