Chapter 2 - The Twentieth Surgeon
Sadi heard the lock engage before she heard anyone scream.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Someone grabbed her arm.
She reacted instinctively, turning hard enough to break the grip.
“It’s me,” Enzo whispered.
A second later, emergency lights flickered on.
Gabriel remained in bed.
His right hand was beneath the pillow.
When it emerged, it held a pistol.
The wounded man who had been told he might die before sunrise looked disturbingly calm.
“Status,” he said.
Enzo touched an earpiece.
Nothing.
“No communication.”
“Generator?”
“Should’ve started.”
“It didn’t.”
Sadi looked toward the hallway.
“Somebody shut it down.”
Both men looked at her.
She wished she had kept quiet.
Gabriel nodded once.
“Yes.”
Three armed guards appeared at the door.
“West wing secure.”
“Medical staff?” Enzo asked.
“Being gathered downstairs.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“No. Keep them separated.”
The guard hesitated.
“Boss?”
“One of them could be involved.”
The words landed heavily.
Sadi thought of the clear plastic cap.
The fake waiter.
The warning written on his uniform.
Then she thought of twenty surgeons.
Twenty strangers allowed close to Gabriel Falcone while he was bleeding and drugged.
She looked at the IV line running into his right arm.
Her stomach turned.
“Stop.”
Everyone looked at her.
Sadi pointed.
“That.”
Gabriel followed her gaze.
“The IV?”
“Who connected it?”
A doctor had.
Which doctor?
Nobody answered.
Sadi stepped closer.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Saline,” Enzo said.
“You know that?”
He frowned.
“That’s what the label says.”
“My mother worked in an emergency room for thirty-two years,” Sadi said. “She used to say labels were promises, not proof.”
Gabriel stared at the clear fluid.
“Remove it.”
A guard moved immediately.
Sadi stopped him.
“Clamp it first.”
The guard looked offended at being instructed by a waitress.
Gabriel said only one word.
“Listen.”
He listened.
The IV was disconnected.
Sadi examined the bag without touching the port.
Something near the connection looked wrong.
A pinprick.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
“There,” she whispered.
Enzo leaned closer.
“What?”
“The seal.”
Gabriel’s eyes sharpened.
“Tampered?”
“Maybe.”
For the first time since Sadi had entered the estate, Gabriel looked genuinely angry.
Not loud.
Not explosive.
Cold.
“Find out who changed the bag.”
The house came alive.
Men moved through hallways.
Doors slammed.
Phones were checked.
The backup generator finally started seven minutes later.
By then, two doctors had already been isolated.
One nurse was missing.
Sadi stood beside the window while Gabriel’s private physician, Dr. Elias Warren, examined the IV bag.
Warren was in his sixties, gray-haired, narrow-shouldered, and clearly unimpressed by armed men.
“There’s a puncture,” he said.
Enzo swore.
“Injected with what?”
“I won’t know without testing.”
“How long?”
“An hour.”
Gabriel gave a humorless laugh.
“I may not have an hour.”
Warren looked toward his shoulder.
“That depends.”
“On whether you cut off my arm?”
“On whether the tissue damage is progressing.”
Sadi had remained quiet through most of the conversation.
Now she asked, “What if the scans are wrong?”
Warren turned.
“The scans aren’t wrong.”
“What if the damage didn’t come only from the bullet?”
Silence.
Warren looked at the IV.
Then at Gabriel.
“What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know.”
Sadi hated admitting that.
“But if someone injected something in the restaurant, and someone tampered with his IV here, maybe they’re trying to make the injury look worse.”
Warren’s face changed.
Enzo noticed.
“What?”
“Certain anticoagulants could increase bleeding.”
“Enough to force an amputation?”
“Not alone.”
“What about a vascular toxin?”
Warren’s eyes narrowed.
Gabriel looked between them.
“English.”
“If someone introduced a substance that constricted or damaged blood vessels,” Warren said slowly, “it could make trauma look catastrophic.”
“Could it be reversed?”
“Possibly.”
“Then why did twenty surgeons miss it?”
Warren answered quietly.
“Because they were looking at a gunshot wound.”
The room became still.
Sadi looked at Gabriel.
His eyes met hers.
For the first time, she understood why he had asked for her.
She was outside the machinery surrounding him.
She was nobody.
And because she was nobody, nobody had bothered to account for what she might notice.
The test results came forty-two minutes later.
The IV bag contained a powerful anticoagulant.
Gabriel’s blood had been deliberately prevented from clotting.
The bullet had done serious damage.
The medication had made it look unsurvivable.
Warren immediately began treatment.
For several hours, nobody mentioned amputation again.
By dawn, circulation below Gabriel’s shoulder had improved slightly.
Not enough.
But enough.
Gabriel slept.
Sadi did not.
She sat in an armchair near the window because Enzo had made it clear that leaving was not an option.
“You think someone wants me dead?” she asked him.
Enzo stood beside the door.
“Yes.”
“Because I saw the shooter?”
“Because whoever planned this knows Mr. Falcone trusts almost nobody.”
“He doesn’t trust me.”
Enzo glanced toward the sleeping man.
“He asked for you by name while bleeding out.”
“That doesn’t mean trust.”
“For him, it comes close.”
Sadi rubbed her eyes.
“This is insane.”
“Yes.”
“I serve pasta.”
“Yes.”
“I have rent due Monday.”
Enzo almost smiled.
“Also yes.”
“And somebody wrote that I saw everything on a dead man.”
“Yes.”
Sadi stared at him.
“You’re bad at comforting people.”
“I’ve been told.”
At eight in the morning, Gabriel woke.
His first question was not about his arm.
“Where is Moreno?”
Sadi turned from the window.
“Still trapped in your house.”
“Good.”
“That’s not the word I’d use.”
Gabriel looked almost amused.
Then pain tightened his face.
Warren checked his shoulder.
“Circulation is improving.”
“Keep it.”
“I’m trying.”
“No. I’m telling you.”
Warren sighed.
“You are an exhausting patient.”
After the doctor left, Gabriel gestured toward Sadi.
“Sit.”
“I’m fine standing.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
She stared at him.
He raised an eyebrow.
Sadi sat.
“You’re used to people doing whatever you say,” she said.
“Yes.”
“That must get boring.”
“Sometimes.”
She almost laughed.
Almost.
Then Gabriel pushed the cufflink across the bedside table.
“G.F.H.”
“What does it mean?”
“Falcone Grand Hotel.”
Sadi blinked.
“I thought your family owned restaurants.”
“We own many things.”
“Of course you do.”
“The hotel closed thirteen years ago.”
“Why?”
“My father was murdered there.”
Sadi stopped breathing for a beat.
Gabriel watched her carefully.
“The cufflinks were given to six men at the hotel’s opening ceremony. My father. My uncle Matteo. Four business partners.”
“Which one belonged to the attacker?”
“That’s the problem.”
He turned the cufflink over.
A number had been engraved near the hinge.
“Partner number four,” Gabriel said.
“Who was he?”
Gabriel’s face became unreadable.
“Thomas Vale.”
“And where is he now?”
“Dead.”
Sadi frowned.
“How dead?”
Gabriel’s mouth twitched.
“Very.”
“Then somebody stole his cufflink.”
“Or Thomas Vale wasn’t the man we buried.”
Before Sadi could answer, Enzo entered.
He carried a file.
“Security footage from Belladonna.”
Gabriel sat straighter.
“Shooter?”
“Not yet.”
Enzo opened the file.
“We found something else.”
He removed a still photograph.
Sadi recognized herself near the kitchen entrance.
The image had been captured at 8:52 p.m.
Twenty-five minutes before the shooting.
A man stood behind her.
Not the attacker.
Not the fake waiter.
A third man.
His face was partly turned toward the camera.
Sadi stared.
She knew him.
Her stomach dropped.
“No,” she whispered.
Gabriel looked at her.
“You know him?”
Sadi could barely speak.
“That’s impossible.”
“Who is he?”
She looked up.
“My brother.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“Where is he?”
Sadi stared at the photograph.
“My brother died six years ago.”
Enzo’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face hardened.
Then he looked directly at Sadi.
“We just found someone outside the gate.”
“Who?”
Enzo turned the screen toward her.
A live security image appeared.
A man stood alone beneath the camera.
Same face.
Same scar above his eyebrow.
May you like
Sadi’s dead brother lifted his head.
And looked directly into the lens.
