The contract just changed, Doctora

Isabella didn't answer his question right away.

She reached into the heavy red toolbox, grabbed a roll of black electrical tape, and quickly bound the bloody piece of fabric tightly over the sabotaged artery to hold the pressure.

"He's stable to move," Isabella said, wiping her bloody hands on her scrub pants. She looked up at the soldiers holding the flashlights. "Get him to a real hospital before he loses the leg."

She stood up. Her knees ached against the hard concrete.

She turned to Diego. He was still standing at the edge of the light, waiting for her.

"I need to speak with you," Isabella said. Her voice was flat.

Diego's dark eyes narrowed slightly. He gestured to the open warehouse with a bloody hand. "Habla."

"Not here," Isabella said, her tone leaving zero room for negotiation. "Alone."

A muscle feathered in Diego's jaw. He wasn't used to being given orders by anyone, let alone a woman in bloody hospital clogs. But he gave a short, sharp nod.

He turned and walked away from the flashing lights and the bleeding men, stepping into the deep shadows near a stack of wooden shipping crates. Isabella followed him. The heavy smell of gun oil and tequila hung in the dark space between them.

Diego crossed his arms over his ruined, blood soaked shirt. The intensity rolled off him in waves.

"What is it, Doctora?" he demanded quietly.

Isabella didn't flinch. She mirrored the exact, terrifying calm he had used against her in the penthouse.

"Your man didn't start bleeding because of the bullet," she stated.

Diego frowned. "I saw him get shot."

"The bullet hit the outer muscle," Isabella countered, her voice clinical and precise. "It missed the femoral artery. The artery ruptured because it was held together with Vicryl."

Diego stared at her. The silence stretched for a full second.

"English, Doctora," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "I don't care about the medical terms. Tell me what it means."

"Vicryl is a dissolvable suture," Isabella explained, stepping slightly closer. "You never use it on a major blood vessel. It melts in the bloodstream. Whoever operated on your man's leg recently deliberately used the wrong thread. They rigged that artery to burst the moment his heart rate spiked."

Diego went completely still.

He didn't yell. He didn't punch the wooden crates. The feral rage from the firefight vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating stillness that was infinitely more terrifying.

"An inside job," Diego murmured. His eyes darkened as the paranoia instantly took root.

"Someone on your medical payroll is actively trying to kill your men," Isabella said. She held her ground, refusing to look away from his intense stare. "You thought you were buying a civilian to smile for the cameras. But your house is burning from the inside, Diego. And I am the only one who just noticed the smoke."

Diego slowly tilted his head. He looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since she walked into his office.

The corporate mask was gone. The hostage dynamic was dead.

He was looking at a woman who had just walked into a slaughterhouse, taken command of his soldiers, and handed him the exact intelligence he needed to save his empire.

"Javier," Diego called out, his voice deathly quiet but carrying across the warehouse.

The enforcer immediately stepped away from the wounded man. "Sí, Jefe."

"Get the car ready," Diego ordered, never breaking eye contact with Isabella. "We are going home."

• • •

The heavy armored door of the Escalade slammed shut. The deadbolts engaged with a sharp, heavy thud.

Hours ago, in the underground garage, that sound had felt like a vault sealing her inside. Now, as the SUV accelerated away from the warehouse, it sounded like a war room locking out the rest of the world.

Isabella collapsed back against the dark leather. The freezing air conditioning blasted over her sweat damp skin, sending a violent shiver down her spine. The sharp, metallic stench of drying blood and tequila radiated off her own clothes.

Then, the adrenaline broke.

A vicious, uncontrollable tremor started in her fingers and crawled straight up her forearms. Isabella locked her jaw until her teeth ached. She dug her blood stained fingernails deeply into her own palms, pressing her fists hard against her thighs to physically crush the shaking.

Diego sat beside her. His broad chest rose and fell in a slow, calculated rhythm. He stared straight ahead at the dark highway, the silence rolling off him in heavy, dangerous waves.

He leaned forward, snapped open the center console, and pulled out a thick, white cotton towel.

He dropped it directly onto her lap.

Isabella stared at the stark white fabric resting against the dark red smears on her skin. She picked it up. The rough cotton dragged against her knuckles as she began viciously scrubbing the dead sicario's blood off her hands.

In the driver's seat, Javier's eyes darted to the rearview mirror. He locked onto the reflection of Isabella wiping blood off her bare skin, sitting shoulder to shoulder with his boss. Javier swallowed hard, tightened his grip on the leather steering wheel, and immediately looked back at the road.

The SUV hummed over the asphalt. Outside, the streetlights of the interstate slid past in long, slow streaks, and somewhere beneath the hum of the engine Isabella could still hear her own pulse ticking too fast in her ears.

"They will try again," Diego said, his voice a low rumble over the engine.

Isabella scrubbed the towel over her cuticles. "If the mole is on your medical staff, they have access to all your men."

Diego slowly turned his head. The passing streetlights strobed across the dried blood soaking his ruined shirt, catching the cold, absolute certainty in his dark eyes.

"Which means I cannot trust my own house," he stated.

Isabella stopped wiping her hands. She met his stare in the dim cabin.

"The terms of our contract just changed, Doctora," Diego said. The threat was gone from his voice, replaced by a chilling, pragmatic necessity. "You are going to find my mole."