Chapter 30 Nadia
NADIA
Here’s what people don’t know about trauma doctors. We don’t get closure.
We patch people up, hand them off, and move on. One patient bleeds into the next, their faces blurring somewhere between adrenaline and exhaustion. Very rarely do we see them again, and even rarer still do our paths ever cross outside the chaos of an operating room.
But today the hospital is short-staffed, and I’ve been roped into covering the intensive care ward. Different floor, different rhythm; quieter, slower, a heartbeat after the storm.
That’s when I see him.
Bed Twelve. The man I operated on two nights ago. Severe facial trauma. The kind of damage that leaves you shaking long after you’ve scrubbed out.
He looks different now under the ICU lights. Still as stone. Wrapped in white sheets that swallow the edges of him. Swelling’s gone down slightly, but his face is still a mass of bruises and sutures. Someone’s cleaned the blood from his hair. He’s almost presentable, if you squint past the damage.
Most patients fade from memory after a while. But this one stuck for some reason.
I step closer, scanning the monitors, checking his vitals. He has a good heart rate. Strong oxygenation. Holding steady. He’ll live.
The thought should be comforting, but it isn’t. Because standing here, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, I can’t shake the sense that I’m not just looking at a patient. I’m standing beside a story that hasn’t finished writing itself.
The door to the ward slides open, and two men in black suits step in, scanning the room like they’re expecting a sniper in the ceiling. Behind them walks someone who clearly doesn’t belong here. A man in his fifties, confident, expensively dressed, his presence sucking the oxygen out of the ward.
He smiles, and it’s the kind of practised smile that is both charming and disarming at the same time. “I hope we’re not interrupting.”
I blink. “Visiting hours are over,” I try to explain.
“Senator Roland Graves,” he fills in smoothly, extending his hand. “I’ve heard quite a lot about you.”
I shake his hand out of habit as I wonder where he’s heard about me. His palm is warm, lingering a second too long. I don’t like it.
He turns toward the patient, says something low and reassuring to the unconscious man before dismissing his security with a nod. When they step out, he looks back at me. He studies me for a beat too long, eyes tracing my face in a way that makes my skin itch.
I glance at the monitor, pretending to double-check the patient’s vitals even though I already know they’re stable. The numbers blink steady green. “Friend or family?” I ask, keeping my tone neutral but curious. It isn’t every day a senator shows up in the ICU.
Graves chuckles softly, the kind of laugh that’s practiced for cameras. “Family, I suppose you could say. David’s one of my campaign aides. Loyal kid. I try to keep an eye on my people.”
I nod once, letting the explanation hang between us. “He’s responding well to treatment,” I say. “He’ll make a full recovery.”
“Good to hear.” His gaze drifts from the monitors to me, weighing, assessing. “Thank you for taking care of him.”
I take a measured step back, reclaiming space he’s already trying to fill. “That’s what doctors do, senator.”
He smiles at that, and it’s the kind of smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Still,” he says, “I’d like to thank you properly. Dinner, perhaps?”
My spine stiffens before my brain catches up.
“That’s absolutely not necessary,” I reply quickly, maybe too quickly. I try to keep my tone even, polite. Professional. But something about the way he’s looking at me makes my skin feel too tight, like I’m being studied instead of spoken to.
He chuckles again, low and warm. “Nonsense. You’ve done a great service to someone important to me. A meal is the least I can offer.”
“Really,” I say, forcing a smile that feels more like a shield. “It’s unnecessary.”
But his smile doesn’t fade. It lingers… measured, patient, certain. The kind of expression that tells me no isn’t a word he’s used to hearing.
He hums, studying me like a puzzle he’s already half-solved. Then that smile returns, and something about it reminds me of a lizard, all smooth skin and gnarly teeth.
“I insist. I’ll have my secretary reach out to you. I’m sure the hospital chairman won’t mind. He’s an old friend.”
My stomach drops. Kellerman. Of course.
“Really, senator,” I start, but he lifts a hand, silencing me gently.
“I insist,” he repeats, voice warm, trying for kind. But it carries the kind of power that doesn’t need to shout to be dangerous. “I’ll send a car. I’d like to learn more about what you do.”
There’s no use arguing with men like him. They don’t hear no. They hear try again.
So I nod once, tight. “We’ll see.”
He smiles like I’ve already agreed. “Good girl.”
He turns to leave, his security detail falling into place around him in a wall of protection. The door swings shut behind them, leaving only the scent of expensive cologne and entitlement.
I stand there for a long moment, pulse pounding in my ears.
When I finally move, it’s to make a note in the patient’s chart with a hand that isn’t as steady as I want it to be.
Because I already know how this story goes.
Men like Graves don’t ask. They take. And I have the oddest feeling he’s just decided to make me his next cause.
I’m so lost in my own head when I step out of the hospital that the city barely registers—until a hand closes around my arm and jerks me to a stop.
“Goddammit, Nadia.” Michael’s voice slices through the night. His grip is iron; nicotine and expensive cologne choke the air. “You can’t keep ignoring me.”
“Let me go.” My voice is thin but steady.
“No. We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing left to talk about.”
“We are going to talk.”
A voice cuts through the dark - low, calm, absolute. “She said let go.”
Michael stiffens. My head jerks up.
A man stands a few feet away, calmly silent. He seems ordinary at first glance, until his eyes find you. His eyes don’t look at you; they strip you bare.
“Move on,” Michael snaps. “This has nothing to do with you.”
The stranger doesn’t flinch. “It does now.”
His gaze flicks to me. A question without words. I don’t answer, but I don’t look away either. That’s all it takes.
Michael drops my arm like it burned him. “This isn’t over,” he mutters, backing off into the dark.
My knees tremble, but I try to calm them. My heart hammers so loud I can barely hear the city.
The stranger steps closer, although he maintains a decent distance between us. “You okay?”
I nod, lying.
He jerks his chin toward the hospital. “Come on.”
He doesn’t touch me, but he walks close. Close enough that I feel the heat of him at my side, close enough that the air shifts when he moves. There’s protection in the space between us, the kind that feels instinctive, gentle.
And still, I follow. Not because I should, but because my body moves before my mind can protest. A stranger, a promise of safety, and the echo of footsteps leading me back into the sterile corridors of the hospital.
The café is half-empty. He orders two without asking, pays in silence, then sets a bottle of water on the table between us.
“Drink,” he says, quiet but firm, and it’s not a request as much as it is a command.
I do. The chill steadies me. “Thank you for stepping in like that—” I could kick myself for being too distracted to see Michael approaching.
He shrugs. “Looks like you keep bad company.”
“Or bad company won’t take no for an answer.”
His jaw tightens. “Ex?”
“Yeah.”
He watches me for a long moment, long enough that the clatter of cups and murmured voices blur into nothing. The air between us hums with something I can’t name. When he finally speaks, his voice has softened. It’s quiet, steady, almost protective.
“You should probably file a police report,” he says. “So he’s not tempted to try that again.”
“He’ll go,” I answer, but the words fall flat, hollow. Even I don’t believe them.
The corner of his mouth shifts, caught somewhere between a smile and sorrow. Then he rises, effortless and sure. “I’ll walk you wherever you were going.”
I should refuse. Every instinct says to keep my distance. But there’s something about him - his stillness, his certainty, the way he stands like he’s built for danger and doesn’t fear it - that makes the word no dissolve on my tongue.
He walks beside me with his hands in his pockets, each step unhurried, deliberate. He doesn’t ask what happened. Doesn’t dig for details. He just is… a quiet shadow keeping pace, as if the dark itself decided to take my side for once.
At the hospital doors, his hand hovers near mine but never bridges the gap. The restraint feels louder than touch.
I glance up at him, and something stirs. It’s an ache of recognition I can’t place. It’s like déjà vu, like I’ve known his silence before, somewhere far from this hallway and its fluorescent light. I try to remember where I’ve seen him before, but the memory evades me.