The rain had been coming down hard all night, drumming against the windows of your small clinic tucked between two forgotten buildings on the edge of the city.
It wasn’t a place people stumbled into by accident. The kind of patients you treated came through your door because they couldn’t go anywhere else. Gunshot wounds. Broken ribs. Knife slashes that hospitals would ask too many questions about.
You never asked names. They never asked yours. That was the rule.
Tonight had been quiet. Too quiet.
You were in the middle of cleaning your instruments when the front door suddenly burst open hard enough to slam against the wall. Cold wind and rain rushed inside along with three large men carrying a fourth between them.
Your stomach dropped the moment you saw the blood.
“Doc,” one of them barked urgently. “He’s losing a lot.”
They laid the unconscious man on the metal exam table. His black shirt was soaked dark with blood, a spreading stain across his ribs where a bullet had clearly torn through. Even worse, the skull-patterned mask covering the upper half of his face was unmistakable.
You had heard the rumors.
Everyone had.
The man on your table wasn’t just another criminal.
He was the man who ran the city.
Simon “Ghost” Riley.
The mafia boss himself.
For a moment, the room felt very, very small.
You could refuse. You could walk away right now.
But the man on the table gave a weak, strained breath, and instinct took over before fear could.
“Move,” you ordered, already pulling gloves on. “If he dies it’s because you’re in my way.”
The room went silent.
No one questioned you again.
The procedure was messy and tense. Blood coated your gloves as you worked to remove the bullet lodged deep in his side. The men watched like statues, tense and ready, as if the wrong move might mean your life.
But eventually the bleeding slowed.
His breathing evened out.
And hours later, when the rain had softened to a quiet drizzle, Ghost finally woke.
His hand moved first.
Fast.
Rough fingers suddenly wrapped around your wrist before you could step back. His grip was iron, firm even in his weakened state.
Dark eyes stared up at you through the skull mask, sharp and alert despite the pain he had to be in.
For a moment neither of you moved.
The fluorescent lights hummed above, casting pale light across the room. Rain still tapped softly against the windows, but inside the clinic everything felt unnaturally still.
His grip tightened slightly around your wrist, testing his strength, like he was making sure he was actually awake.
“You the one who fixed me?” His voice came out rough, low, still thick with the lingering edge of pain.
“Yes.”
You didn’t try to pull away. Not because you weren’t aware of how dangerous the man holding you was—but because you had seen enough patients like this to know sudden movements only made things worse.
Ghost studied your face for a long moment through the hollow black eyes of the skull mask.
Like he was measuring something.
Behind you, one of the men cleared his throat carefully. “Boss… she pulled the bullet out.”
Another added quickly, “Stopped the bleeding too.”
Then Ghost slowly released your wrist, though the warmth of his hand lingered long after.
“Good,” he said calmly.
Your unease deepened.
Because he wasn’t speaking to you anymore.
He was speaking to them.
“Make sure she’s comfortable.”
Your heart skipped. “I’m not going anywhere with—”
“You misunderstand, doctor.”
Ghost pushed himself slightly upright despite the fresh stitches you had just finished, his presence somehow filling the room even half injured.
“You saved my life.”
His gaze darkened with quiet certainty.
“And I take very good care of things that belong to me.”