{"id":937,"date":"2026-10-23T06:00:42","date_gmt":"2026-10-23T06:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/?p=937"},"modified":"2026-10-23T06:00:42","modified_gmt":"2026-10-23T06:00:42","slug":"she-treated-the-mafia-bosss-wound-and-disappeared-hours-later-he-ordered-bring-me-that-woman-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/?p=937","title":{"rendered":"She Treated The Mafia Boss\u2019s Wound And Disappeared. Hours Later, He Ordered, \u201cBring Me That Woman Now\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n
\n

She Treated The Mafia Boss\u2019s Wound And Disappeared. Hours Later, He Ordered, \u201cBring Me That Woman Now\u201d<\/h1>\n
\n

Chapter 1<\/h2>\n
\n

She Treated The Mafia Boss\u2019s Wound And Disappeared. Hours Later, He Ordered, \u201cBring Me That Woman Now\u201d<\/p>\n

The fluorescent lights of Chicago Mercy Hospital\u2019s emergency department had a persistent, irritating flicker that could drive a sane person mad by hour ten of a twelve-hour shift.<\/p>\n

It was 3:14 a.m. on a Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The time of night when the city\u2019s ghosts usually crawled out of the woodwork.<\/p>\n

Dr. Laya Hastings, thirty-one-year-old trauma surgeon drowning in six-figure medical school debt, was fueled by nothing but lukewarm cafeteria coffee and sheer stubborn will.<\/p>\n

The hospital was understaffed as usual.<\/p>\n

Chief of surgery Dr. Arthur Pendleton had cut the night staff budget again, leaving Laya with only a handful of nurses to manage the fallout of Chicago\u2019s violent underbelly.<\/p>\n

She was finishing paperwork on a drunk driving laceration when the automatic doors of the ambulance bay didn\u2019t just open.<\/p>\n

They were violently forced apart.<\/p>\n

No sirens preceded them. No radio call from dispatch.<\/p>\n

Three men moved through the entrance with terrifying, synchronized purpose.<\/p>\n

Two of them were mountains of muscle in tailored, expensive dark suits that looked completely out of place in the sterile, bleach-smelling hallway.<\/p>\n

The third man hung suspended between them.<\/p>\n

He was tall and powerfully built, but his head was bowed, and a terrifying amount of arterial blood was dripping onto the pristine white linoleum, leaving a grotesque trail behind them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a doctor now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man on the left spoke. His voice wasn\u2019t raised, but it carried a chilling authority that made the hairs on the back of Laya\u2019s neck stand up.<\/p>\n

He had a scarred jawline and cold, dead eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir, you need to go through triage,\u201d Nurse Jenkins began, stepping forward with her clipboard.<\/p>\n

The second man simply reached under his suit jacket, revealing the steel grip of a Glock 19 tucked into his waistband.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo triage. A doctor. Now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ER went dead silent.<\/p>\n

The few patients in the waiting area seemed to shrink into their plastic chairs.<\/p>\n

Adrenaline, cold and sharp, spiked in Laya\u2019s veins.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t think. Her training simply took over.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet him into Trauma Bay One,\u201d Laya ordered, stepping out from behind the nurses\u2019 station and snapping on a pair of latex gloves.<\/p>\n

\u201cJenkins, page the O.R. Tell them to prep for a possible exploratory laparotomy. Get me two units of O-negative blood, a crash cart, and a central line kit. Move.\u201d<\/p>\n

They dragged him into the bay and hoisted him onto the gurney.<\/p>\n

The stark lights revealed the wounded man\u2019s face for the first time.<\/p>\n

Even pale and sweating, he was striking. Sharp cheekbones, an aristocratic nose, and a strong, unyielding jaw covered in a dark shadow of stubble.<\/p>\n

He wore a bespoke charcoal suit jacket, now ruined by the massive stain spreading across his right side.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat happened?\u201d Laya demanded, grabbing a pair of trauma shears.<\/p>\n

\u201cA disagreement,\u201d the scarred man said smoothly, stepping back but keeping his eyes locked on her every move. \u201cHe caught a bullet. Right flank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laya cut through the expensive fabric of his shirt, exposing the wound.<\/p>\n

It was a messy entry low on the right side of his abdomen, just above the hipbone.<\/p>\n

Blood pulsed steadily. Not a major artery, thank God, but enough to cause hemorrhagic shock if she didn\u2019t stop it soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to apply pressure,\u201d Laya said, leaning her weight onto a stack of sterile gauze over the wound.<\/p>\n

The patient groaned, a low, guttural sound of pure agony.<\/p>\n

And suddenly his hand shot out.<\/p>\n

His grip on her wrist was like a vise.<\/p>\n

His eyes snapped open. They were a piercing, stormy gray, sharp and utterly terrifying.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t looking at her like a dying man. He was looking at her like a predator assessing a threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo hospitals,\u201d he grated out, his voice a dark, raspy baritone that vibrated in the small room.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re already in one, and you\u2019re bleeding out,\u201d Laya fired back, refusing to break eye contact despite the tremor in her hands. \u201cLet go of my wrist so I can save your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

For a long, agonizing second, they stared at each other.<\/p>\n

The gray eyes flicked down to the laminated badge pinned to her scrubs.<\/p>\n

Dr. Laya Hastings.<\/p>\n

He read it, committing it to whatever dark vault served as his memory.<\/p>\n

And then his grip loosened.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have time for the O.R.,\u201d the scarred man said. \u201cFix him here. Ten minutes, doc, or we take him as he is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you insane?\u201d Laya snapped, turning to face the guard. \u201cHe needs a sterile environment. Anesthesia\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTen minutes.\u201d The guard\u2019s hand rested on his weapon again. \u201cMake it work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laya cursed under her breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cJenkins, bring the portable suction and the staple gun. Local anesthetic. Lidocaine with epinephrine. Now.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the most grueling, chaotic field surgery she had ever performed indoors.<\/p>\n

She pumped him full of local anesthetic, but she knew he could still feel it when she used the forceps to probe the wound.<\/p>\n

The bullet had missed the liver by a fraction of a millimeter, lodging itself in the muscle wall.<\/p>\n

Through it all, the gray-eyed man didn\u2019t scream.<\/p>\n

He just stared at the ceiling, his jaw locked so tight she thought his teeth might shatter, his breathing ragged.<\/p>\n

\u201cGot it,\u201d she breathed, dropping the deformed piece of lead into a metal basin with a sharp clink.<\/p>\n

She worked furiously, cauterizing the minor bleeders and placing rapid, precise sutures into the muscle before stapling the skin closed.<\/p>\n

She packed the wound, wrapped him in pressure bandages, and hooked up a bag of saline and a broad-spectrum antibiotic.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe needs to stay off his feet,\u201d Laya told the guard, stripping off her bloody gloves. \u201cThe stitches will tear. He needs rest, fluids, a sterile environment. He should be admitted.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man on the table swung his legs over the side of the gurney.<\/p>\n

The monitor beeped frantically as his heart rate spiked.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, you can\u2019t stand up!\u201d Laya rushed forward, pressing a hand to his uninjured shoulder.<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t push her away, but he didn\u2019t stop moving either.<\/p>\n

He leaned down, his face inches from hers.<\/p>\n

She could smell copper, expensive cologne, and the sharp tang of sweat.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do good work, Dr. Hastings,\u201d he murmured.<\/p>\n

His voice sent a strange, involuntary shiver down her spine.<\/p>\n

Before she could respond, his men flanked him, supporting his weight, and they walked out as abruptly as they had arrived.<\/p>\n

The bay was left looking like a slaughterhouse, the deformed bullet still resting in the metal basin.<\/p>\n

Laya stared at the empty gurney, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs.<\/p>\n

She had just treated a ghost.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Laya sealed the bullet in a specimen bag before her shift ended.<\/p>\n

She couldn\u2019t have explained why. Surgeons don\u2019t keep souvenirs.<\/p>\n

But she labeled it, dated it, and locked it in the back of her locker behind a stack of old scrub tops.<\/p>\n

At 8:40 a.m., while she was signing out, a man in a rumpled tan coat leaned against the nurses\u2019 station.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Hastings? Detective Ruiz, Chicago PD.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her stomach tightened. \u201cGood morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLong night?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery night.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiled without much humor. \u201cI got a call about a disturbance in your ambulance bay around three. Blood on the floor, two nervous nurses, and a security camera that somehow recorded nothing from midnight to five.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure it was a glitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what your administration said. Word for word.\u201d He studied her. \u201cWord for word is suspicious, Doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n

She thought about the gray eyes. The grip on her wrist. The Glock.<\/p>\n

\u201cI treated a laceration from a drunk driver,\u201d Laya said. \u201cAnd a man with a stomach virus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruiz nodded slowly, like he\u2019d expected exactly that.<\/p>\n

He slid a business card across the counter. \u201cIf you remember anything else, call me. Any hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ten minutes later, she was in Dr. Pendleton\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Arthur Pendleton sat behind his mahogany desk with his fingers steepled, silver hair combed back, tie knotted perfectly.<\/p>\n

\u201cLaya. Sit. There was an incident last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of incidents last night.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t be clever.\u201d His voice was smooth as oil. \u201cCertain visitors prefer discretion. It\u2019s in everyone\u2019s interest, especially yours, that you forget you saw them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey threatened my staff with a gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd no one was hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

He opened a drawer and slid a folder toward her. Her loan statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree hundred and eighty thousand dollars,\u201d he said pleasantly. \u201cI\u2019d hate for your evaluation to suffer over something so avoidable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laya looked at the folder, then at him.<\/p>\n

She stood up. \u201cI\u2019ll think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo.\u201d<\/p>\n

She went home, slept four hours, and woke at dusk to a knock she didn\u2019t expect.<\/p>\n

Through the peephole she saw a man in a dark coat with a scarred jawline.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Hastings. My name is Marco. I\u2019m not going to hurt you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what people say right before they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrue.\u201d He almost smiled. \u201cSomeone needs you. Now. Please.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTell him to go to a hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen tell him I\u2019m off duty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said you\u2019d say that. He also said to tell you something.\u201d<\/p>\n

She waited.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018You looked at me last night like I was a patient. Nobody has done that in twenty years.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Laya closed her eyes.<\/p>\n

She grabbed her bag and went.<\/p>\n

The drive took forty minutes, north along the lake and through iron gates onto a long road lined with bare trees.<\/p>\n

The house rose out of the dark like a stone ship, every window lit, Lake Michigan black behind it.<\/p>\n

Inside, it was hushed. Marble floors. Two men in suits who watched her without blinking.<\/p>\n

Marco led her up a staircase to a bedroom at the end of a long hall.<\/p>\n

Dominic lay on top of the covers in a white undershirt, the pressure bandage soaked through with blood.<\/p>\n

His skin was gray and slick with sweat. His eyes were glassy, fixed on the ceiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been running a fever for six hours,\u201d Marco said quietly.<\/p>\n

Laya crossed the room and laid her palm against his forehead. It was burning.<\/p>\n

She peeled back the bandage, and her breath caught.<\/p>\n

The staples she had placed had torn through the skin. The wound gaped open, angry red at the edges, weeping.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou didn\u2019t rest,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Dominic turned his head slowly. His gray eyes found hers, and a ghost of a smile crossed his cracked lips.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou came,\u201d he whispered.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

\u201cLamp,\u201d Laya said. \u201cCloser. Higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marco held it without a word.<\/p>\n

She had brought a suture kit from her own bag. She set out instruments on a clean towel, scrubbed her hands in the private bathroom, and snapped on fresh gloves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to hurt,\u201d she told Dominic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt already hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen it won\u2019t be a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

He made a sound that might have been a laugh.<\/p>\n

She irrigated the wound with saline until the water ran clear, then cleaned the edges with gauze.<\/p>\n

That was when she noticed it.<\/p>\n

Around the entry wound, faint and peppery, was a scatter of tiny dark specks embedded in the skin.<\/p>\n

Stippling.<\/p>\n

Gunpowder tattooing, the kind she\u2019d studied in a forensic elective years ago.<\/p>\n

It meant the muzzle had been very close when the gun fired. A foot away, maybe less.<\/p>\n

\u201cA disagreement, your man said,\u201d she murmured.<\/p>\n

Dominic\u2019s eyes flicked toward her. \u201cSomething wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t look at Marco. She kept her hands steady and her face blank.<\/p>\n

An enemy across a room doesn\u2019t leave powder burns.<\/p>\n

Somebody standing beside you does.<\/p>\n

She pushed the thought down and started suturing.<\/p>\n

It took forty minutes.<\/p>\n

Layer by layer, she closed the muscle, then the fascia, then the skin, with fine black thread instead of staples. Dominic didn\u2019t cry out once. Sweat ran down his temples into the pillow.<\/p>\n

Somewhere around the thirtieth stitch, he spoke.<\/p>\n

\u201cDominic Carraway.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know who you are,\u201d Laya said, not looking up.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone in Chicago knows who you are. They just don\u2019t say it out loud.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd yet you put your hands inside me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were bleeding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a reason most people would give.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not most people. I\u2019m a surgeon.\u201d<\/p>\n

His mouth moved again. \u201cMarco looked into you. Thirty-one. Top of your class. Three hundred eighty thousand in loans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her fingers stilled. \u201cYou investigated me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI investigate everyone who touches me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you know I don\u2019t take favors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI could erase every dollar by morning.\u201d His voice was low. \u201cA phone call.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause then I\u2019d owe you.\u201d She tied the last knot and clipped the thread. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t want to owe a man like you anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Silence.<\/p>\n

Marco shifted his weight against the wall. Dominic didn\u2019t take his eyes off her.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody has told me no in a very long time,\u201d he said quietly.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She applied the dressing, taped it down, and started an IV of antibiotics from her bag.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need this twice a day,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd you stay in bed for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you\u2019ll be in my emergency room in four days with sepsis.\u201d<\/p>\n

She stood up and stretched her aching back.<\/p>\n

That was when she saw the nightstand.<\/p>\n

A row of small glass vials stood beside a water glass, a little tray of syringes tucked behind them.<\/p>\n

Someone had been giving him antibiotics before she arrived.<\/p>\n

She picked one up, turned it toward the lamp, and read the label.<\/p>\n

\u201cProperty of Chicago Mercy Hospital Pharmacy. Not for resale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her heartbeat slowed.<\/p>\n

Below the label was a lot number, printed in bold black digits.<\/p>\n

CM-4417.<\/p>\n

She knew that number. She had signed off on a memo about it only two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Lot CM-4417 had been recalled and destroyed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She Treated The Mafia Boss\u2019s Wound And Disappeared. Hours Later, He Ordered, \u201cBring Me That Woman Now\u201d Chapter 1 She Treated The Mafia Boss\u2019s Wound And Disappeared. Hours Later, He… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":938,"href":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions\/938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}