The Man Who Refuses to Walk Away.

~ Ethan Knight ~

My hands gripped the steering wheel of my SUV. The clock on the dashboard read 12:14 a.m. My eyes felt heavy and dry after spending fourteen hours straight inside the operating room at Knight Medical. I had just fixed a bad blood leak inside a young mother's brain. It was hard work, but she was going to live.

The road leading through Blackstone Heights was completely dark and empty. The tall trees on both sides looked like giant black shadows under the night sky. I liked the quiet of the night. It gave me time to think about my patients and the heavy responsibility of taking over my father’s medical company.

Suddenly, my high beams caught a flash of bright white on the asphalt up ahead. It looked like paper scattering in the wind.

Then, I saw the shape.

A body was lying flat on the freezing road.

"Stop the car!" I shouted to my driver, Marcus.

The tires let out a loud screech as Marcus slammed on the brakes. The SUV jerked to a hard stop just a few feet away from the shape. My heart hammered against my ribs. As a doctor, my brain immediately switched into emergency mode. I did not wait for Marcus to open his door. I grabbed my medical bag from the passenger seat, threw my door open, and ran out into the freezing wind.

The cold air hit my face like a slap, but I barely felt it. I dropped to my knees on the hard asphalt next to the person.

It was a woman. She was curled into a small ball on her side. Her face was as pale as a sheet of ice, and her lips had a scary blue tint. A cheap brown jacket was wrapped loosely around her shoulders. Near her feet, an old cardboard box sat upside down, with a few old sweaters and shoes spilled out into the dirt.

"Ma'am? Can you hear me?" I asked loudly. I placed two fingers against the side of her neck to check for a pulse. It was there, but it felt incredibly fast and weak. Her skin felt like marble frozen in a freezer.

I gently turned her onto her back so I could check her breathing. The yellow headlights from my SUV shined directly onto her face.

My breath caught in my throat.

I knew this face.

Five years ago, I was a young doctor drowning in sadness. I had just lost my very first patient—a sweet six-year-old girl. I sat in a tiny, dark coffee shop near the hospital, staring at my hands and crying silently. I wanted to quit. Then, a kind woman sat down across from me. She did not know my name. She did not know my family had millions of dollars. She just handed me a warm cup of coffee and smiled. “You look like you need someone to be kind to you,” she had said. She stayed and listened to me talk for a whole hour. I never found out her name, but I never forgot her hazel eyes and her sweet, gentle smile.

It was her. The exact same woman.

"Hey," I said, my voice shaking as I brushed a long strand of dark brown hair away from her damp cheek. "Wake up. Stay with me."

She did not move. Her eyelids did not even twitch.

I looked down at her arms. A white plastic band was still wrapped around her wrist. It was from Ashbourne General Hospital. My eyes moved down further. My hands went cold. There was dried red blood staining the bottom of her clothes and sticking to her legs.

"Marcus, get the emergency blankets from the trunk right now!" I yelled over my shoulder.

"Yes, Dr. Knight!" Marcus called back, his boots crunching loudly on the gravel as he ran.

I picked up one of the white papers that was fluttering near my knee. It was a legal document. My eyes scanned the bold text at the top: Petition for Dissolution of Marriage. At the bottom, a name was written in big, angry letters: Julian Vance.

Julian Vance. The billionaire CEO. He was a man my father warned me about—a ruthless businessman who cared only about status and money.

I looked back at the woman bleeding on the road. Her plastic wristband had her name printed on it: Ivy Monroe.

My teeth ground together so hard my jaw ached. Someone had discharged this woman from the hospital only hours after she had experienced a terrible trauma. They had thrown her out into the freezing night with nothing but a box of old clothes. They had left her here to die alone in the dark.

"Sir, here are the blankets," Marcus said, kneeling next to me and handing over the thick silver foil sheets. He looked at Ivy’s pale face and gasped. "Oh no. Is she...?"

"She is alive, but she has severe hypothermia and massive blood loss," I snapped. My chest felt hot with a sudden, boiling rage. I wrapped the warm blankets tightly around her body. "We are not waiting for an ambulance. Help me lift her."

I slid my arms beneath her shoulders and knees. When I lifted her up, my heart sank. She was a plus-sized woman, very fat, but she felt frighteningly light in my arms, like her body had been entirely emptied of strength and life. Her head rolled back against my shoulder, her cold breath faint against my neck.

I carried her to the back seat of the SUV. Marcus opened the door wide, and I climbed inside, holding her close against my chest to share my body heat.

"Drive to Knight Medical Campus," I ordered Marcus as he jumped into the driver's seat. "Use the emergency lights. Move as fast as you can!"

The engine roared, and the SUV sped down the dark road, throwing rocks behind the tires.

I pulled out my phone with one hand while keeping my other arm locked securely around Ivy. I dialed the direct number to the hospital's trauma unit.

"This is Dr. Ethan Knight," I said into the phone, my voice loud and commanding. "I am coming in with a critical female patient. She has severe exposure to the cold, dangerous blood loss, and extreme physical trauma. I need a trauma suite ready the second I hit the doors. Get a blood transfusion kit ready, and call the chief OB-GYN down to the ER immediately."

"Understood, Dr. Knight. We will be waiting," the nurse on the line replied before hanging up.

I dropped the phone onto the leather seat. The SUV bounced as we tore through the city streets, the blue and red emergency lights flashing against the dark buildings outside.

I looked down at Ivy. Her face was tucked right under my chin. She let out a tiny, pathetic whimper, her body shivering violently against mine.

"I've got you," I whispered into her hair, tightening my grip around her silver-wrapped frame. "You are safe now. I am not going to let you fade away."

I remembered that day in the coffee shop so clearly. Her kindness had saved my career when I was ready to give up on everything. Seeing her like this—broken, bleeding, and discarded like trash made something inside my soul lock into place.

Marcus slammed on the brakes as we slid into the bright ambulance bay of Knight Medical Campus. The glass doors flew open, and three nurses rushed out into the cold night holding a metal gurney.

I didn't wait for them to help me. I kicked the SUV door open and carried Ivy out myself, my heavy boots hitting the concrete with a loud thud. I placed her gently onto the white mattress of the gurney.

"Get her inside now!" I shouted to the trauma team. "Start the warm IV fluids and check her oxygen levels!"

"Doctor, her blood pressure is dropping fast!" a nurse yelled as we pushed the metal bed through the sliding doors into the bright, sterile hallway.

"I know!" I yelled back, keeping my hand pressed firmly over Ivy's cold fingers as the wheels rattled against the floor. "I am staying in the room. Nobody stops working until she is stable."

We burst into the trauma room. The bright white lights shined down on her pale, tear-streaked face. My jaw remained tight, my blue-gray eyes blazing with a fierce, quiet anger as the doctors and nurses began hooking her up to the beeping machines.

I looked down at her closed eyes and made a silent promise.

"Don't worry, I'll make sure you're safe. You're going to be fine. I promise."