CHAPTER 5 — Guarded Secrets

~ ISLA ~

“Good morning, Dr. Ellis,” Riley immediately straightened and greeted, while I also nodded respectfully.

He’s Dr. Simon Ellis, our head surgeon and Director at Northgate Manhattan Hospital.

It was well known across New York that he’s the youngest son of the Ellis family, who ran a chain of medical-related businesses — and the hospital we work at is one of their establishments.

But this young doctor remained low-key, and he was truly a mystery to us.

Most of the women interns and fellow doctors fantasized about him, while also being a little scared of him.

He was just… too impossible to read.

He never wasted words or bothered with unnecessary pleasantries. His eyes briefly swept across the room before settling on me.

“Dr. Bennett,” his deep, even voice rang. There was no warmth in it, yet somehow it always commanded attention. “A word, in my office.”

The other surgeons exchanged knowing looks.

Dr. Ellis didn’t call people into his private office for casual chats. And he rarely addressed anyone so directly.

If he called someone inside, it had to be related to an offense or a serious matter.

“Yes, Dr. Ellis,” I replied professionally, though a faint tension coiled in my stomach.

He turned and left after I responded — his quiet authority lingering in his stride, making it clear he expected me to follow immediately.

Riley leaned closer and whispered, “Don’t be nervous. Prince Charming number two is usually easygoing when it comes to you.”

She added it with a playful wink.

“Stop it!” I glared at her again.

“Alright, relax,” she surrendered. “I’ll get to my rounds now. Good luck,” she whispered before walking away.

I took a deep breath, composed myself, and moved toward Dr. Ellis’s private office.

I knocked twice before hearing his deep voice inside.

“Come in.”

I stepped inside, quietly closing the door behind me.

Dr. Ellis was already behind his desk, flipping through a thin patient file with that same focused expression he always wore — as though nothing in the world could distract him once he was in the working zone.

“Take a seat, Dr. Bennett,” he said without looking up.

I sat down, tucking my hands into my lap.

He finally met my eyes, then pushed the file toward me. “We have a surgery in fifteen minutes. Emergency case. The patient’s name is Antonio Vitale — an Italian national, mid-fifties. He was brought in twenty minutes ago with a gunshot wound near the heart. The bullet is lodged dangerously close. He’s stable for now, but we don’t have a lot of time.”

I skimmed the first page. The vitals. The scans. The brief notes from the ER. Just reading it made my mind start working through the steps we’d need to take.

“I want you assisting me,” he said plainly, with no hint of doubt in his tone. “You’re one of the best we have. I need precision for this one.”

It was rare for him to say something like that. Dr. Ellis didn’t hand out compliments — ever.

“Yes, Senior,” I replied, keeping my voice professional.

“Good. Prep yourself. We’re using OR-3. They’re already setting up as we speak.” He stood, sliding the file under his arm.

I got to my feet, ready to follow, but… a sudden, strange feeling twisted in my chest.

I’ve handled dozens of critical surgeries — gunshot wounds, heart repairs, cases where minutes made the difference between life and death.

And I’ve never once felt this…

This odd, restless pulse in my stomach.

Maybe it was just the coffee kicking in.

Or the way his eyes seemed a fraction sharper than usual when he said the man’s name.

Antonio Vitale.

It rolled in my head, heavy for some reason I couldn’t place.

Still, I straightened my shoulders and followed him out.

My hands were steady, my steps quick… but inside, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t going to be like any other surgery I’d done before.

***

The faint sound of the ventilation in the hospital's hallway was unusually quiet as Dr. Simon and I walked side by side toward OR-3.

Our steps were muffled against the white tile floor, but my pulse was anything but erratic.

We were already in full surgical PPE — scrub caps, masks, sterile gowns, and gloves — and still, I could feel a bead of sweat forming at the nape of my neck.

The closer we got, the heavier the air felt, as if something about this case was… different.

I've been constantly having this weird feeling since earlier.

I slowed for a moment, stunned by the sight before me — the operating room was heavily guarded by bulky men.

There were five of them in total — tall, broad-shouldered, and built like stone. They all wore black suits with earpieces, with sharp and alert eyes that scanned every movement around the place.

From what they looked like, I'm certain they weren’t ordinary hospital security, and they definitely weren’t someone’s hired simple guards.

Who on earth is this patient?

I couldn’t help swallowing hard, my gaze flicking from one stern face to the next.

They didn’t move aside until Simon gave a brief nod.

When we stepped inside, the room was already in motion.

The patient lay on the table, draped and prepped, the surgical lights glaring down on the pale, still form.

I could only see part of his face, the rest hidden behind the oxygen mask and sterile drapes, but the faint scent of iron in the air told me enough — he had lost a lot of blood.

There were three of us there to perform the surgery, as this one was really critical. Three nurses were present as well to assist with the instruments and monitor vitals.

Dr. Simon took his place at the head of the table, and I moved beside him, my eyes scanning the field.

The wound was to the left side of the chest — dangerously close to the heart. The bullet had buried itself deep, and every second mattered.

“Let’s begin,” Simon said, his voice steady but clipped.

The steady beeping of the heart monitor echoed in the background, a fragile metronome keeping time with the patient’s life.

“Dr. Bennett,” Dr. Simon’s voice was calm but firm, drawing my attention back. “You’ll take over the extraction when we’re ready.”

I nodded and stepped into position, my gloved hands already itching for the scalpel.

My mind slipped into its familiar rhythm — the quiet tunnel of focus I entered before any high-risk procedure.

We scrubbed in seamlessly, following our senior's lead — exchanging instruments with practiced rhythm.

For the first few minutes, everything went smoothly — controlled, focused, methodical.

Not until the monitor screamed suddenly.

The beeping became rapid, erratic. My eyes darted to the screen — heart rate spiking, oxygen saturation dipping.

“V-tach!” one of the nurses barked.

A tense silence wrapped around us, the kind that wasn’t really silent at all — it was the pounding in my ears, the rush of adrenaline in my veins.

Simon’s gaze flicked to me. “Isla, take over.”

My breath caught. He trusted me with this? Now?

But there was no room for hesitation. I slid into position, my gloved hands already moving to expose the wound further. Every muscle in my body honed in on that one goal — removing the bullet without letting this man’s heart stop in my hands.

“Retractor.”

The metal glinted under the light as it widened the field.

I leaned closer, my eyes locking onto the lodged slug. It was so close to the myocardium that one wrong movement could slice into the heart muscle.

My grip on the forceps was firm but feather-light.

Sweat prickled at my brow, but I couldn’t blink it away. All I could hear was the monitor’s uneven beep… beep… beep.

Almost there.

I rotated the bullet gently, freeing it from the surrounding tissue millimeter by millimeter. One nurse dabbed away the pooling blood, and another steadied the suction. My shoulders ached from holding the precise angle, but I didn’t dare shift.

Finally, with the smallest tug, the bullet slid free.

I held it up for just a moment — a small, deadly piece of metal — before placing it in the specimen cup.

The monitor steadied, the beeping returning to a more reassuring rhythm.

“Pulse is stabilizing,” the anesthesiologist confirmed.

Only then did I let out the breath I’d been holding the entire time.

The rest of the procedure was textbook — repair, irrigation, closing in neat, layered sutures.

By the time we stepped back, the patient’s vitals were strong and steady.

“Good work, Dr. Bennett,” Dr. Simon said with a nod when his intense eyes met mine.

“Thank you, Senior," I replied politely.

The others murmured congratulations as well… all except Dr. Elise Hayes.

She stood on the opposite side of the table in silence, her green eyes cool, though I caught the faintest glint in them.

It’s nothing new with her. She's always been ignoring my presence since I started working in this hospital without knowing why.

But I didn't take it seriously. The only thing that mattered right now was that the man on the table was still alive.

But as I stripped off my gloves and headed for the scrub sink, I couldn’t stop my mind from circling back to the question that had settled itself in my chest.

Who is he—and why does his life come guarded like a state secret?