The Hidden Wound (Wounds That Run Deep #1)

PROLOGUE

MARGARITA

I was methodically scrubbing a blood-stained gurney with a rag soaked in ammonia, my brain completely fried from a fourteen-hour shift stitching up low-level street trash.

The hum of a faulty fluorescent light above me sounded like a dying wasp in a jar, vibrating straight through my skull.

"Just one more hour of quiet," I muttered to nobody, pausing to pick a tiny, jagged shard of glass out of a stainless-steel surgical tray with my tweezers.

I dropped it into the metal discard bowl.

It hit the bottom with a sharp, echoing ping that cut right through the dull ache behind my eyes.

"The ammonia is starting to burn my lungs.

" I wiped the back of my gloved hand across my forehead, already calculating how much sterile gauze I had left in the locked cabinet and worrying about the completely unhinged dwindling supply of lidocaine. My inventory was fucked. The entire brutalist, bunker aesthetic of this underground setup was a massive red flag, but isolation pays well when you’re treating people who can't walk into a real ER without getting arrested.

"Another night in the hole," I breathed out, tasting the stale coffee coating my tongue while the cold grit of the concrete floor seeped through the soles of my combat boots.

A heavy, wet thud echoed against the frosted glass of the entrance door.

I froze, the ammonia rag stopping halfway across the metal gurney.

The silhouette against the frosted glass wasn't standing upright; it was sliding downward in a slow, unnatural smear.

My grip tightened on the plastic cleaning spray bottle until my knuckles turned stark white and the cheap plastic actually groaned under the pressure.

The absolute worst part wasn't the thud, it was the silence right after it.

The usual muffled radio static from the hallway where Briggs sat for his shifts was completely gone.

"Briggs? Is that you?" I called out, my voice coming out sharper than I intended. The silhouette didn't move. "Don't play around, Briggs. Something is wrong."

My heart kicked off a frantic, bruising rhythm against my ribs, but the clinical part of my brain was already hijacking my nervous system.

I was evaluating the two exits, calculating the exact distance to the reinforced deadbolt.

But before I could take a single step, the door was kicked violently inward.

Briggs’ massive body was slumped dead-weight against the metal frame, riding the arc of the heavy door as it swung open with a wet slap against the cinderblock wall.

A bright, arterial spray of blood fanned across the frosted glass, turning the opaque white surface a sickening, translucent red.

I watched a single, thick drop of Briggs' blood hit the sterile white linoleum floor and bloom outward like a dark, ugly flower.

"Oh god, Briggs," I whispered, the copper smell hitting the air like a physical blow to the face.

"There's too much blood." I didn't need to check his pulse.

The cut across his neck was yawning wide open.

"His throat... it's gone." I recognized the trauma instantly—clean, professional, deep enough to sever everything that mattered.

This wasn't some sloppy street brawl over owed drug money; this was a goddamn execution.

I dropped the spray bottle and lunged for the nearest heavy instrument.

I bypassed the sterile trays of scalpels—they were too small, too surgical.

I needed blunt force. I ripped the heavy, battery-powered orthopedic bone saw from the sterilization unit.

The serrated metal edge caught hard on the hem of my oversized, blood-stained scrub top, ripping the fabric as I yanked it close to my chest. The tool was heavy and awkward in my shaking hands, the battery pack throwing off my center of gravity.

I could hear the distant, high-pitched screech of tires out in the alleyway above the bunker, vibrating down through the ceiling pipes.

I felt the pulse hammering in my own fingertips wrapped around the saw's plastic grip.

"Not today," I breathed, my thumb hovering over the power trigger. I was visualizing the exact anatomical location of the carotid artery of whatever bastard came through that doorway next. "Stay back. I'll cut you to the bone."

The doorway remained empty for exactly two seconds before automatic gunfire ripped through the frame.

The deafening, rhythmic crack-crack-crack of a high-caliber rifle practically blew my eardrums out.

Bullets punched massive, dusty holes through the cinderblock walls and absolutely shredded the glass-fronted narcotics cabinets behind me.

"Stop shooting!" I screamed, diving hard into the narrow, freezing gap between two stainless-steel gurneys as shattered glass rained down on my back like a localized hurricane.

I grabbed a rolling surgical stool and pulled it in front of my face as a pathetic, useless shield, its wheels squeaking a high-pitched protest against the linoleum.

"There are oxygen tanks in here!" I yelled over the chaotic din. "You’re destroying the meds!"

The gunfire stopped abruptly, replaced by the heavy, chaotic thudding of tactical boots.

Two men in mud-splattered black gear burst through the smoke and drywall dust, dragging a massive, dark-clad figure between them.

They weren't moving like hitmen clearing a room; they were moving in a desperate panic.

They hauled the massive guy straight toward my priMargarita operating table and dumped him onto the metal, the reinforced frame literally groaning under his dead weight.

One of the guys took a heavy step backward, his boot coming down hard on a dropped vial of my medical-grade morphine.

The glass crushed into powder, and the sickly sweet, chemical scent flooded the air over the sharp smell of cordite and pulverized concrete.

"Where is the doctor?!" one of them roared, his hands completely soaked in dark, venous blood. "He’s flatlining!"

"Lock the damn door!" the other screamed back, pulling a sidearm and aiming it blindly at the hallway.

I stayed crouched behind the gurneys, my lungs burning, until the first guy—the lieutenant—spotted my boots.

He vaulted over the crushed glass, grabbed a fistful of my dark, messy hair, and hauled me violently out from behind the metal legs.

I gasped as he shoved the hot, oily metal of his rifle barrel hard under my chin, forcing me up and pushing me toward the table.

"Fix him or you're next," he spat in my face, his eyes feral and wide.

I choked on a breath, my hands flying up in a surrender gesture, but my eyes automatically locked onto the man bleeding out on my table.

He was huge. Broad-shouldered, wearing a bespoke black suit that was completely ruined, a tactical shoulder holster barely clinging to him.

His white dress shirt was ripped open down the middle, revealing a heavily scarred, muscular torso and a jagged, bubbling bullet hole right in his right flank.

My eyes snagged on a heavy gold signet ring on his massive hand, the metal caked in fresh, wet dirt.

I didn't know who this guy was, but the dark gravity radiating off him even while he was unconscious was making my teeth hurt.

"Liver shot," I said, my voice slipping back into a cold, flat clinical tone despite the gun against my throat. "Through and through?"

"Look at me, Doctor," the lieutenant snapped, pressing the barrel harder against my jaw. "Save him."

I was already diagnosing the massive bastard.

Liver trauma. Definitely diaphragmatic involvement based on the shallow, wet way his chest was heaving.

Hypovolemic shock setting in fast. Blood was dripping off the side of the table and hitting the floor—tap, tap, tap.

He had absolutely no business still breathing.

And then the dying man’s eyes snapped open.

They weren't glazed over. They weren't rolling back.

They were cold, dead-eyed, pitch-black, and focused entirely on me.

Before I could even register that he was conscious, his massive hand shot out off the table with the terrifying, unhinged speed of a viper.

He clamped his fingers around my throat, yanking me down violently until my face was hovering inches from his.

"You..." he rasped. The heat radiating off his feverish palm was scalding. I felt the rough, heavily calloused texture of his thick thumb press deliberately right against my carotid artery. He smelled like expensive scotch, dark blood, and gun oil.

"Don't let me slip," he growled, the vibration of his voice hitting me right in the chest. "I'm not going alone."

With his other hand, he blindly fumbled a Glock out of his waistband.

He didn't point it at my head. He shoved the muzzle straight down and pressed it deep into the soft flesh of my inner thigh, aiming the barrel upward right at my femoral artery.

He knew exactly what he was doing. If he pulled that trigger, I'd bleed out on this floor faster than he would.

The cold metal of the gun barrel seeped right through the thin, cheap fabric of my scrubs, making my skin crawl with pure, unfiltered adrenaline.

Click. He thumbed the safety off.

The absolute audacity of this feral bastard. "If I go under, you go with me," he sneered, his breath ragged and wet. "Fix the hole, Margarita. Stay steady."

He knows my name. My brain stalled out for a fraction of a second. This wasn't a random drop-in. He knew exactly whose bunker this was.

He pulled me down just a fraction of an inch further, his sweaty, burning forehead resting against mine for a fleeting, agonizing second. "If I die, she dies," he ground out, aiming the order at his men, but his black eyes never left mine. He was locking us together.

"Save me, Doctor," he whispered, his grip on my throat slackening just barely enough to let a thin stream of oxygen hit my burning lungs, though his heavy fingers remained curled around the back of my neck like an iron collar. "If my heart stops, pull the trigger. Now, get to work."

The lieutenant reached up and kicked on the overhead surgical lights. The blinding white halogen flared to life, illuminating the absolute slaughterhouse my clinic had become. I stared down into the black, obsessive eyes of the man holding a loaded gun to my major artery.

"Shit," I muttered, grabbing a number ten scalpel off the tray next to me. I needed to cut the rest of his shirt away. The sterilization in here was already completely compromised, but I wiped a fresh iodine swab across his ruined flesh anyway. Standard procedure.