Chapter 39

"Step away from him, Julian," Raphael said, his voice dropping into that chilling, clinical monotone that had once frozen entire surgical teams in the middle of a code zero.

Julian finally turned his head, a cruel, mocking smirk twisting his lips as he looked the surgeon up and down. "Or what? You'll write me a prescription? Patch me up so you can stitch my brother right after? You're out of your depth, doc. This is family business."

"He's bleeding out," Raphael countered, his stride eating up the distance between the catwalk stairs with terrifying speed. His eyes locked onto the expanding crimson stain soaking through Elias’s tactical gear. "And if his aorta blows, you don't have a syndicate left to inherit. You'll just be king of a morgue."

Julian’s thumb pulled back the hammer of his heavy-caliber pistol with a sharp, echoing click, shifting his aim away from Elias and directly toward Raphael's chest. "Then I guess I’ll just have to start the monarchy a little early without him."

The trigger began to squeeze. Raphael didn't hesitate. Years of split-second trauma triage and instinctive self-preservation fused into a single, violent motion. Instead of freezing, he lunged forward, his shoulder slamming directly into Julian’s midsection just as the gun discharged. A deafening roar swallowed the catwalk, the bullet screaming past Raphael’s ear to shatter an overhead steam valve. A blinding jet of scalding white vapor hissed outward, engulfing them both.

Julian cursed, swinging the heavy butt of the pistol down toward Raphael’s skull. Raphael ducked beneath the arc, his hands shooting out with brutal, uncalculated force to grab Julian’s wrists, driving them backward against the freezing metal railing of the catwalk. The impact jarred the weapon loose; it clattered against the grating and dropped silently into the churning, black water of the industrial sump far below.

"You arrogant bastard—" Julian spat, driving a knee upward.

It caught Raphael square in the ribs, knocking the wind from his lungs in a sharp gasp. Pain flared white-hot across his chest, but adrenaline kept him pinned to the fight. He hooked his foot behind Julian’s ankle and heaved with all his remaining strength. Julian stumbled backward, his balance betraying him on the slick, wet metal. With a frantic cry, Julian tipped over the edge of the low railing, his fingers grasping wildly at empty air before plunging downward into the dark, roaring depths.

Raphael didn't look down to watch him fall. He spun around, dropping hard to his knees beside Elias as the steam hissed around them like a shroud.

"Elias," Raphael rasped, his hands flying to the front of the ruined tactical jacket. He ripped the fabric open with a violent tear, exposing the horrifying reality underneath.

The physical exertion of the firefight and the violent struggle had completely blown out Elias’s original abdominal surgical repair. Blood pumped in dark, rhythmic surges with every failing beat of his heart.

"Damn it, damn it," Raphael muttered, his clinical detachment evaporating into raw, frantic terror. He pressed both hands directly over the ruptured wound, applying crushing, desperate pressure. "Elias. Look at me. Stay with me."

Elias’s eyelids fluttered open, dark and unfocused, his breathing coming in shallow, rattling gasps that tasted of copper and iron. "Raphael..." he whispered, the sound barely audible over the roaring storm outside and the escaping steam. "Too... much... blood..."

"Shut up and save your air," Raphael ordered, his voice cracking with a terrifying vulnerability he hadn't felt in a decade. His fingers plunged deeper into the torn flesh, searching blindly for the compromised vessel amidst the slick, warm chaos of the internal cavity. "I didn't patch you up in St. Jude’s just to watch you bleed out on a rusted catwalk in a sewer. Do you hear me?"

Elias gave a weak, agonizingly slow micro-nod, his chin dipping toward his chest as his eyes rolled back. His pulse beneath Raphael’s palm fluttered erratically—a faint, dying bird’s heartbeat—then flatlined into a sickening, terrifying stillness.

"No. No, you don't," Raphael snarled, abandoning pressure entirely.

Without a second thought, Raphael shoved his hands deeper through the open incision, his bare fingers wrapping directly around the descending aorta. With cold, mechanical precision born of absolute desperation, he began to rhythmically compress the vessel against the posterior chest wall, manually forcing oxygenated blood up toward Elias’s brain. It was raw, brutal, ancient medicine performed in the worst possible conditions, but it was the only thing standing between life and absolute, irreversible death.

"Come on," Raphael breathed, sweat stinging his eyes, mixing with the cold rainwater dripping from the overhead girders. He leaned his entire weight into the chest compressions, his muscles screaming under the strain. "Breathe, you stubborn bastard. Breathe!"

For three agonizingly long seconds, nothing happened. The world seemed to hold its breath, locked in the damp, echoing gloom of the subterranean sump.

Then, beneath Raphael’s blood-slicked fingers, the tissue twitched. A faint, shuddering tremor ran through Elias’s frame. A ragged, wet gasp tore from the man's throat as his chest violently heaved upward, pumping a fresh spray of crimson across Raphael’s knuckles.

"There it is," Raphael panted, not daring to stop his manual compression as he shouted into the comms unit clipped to his collar. "Maeve! MAEVE! Get down to the lower maintenance corridor now! I need the trauma kit, a portable suction unit, and every unit of O-negative blood in the van! Now!"

Static hissed from the earpiece for a agonizing second before Maeve’s breathless, frantic voice broke through. "We’re coming down! Hang on!"

Raphael kept his hands buried deep within the wound, his fingers locked around the aorta, holding Elias’s life together by sheer force of will as the heavy patter of running boots echoed down the concrete tunnel toward them.