Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 11 - Chapitre 20

"If this is another inquiry about my charting habits, Elise, save your breath," Raphael snapped, his hand hovering over the cold steel handle of his car door. "I am in no condition for a bureaucratic inquest in a freezing garage."Elise stopped three paces away, her chest heaving slightly as she caught her breath, her eyes scanning the dim shadows cast by the concrete pillars. "I don't give a damn about your charting, Raphael. I ran the blood-gas analysis on the sample you tried to throw out in VIP 402."Raphael’s fingers locked onto the car handle. The raw, metallic taste of fear surged back into the base of his tongue. "You didn't.""I did," Elise said, her voice dropping to an urgent, trembling whisper. "And it didn't match Mr. Vance’s pre-op blood type. It didn't match anyone’s in the system. There was a secondary plasma marker, a rare synthetic coagulant used exclusively by private trauma outfits. Someone else bled in that room, Raphael. Someone dangerous. And you were covering f

"She’s not going anywhere," Maeve said, her voice cutting through the damp concrete echoes of the parking garage like a scalpel through fascia.She stepped from the gloom beside the second pillar, her fingers already wrapping around Elise’s arm with terrifying, practiced efficiency. Elise let out a sharp cry, her boots slipping on the slick floor as Maeve hauled her backward toward a matte-black van parked with its side door yawning open."Don't touch her!" Raphael snarled, throwing his weight backward against the heavy-set enforcer holding him, his elbow driving hard into a rib cage that felt like packed iron.The man holding Raphael didn't even grunt. He simply shifted his grip, wrenching Raphael’s arm behind his spine with a sickening click of joint rotation, shoving him headfirst into the open backseat of the van. Raphael tumbled across the sticky rubber floor mats, his cheekbone connecting hard with the metal seat runner."Raphael!" Elise screamed, her voice cracking as Maeve sho

"Shut the door, Corbett. And spare me the performance about budget allocations and delayed surgical trays," Elise snapped, her heels clicking aggressively against the linoleum floor of the administrator’s expansive corner office.Nathaniel Corbett lowered his gold-rimmed reading glasses down the bridge of his nose, his pale blue eyes narrowing into tight slits as he folded his hands over a pristine, unblemished desk. "Doctor Mercer. You burst into my office at seven in the morning without an appointment, demanding a private audience, and yet you walk in with the attitude of an inquisitor. I am the administrator of St. Jude’s Hospital. You are a senior resident. Mind your tone."Elise slammed a thick manila folder directly onto the center of Corbett’s polished mahogany desk, the heavy stack sliding a few inches before coming to a dead stop against his blotter. "I'm done minding my tone, Nathaniel. Not when half the trauma team is covering for a missing chief resident and VIP Room 402 h

"You're an idiot, Raphael," Elias rasped, his voice cutting through the heavy, damp silence of the safe house bedroom like broken glass as he dragged himself upright against the headboard.Raphael didn't flinch, his hand still hovering over the metal trash can where he had just aggressively tossed the burner phone and the forged passports Maeve had left him five minutes ago. "I'm a surgeon, Elias. Not a runaway.""You threw away your ticket out," Elias said, his fever-bright eyes narrowing as he stared down at the crumpled paper sticking out of the wastebasket. "Maeve gave you an out. A clean slate. A new name. And you dumped it in the trash like it was a used piece of gauze.""I don't need a new name," Raphael snapped, spinning around to face him, his exhaustion finally cracking the icy professional facade he usually wore like armor. "And I certainly don't need a lecture on survival from a man who managed to get himself stabbed in his own VIP wing and then pulled me into a shootout a

"Stop moving, Elias," Raphael hissed, his fingers gripping the heavy wool of the oversized dark coat he had draped over the syndicate boss's shoulders. "If you split those sutures walking down these stairs, I am not carrying you back up. You can bleed out on the pavement for all I care.""You care deeply, Raphael," Elias rasped, his breath hot against Raphael's ear as he leaned his full, heavy weight onto the surgeon's shoulder, wincing as a fresh wave of pain rippled through his stitched abdomen. "That's your primary flaw. You can't stand losing a patient, even when that patient is a criminal.""Shut up and keep your head down," Raphael muttered, guiding Elias through the dim, grease-stained stairwell of the safe house and out into the biting chill of the alleyway.The city air hit them like a wall of ice, thick with the scent of diesel exhaust, melting slush, and industrial rot. A battered gray sedan waited at the curb, its engine idling with a low, rhythmic thrum that vibrated up t