The Mafia Boss’s Captive Doctor

“I'm not signing. I didn't order that medication.”

Evelyn Hart pushed aside the incident report beside her resignation letter. Its final line said a child had died because she had ordered the wrong medication.

Adrian Cross laughed on the other end of the phone.

“Don't you understand? I'm offering to let this end with your name on it.”

“You performed the surgery. Let's compare the original records first.”

“Dr. Hart. Do you honestly think another hospital will take you?”

The son of the chairman of Harwood University Hospital. The surgeon who had left that operating room before she did. What he had left behind wasn't the evidence needed to establish why the child had died. It was a piece of paper assigning all the blame to her.

Evelyn touched her pen to her printed name.

“I'll find that out for myself.”

She ended the call. Her hand shook so badly that it took her a second attempt to set the phone down.

2:14 a.m. Harwood University Hospital, Republic of Westmere. Even after being told to leave, Evelyn had stayed in the on-call room to reread her own progress notes. But her screen already displayed an access restriction. In a single day, she was about to be forced out of the place where she had been training in pediatric cardiac surgery and caring for patients.

The child who had died 15 days earlier had been 5. The bleeding hadn't stopped after surgery, and a brain hemorrhage had later been confirmed. Evelyn had found discrepancies in the timing and dosage recorded for his medication. To establish whose mistake had killed him, she needed the original records.

The day after she asked for them, she became the culprit.

Evelyn put her account of the events into an envelope. Again, she saw the moment the child's lips had changed color in the operating room. If she was going to find out what had been missed, she couldn't sign Adrian Cross's report.

She slipped the envelope into her drawer and put on her white coat. She was about to ask Olivia, her friend and colleague, where they could meet when the lights in the on-call room went out.

Footsteps stopped outside the door.

“Who's there?”

The door opened without an answer. A man in a gray raincoat pocketed an access card. The man behind him went straight for her phone.

“Put that down.”

As Evelyn reached for it, his jacket fell open. There was a handgun inside.

She closed her mouth before she could shout toward the door. Children were sleeping across the hall. In the moment she hesitated, the man slid a waterproof folder onto her desk.

“Dr. Evelyn Hart. We need you to see this child.”

A 6-year-old boy. His name was Leo.

Below a description of recurring nightmares and self-injury after his parents' deaths was a medication record. Evelyn stopped as she turned the first page. Immediately after an additional sedative dose, someone had noted that his breathing had slowed.

“Where is he now?”

“Come with us.”

“Stop any further doses. Is there a doctor with him right now?”

The man raised his radio. Evelyn read the latest entry. She wanted to ask the medical staff with the child whether he was breathing properly after falling asleep on the medication. The only reply that came over the radio was that he was crying.

“I've passed that on. The car is waiting.”

“Let me speak to them. You need to bring him to a hospital—”

The man grabbed her arm.

Evelyn raked the fountain pen in her hand across the back of his. He let go, but the other man twisted her wrist behind her. The glove clamped over her mouth smelled of wet leather.

“You said you wanted me to see a patient! What are you doing?”

No answer. Her shoulder struck the corner of the desk, and the folder hit the floor. The man picked up only the chart.

On the emergency stairs, Evelyn tried to memorize faces and door numbers. The man following them had even taken the bag beside her desk. Inside the car, just before they covered her eyes, she saw blood beading on the back of the hand that had grabbed her.

She pushed the fountain pen beneath the seat, hoping someone—anyone—would find it.

***

When she opened her eyes again, she was in a helicopter.

Her wrists were bound, with a seat belt fastened over them. Evelyn looked from the coastline outside to the lap of the man opposite her. He had her phone.

“Give it back. I need to call the hospital.”

He turned the screen facedown. Evelyn fought the angry tears gathering in her eyes. If she cried, she wouldn't be able to see clearly. Right now, she needed to see where they were taking her.

“The boy. Has he been breathing properly since that last dose?”

The man checked over the radio. Even as she waited for the answer, he didn't return her phone.

Lights appeared in the middle of the sea. A small island, with a concrete building on a cliff, a breakwater, and warehouses clustered nearby. As the helicopter descended, Evelyn counted the boats moored at the dock. 2. That looked like the way back to the mainland.

Rain struck her face when the door opened. As the man reached to pull her out, she raised her bound hands.

“You expect me to examine a child like this?”

He looked toward the end of the walkway. Only when the man standing there raised a hand did he untie her.

The man wore a black suit. Dried blood marked the collar of his rain-soaked shirt. The guards moved out of his way all at once as he approached.

“Evelyn Hart.”

A voice she had never heard spoke her name. Evelyn left her aching wrists exposed instead of hiding them beneath her sleeves.

“Was this your order?”

“I told them to bring you.”

“Your name. First.”

A guard beside them moved. A slight turn of the man's head stopped him.

“Dane Blackwell.”

Evelyn committed the name to memory. He glanced down at her wrists, then met her eyes.

“In Valdora, they call me Dante Bellac.”

Valdora. The country across the sea from Westmere. He was the boss of a Mafia organization that controlled a port there. Evelyn looked down at the chart. Why a man who could abduct a doctor and take her to another country had chosen her would have to wait. He was already taking another step toward her.

“Save my nephew. You're not leaving until he recovers.”