Chapter 4
Olivia
Time changes when you don't control it. It stretches in places it shouldn't and disappears entirely where you need it most, turning minutes into hours and hours into something impossible to measure.
The moment the SUV pulls away from the hospital, I start counting because counting gives me something I can control.
I track every turn, every stop, every change in acceleration, every shift in the road beneath the tires.
The windows are tinted too dark for me to see much beyond my own reflection, but I don't need a clear view to build a map in my head.
Left. Straight. A long stretch that feels like highway.
Another turn. A slower speed. Then another.
It isn't perfect, but something is always better than nothing, and I've spent too many years learning that the smallest details can become important when everything else is taken away.
The two men in the vehicle remain mostly silent.
One sits behind the wheel while the other occupies the passenger seat, and neither seems particularly interested in speaking to me unless necessary.
That tells me almost as much as their words would.
This isn't personal. They aren't angry with me, and they aren't behaving like men who have decided to hurt someone simply because they can.
They're following instructions. They were sent to retrieve me, which means someone else made the decision to take me and knows exactly why they need me.
I rest my hands loosely in my lap, keeping my posture relaxed while remaining alert, and when I quietly test the door handle, I already know what I'll find.
Locked.
Of course it is.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask, breaking the silence.
The man in the passenger seat looks at me through the rearview mirror before answering. “You'll see.”
It isn't an answer, but I didn't really expect one.
I turn my attention back toward the window, watching the darkness blur past while my own reflection stares back at me.
I focus on breathing evenly and keeping my thoughts organized because panic has never solved a problem.
Fear can tell you that something is wrong, but it can't tell you what to do about it. Thinking can.
“How did you find me?”
This time, neither man answers.
I let the silence remain between us. People often assume silence means they have revealed nothing, but it rarely works that way.
Their refusal tells me they knew exactly where I would be, exactly when I would leave, and exactly how they wanted this to happen.
I wasn't chosen at random. They knew my name, my profession, my schedule, and probably far more about me than I would like to imagine.
Whatever this is, it was planned.
The vehicle slows several minutes later, and I feel the difference before I can identify it.
The traffic has thinned, the road has become smoother, and the constant noise of the city has disappeared behind us.
I shift slightly in my seat, listening as the SUV turns onto what sounds like a private road.
Then I hear the low mechanical groan of enormous gates opening somewhere ahead, followed by the subtle change in the acoustics as we pass through them.
My pulse quickens once, but I force myself to remain still.
We're here.
The SUV continues along a gravel drive before finally coming to a smooth stop. The engine shuts off, and for a moment there is complete silence inside the vehicle.
Then the rear door opens.
“Out.”
I don't hesitate because hesitation creates weakness, and weakness gives people who already have the advantage another opportunity to take control.
I step from the SUV, my heels striking the gravel as I straighten and take in the property around me.
The first thing I notice is the house. Mansion is a better word for it, although even that doesn't fully capture the scale.
It is enormous, immaculate, and clearly designed for privacy rather than hospitality.
Warm light spills from carefully positioned windows, illuminating the stone and architectural details without revealing much about what is happening inside.
The second thing I notice is the security.
Men are positioned around the property in places most people wouldn't think to look, standing beneath shadows or near entrances with the casual stillness of people who have been trained to watch without appearing to watch.
There are cameras too, although I don't immediately know where all of them are.
I make a mental note of the visible ones and begin looking for the blind spots.
Everything about this place is controlled and dangerous.
“How long?” I ask, turning toward the man who escorted me from the SUV.
He pauses. “How long for what?”
“For me to do whatever it is you brought me here to do.”
His expression changes slightly, as though that wasn't the question he expected. He gestures toward the mansion. “That depends on you.”
Another half-answer. I'm beginning to see the pattern.
I follow them toward the entrance because I have already determined that resisting here would accomplish nothing.
The doors open before we reach them, and the moment I step inside, the atmosphere changes.
There are more men in the house than there were outside, and unlike the quiet precision of the security team, these men are moving quickly.
Footsteps echo through the halls. Voices overlap.
Orders are given and immediately repeated.
Someone rushes past carrying equipment while another man disappears through a doorway with a phone pressed to his ear.
This isn't preparation.
It's an emergency.
“Upstairs,” someone orders.
I am guided through the house, and although no one physically forces me forward, the men surrounding me make it clear that stopping isn't an option.
We move up a wide staircase, turn down a corridor, and stop outside a door where two armed men stand guard.
One of them opens it, and the smell reaches me before I can see inside.
Blood.
Fresh, metallic, unmistakable.
My instincts take over before my mind has time to process anything else.
I step through the doorway and see the man on the bed.
The man on the bed is exactly what I feared they needed me to see: critically wounded, unstable, and running out of time.
I don't need another examination to understand the situation; the blood, the shallow breathing, and the tension in the room tell me enough.
Whatever happened before I arrived, these men have already done everything they can with what they had, and now the only thing standing between this stranger and death is whether I can make their improvised environment work.
I drop my bag beside the bed and step fully into the role I know how to inhabit, because whatever these people have taken from me, they have not taken my ability to do my job.
“Move,” I order, and when the men immediately give me the space I need, I understand that they are beginning to realize the same thing I already have: if they want Rico alive, they have to let me work.
I push the thought aside because fear has no place in an emergency. I have a job to do, regardless of how I got here or what these men intend to do to me afterward.
“Wake up,” I say sharply, leaning closer to him. “You don't get to check out on me yet. Stay with me.”
I place my hand against his face, trying to keep him conscious long enough for me to assess his response. For several seconds, nothing happens. Then his eyelids move.
Barely.
But they move.
Relief hits me so quickly that I almost don't recognize it. I immediately push it down and return to the work in front of me, because a flicker of consciousness isn't survival. It's simply proof that he is still fighting.
I don't know who this man is. I don't know what kind of people surround me, why he was shot, or why they thought taking a doctor from a hospital was the answer to keeping him alive. I don't know what will happen to me once he is stable.
But I know what happens if I walk away now.
He dies.
And whatever else has been taken from me tonight, I refuse to let that be the thing I allow.