I looked down at the blue folder.
The papers inside were pre-printed surgical consent forms. My name was already typed on the donor line. Below it sat a single lab sheet with a red stamp that read *COMPATIBLE*.
Scarlet was still clutching my jeans, her breath coming in ragged sobs. She reached up and touched the thin, faded scar along her neck. It was a nervous habit I had seen her do a dozen times before.
I took a slow breath. My heart hammered against my ribs, but my voice came out flat and even.
"I need to independently verify this before consenting to any medical procedure."
The room went dead still.
Scarlet froze. Her tears seemed to stop mid-drop.
Julian’s face changed. The practiced sympathy vanished from his eyes in a split second, replaced by pure, ugly rage. He took two long strides toward me.
"Verify?" he hissed. "She doesn't have time for your damn ego, Viviana!"
Before I could back away, his hand came up.
*Crack.*
The slap was hard and open-palmed.
The force whipped my head to the side. My cheek erupted in burning fire. I stumbled against the wall, the metallic taste of copper flooding my mouth.
I barely had time to blink before Julian’s fingers locked around my right wrist like a steel clamp.
"You don't get to play god today," he snarled. His eyes were wide and bloodshot. "You are getting on that table. You are going to save her."
"Let go of me!" I yelled.
He didn't listen. He yanked me out into the hall.
I dug my heels into the linoleum, twisting with all my strength. "Julian, stop! Let me go!"
"Shut up!" he screamed. Spittle flew from his lips. "You selfish bitch! An innocent woman is dying, and you're making it about yourself!"
Two hospital orderlies and a nurse stood by a gurney twenty feet away. Julian’s family had poured millions into Mount Sinai's board. The staff just stood there with pale faces, looking at the floor, not making a move to stop him.
My foot caught on the metal base of a supply cart. My legs gave out, and I slammed hard onto the floor.
Pain shot up my elbow. My cheek throbbed, swelling fast. Julian didn't let go. He kept walking, dragging me by my arm across the cold floor toward the pre-op doors.
"Help me!" I screamed at the orderlies. "Call security!"
Nobody moved. Scarlet stood in the doorway of Room 412, watching with wide, calculating eyes.
"Pick her up," Julian barked at the orderlies. "Put her on the gurney. Now!"
One of the men stepped forward, his hands hesitating in the air.
Then the heavy double doors at the end of the corridor blew open with a deafening crash.
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
Everyone froze.
Raphael Foster strode through the entrance.
Four large men in dark suits flanked him, moving in tight formation. But I couldn't look at them. I could only look at Raphael.
For ten years, I had known Raphael as the guy with the wry grin, the easy jokes, and the calm eyes. I had never seen him look like this. His jaw was set in granite. His eyes were dark, pitch black, and utterly terrifying.
He didn't shout. He didn't ask what was happening.
He crossed the hall in three massive strides.
Julian turned around, his mouth opening to speak. "Foster, what the hell are you—"
Raphael didn't let him finish.
His right fist drove straight into Julian’s jaw.
The punch landed with a sickening, hollow crack. Julian’s head snapped back. His body lifted off his feet and smashed into the wall, knocking a metal tray of instruments clattering to the floor. Julian crumpled in a heap, groaning and holding his bleeding face.
Raphael’s security guards moved instantly. Two of them pinned the orderlies against the wall. The other two blocked the corridor, cutting Scarlet off completely.
Raphael turned to me.
He stepped directly between my body and the rest of the room. He sank down onto both knees on the cold floor.
"Viviana," he said.
His voice was barely above a whisper, rough and strained. He reached out to touch my face, but stopped an inch away, terrified of hurting me.
I looked down at his hands. They were trembling.
Raphael Foster never shook. He owned boardrooms and outmaneuvered billionaires without raising his heart rate. But right now, his fingers were shaking violently. It wasn't fear, and it wasn't adrenaline.
It was horror. It was the crushing weight of a man realizing that his quiet restraint, his years of keeping his distance, had almost let the woman he loved get butchered in a hospital basement.
"I've got you," Raphael whispered. His voice broke on the last word. "You're safe. I've got you."
He slid one arm under my back and the other beneath my knees. He lifted me effortlessly into his chest.
I buried my face into his wool coat. It smelled of cedarwood, rain, and clean cotton.
Raphael stood up and turned. He didn't look at Scarlet, who was trembling in the doorway. He stepped right over Julian’s legs, not even bothering to glance down at the man whimpering on the tile.
"Get the car," Raphael said coldly to his guards.
We rode the private elevator down to the basement garage. A black SUV waited with the rear door open. Raphael carefully placed me in the back seat and climbed in beside me, pulling the door shut with a heavy thud.
He took off his scarf and gently folded it against my swollen cheek. His touch was so light, so careful, like I was made of glass.
"Driver," Raphael said, his voice flat and lethal. "Take us to the townhouse. Call Dr. Miller to meet us there. Now."
The car shot forward into the gray Manhattan rain.
I leaned against Raphael’s shoulder. For the first time in six years, I stopped fighting. I closed my eyes, and let him take me home.
