Chapter Nineteen: Code Red

Liam’s mouth hovered lower, his breath hot between her thighs, the straps holding her in place trembling with every desperate pull of her muscles. Sarah’s chest heaved, her lips parted, her muffled whimpers still echoing in the sterile room. Her feet glistened with his worship, her body undone, trembling on the edge of surrender.

“Sarah…” His voice was rough, his smirk dangerous. “I’m not done. I want to taste all of you—”

But the shrill alarm ripped through the OR speakers, sharp and merciless.

“Code Red. Trauma incoming. ER. Code Red.”

For a split second, the world froze. Sarah’s heart slammed against her ribs, her body jolting under the straps.

Her training surged back like a tidal wave. The shame, the heat, the trembling, all shoved aside by the iron instinct of a surgeon who’d spent decades answering that call.

“Liam—” she gasped, her voice breaking but firming as she tugged against the restraints. “Let me go. Now.”

He hesitated, eyes dark, torn between hunger and the authority of the alarm.

“Now, Liam!” Her voice snapped with a force she hadn’t summoned in years. The Doctor. The Surgeon. The woman who had cut open chests and held beating hearts in her hands.

For the first time, Liam’s smirk faltered. His jaw flexed, but his hands moved, unstrapping her wrists and ankles with swift, almost reluctant precision.

The moment she was free, Sarah shoved off the table, her body still trembling, her hair disheveled, her lips swollen from muffled moans. She nearly staggered, but then she straightened, tugging her coat tight over her shoulders, her face hardening into the mask of authority.

She was no longer his captive. She was no longer the trembling woman undone by his tongue.

She was Dr. Sarah Smith. Renowned cardiothoracic surgeon.

Her shoes clattered as she shoved them back on with shaking hands. The wetness still clung to her skin, a secret only she and Liam would ever know, but her steps sharpened as she barreled toward the scrub room door.

Behind her, Liam leaned back against the OR table, his smirk returning faintly, darker now. His voice followed her, low and amused.

“Go save your patient, Doctor. But don’t think I won’t finish what I started.”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

Because she was already sprinting, her lab coat flying behind her as she tore through the corridor toward the ER. Nurses and residents scattered out of her way, their faces snapping to attention as they saw her coming.

“Patient incoming!” someone shouted from down the hall. “Multiple gunshot wounds!”

“Prep the trauma bay!” Sarah barked, her voice cutting through the chaos. She slipped into sterile gloves as she ran, her mind shifting in lightning-fast clarity. “Get me a thoracotomy tray. Blood type, crossmatch now. Page anesthesia.”

Her trembling had vanished. Her hands no longer shook. They were steady, sure, lethal in their precision.

By the time she burst into the ER bay, the gurney was already rolling in. A young man, chest heaving, crimson soaking through his shirt. The monitor screamed. His pulse thready. His blood pressure crashing.

“Multiple GSWs!” a nurse shouted.

“BP crashing!” another cried.

The monitor shrieked in erratic beeps.

“Step aside!” Sarah’s voice cracked like lightning, slicing through the chaos. She swooped in, gloved hands already poised, mind razor-sharp. She was no longer the trembling woman strapped to an OR table. She was the surgeon.

“Thoracotomy tray, now!”

The instruments slammed onto the stand. She didn’t hesitate. Scalpel in hand, she drew a clean, merciless incision, slicing through layers of skin and muscle with a swiftness that left even the seasoned trauma nurses wide-eyed.

Blood welled up, hot and metallic. The stench of iron filled the air.

“Retractors. Suction. Keep that field clear.”

She plunged her hand into the patient’s chest cavity, the warmth swallowing her wrist. Her fingers found it, the heart, limp and slowing, fluttering like a dying bird.

“Massage.” Her voice was steady, but her pulse pounded in her ears.

She wrapped her hands around the fragile muscle, cradling it, squeezing rhythmically, one, two, three, four.

“Come on,” she whispered under her breath, almost a prayer, almost a command. “Don’t you dare give up.”

“BP forty over palpable!” someone shouted.

Her jaw clenched. “I need blood. Push O-neg. Full volume.”

The suction whirred, the monitor screamed, the team moved with her cadence. The trauma bay blurred, only the heart in her hand was real.

The faintest contraction twitched against her palm.

Her eyes flared. “Yes… That’s it. Come back to me.”

The monitor flatlined again.

“No, no, no—charge the paddles!” she barked, her voice a whip crack.

The defibrillator pads pressed inside the open chest, directly against the still heart.

“Fifty joules. Clear!”

The jolt surged, snapping through her hands. The heart spasmed but stayed limp.

“Again—seventy!”

The nurse’s eyes flickered with doubt. “Doctor—”

“Do it!” she roared.

Another shock tore through the room. Sarah’s entire body tensed, willing that muscle back to life.

The monitor hesitated. Then, a fragile rhythm, jagged but undeniable.

The trauma bay erupted in a wave of gasps and rushed movement. Nurses scrambled, residents surged forward, but Sarah’s eyes stayed locked on the beating heart in her hands.

It was there. It was alive.

And she was the one who had dragged it back from the abyss.

Slowly, she withdrew her hand, blood smeared up to her elbow, chest heaving. Her voice, low and hoarse, cut through the din.

“Stabilize him. Keep monitoring. He’s not out of the woods.”

The team moved with renewed vigor, the tide shifting from despair to determination.

Sarah stripped off her bloody gloves, her body trembling with adrenaline. For one dizzy second, she felt the echo of Liam’s tongue on her skin, the restraint of leather straps on her wrists.

But it was gone now, burned away in the fire of battle.

Here, she wasn’t prey. Here, she wasn’t trembling.

Here, she was the warrior who held death at bay.

The room hadn’t breathed until the monitor steadied. Now, at last, a collective exhale broke through the tension. Nurses exchanged glances of stunned relief, residents murmured to one another like witnesses to a miracle.

“Doctor Smith…” a junior resident whispered, eyes wide, “…that was… incredible.”

Sarah didn’t answer. Her throat was raw, her pulse still hammering. She peeled off the soaked gloves with a snap, crimson streaks painting her forearms like war paint. The young man on the table was still alive because of her. That was all that mattered.

“Get him upstairs to CVICU. Tight monitoring. I want ABG every fifteen minutes until I say otherwise,” she ordered, voice low but firm. Her authority rippled outward; the team moved as though carried by her gravity.

As the gurney was wheeled out, the trauma bay emptied slowly, buzzing in her wake. A few nurses lingered, their eyes soft with respect. Some gave her the kind of nod reserved for soldiers who walk away from battle.

Then silence.

Sarah leaned back against the counter, blood drying on her skin, her chest heaving. The adrenaline drained all at once, leaving her legs weak. For a heartbeat, she let herself close her eyes, shoulders sagging under the weight of everything, what she’d just done, what she’d just felt before the code.

In her mind, the echo of Liam’s voice whispered again: “I want to eat you, Sarah…”

Her stomach twisted. The same hands that had been strapped above her head minutes ago had just held a man’s failing heart and forced it back to life. The same mouth that had stifled moans against his skin was now dry, tasting of copper and grit.

The duality threatened to break her.

“Doctor Smith.”

She opened her eyes. One of the senior nurses, a woman who’d worked beside her for years, gave her a rare smile. “You were brilliant. Again.”

Sarah tried to smile back, but her lips trembled. “Just… doing my job.”

The nurse shook her head, almost reverent. “No one does it like you.”

When she finally walked out of the trauma bay, the hallway lights felt too bright. She stripped off her gown, tugged at the cap in her hair, and washed the blood from her arms in the nearest scrub sink. Red swirled down the drain, fading into clear water.

Her reflection in the steel backsplash startled her. Her face was pale, eyes glassy, strands of hair plastered to her forehead. She looked raw. Like both a conqueror and a woman on the verge of collapse.

Her fingers shook as she turned off the tap. Not from fear. Not from exhaustion. From the aftershock.

And then, a shadow moved behind her.

She didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

His presence filled the narrow space, tall, commanding, too close. The scent of him, expensive spice and the faint trace of her own skin still on him, curled around her like smoke.

Liam Hamilton.

He had watched her. Watched her fight death and win. Watched her transform from trembling captive into unstoppable savior.

“Sarah…” His voice was molten silk, low enough that no one beyond the scrub room could hear. “Do you have any idea how you looked in there?”

She gripped the edge of the sink, knuckles white, heart still racing for reasons that had nothing to do with the code.

“You looked…” He stepped closer, his breath ghosting over her ear, “…like the sexiest warrior I’ve ever seen.”