2. Kara
Kara
I stand in front of the mirror in the ground-floor administrative restroom, blotting at the small dark mark on the lapel of my navy blazer with a damp paper towel. The fabric is saved, but I’m still very irritated.
How can someone be so unbelievably grumpy and irritating?
I toss the wet paper into the trash bin, smooth down the front of my jacket, and check my reflection.
Hair in place, posture straight, expression neutral.
You wouldn't know by looking at me that fifteen minutes ago I was nearly bowled over by six feet two inches of tailored arrogance and scalding espresso.
I pick up my leather briefcase and the stack of brown manila folders from the sink counter.
Two of the files have faint coffee droplets along the bottom edge, but the documents inside are dry.
That's what matters. In my line of work, if the documentation is intact, you still have control of the narrative.
I walk out into the corridor of the executive wing, far from the chaotic noise of the emergency room lobby.
My heels make a rhythmic sound against the tile as I walk toward the corner office at the end of the hall. On the door, a brand-new nameplate sits beside the frosted glass panel: Kara Rossi – Medico-Legal Liaison.
It's a start.
It isn't a permanent shield from my father's calls or the shadow of the betrothal he keeps trying to lock around my neck, but it’s a buffer. Inside these walls, I’m not a bartering chip or a daughter owed to a mafia family.
I’m an attorney with an employment contract, a salary, and an office door that locks from the inside.
I push the door open and step into the office.
The room is medium-sized, minimalist, and bright. A mahogany desk sits in the center, flanked by two leather guest chairs and a wall of built-in bookshelves holding thick leather-bound volumes of state health codes and medical malpractice digests.
Sitting on the edge of the desk, flipping through a tablet with a cup of herbal tea in his hand, is Marcus Henderson. He’s sixty-four, wearing a tweed jacket, and retiring at the end of the week after twenty-two years as the hospital’s head legal advisor.
"You're late, Rossi," Henderson mumbles looking up from his screen. "By four minutes."
"I was delayed in the courtyard by an aggressive pedestrian," I reply, setting my briefcase on the desk and pulling out my laptop. "Good morning to you too, Marcus."
Henderson looks up over his half-moon reading glasses, his eyebrows arching. "An aggressive pedestrian? In an emergency room entrance? Stop the presses."
"He spilled sixteen ounces of dark roast on himself, blamed me for standing on a sidewalk, and then stomped off like he owned the square footage," I drawl, taking my seat behind the desk.
"Welcome to Metro General," Marcus murmurs, setting his tea down. "Half the people here are bleeding, and the other half think they're God because they hold a scalpel. You'll get used to it."
"I don't plan on getting used to poorly behaved people," I reply, opening my notebook and clicking my pen. "Are the active risk assessment files ready?"
Marcus sighs, leaning back against the edge of the desk and pointing to a thick black binder sitting beside my keyboard.
"Everything is in there," he responds. "Current patient liability claims, three pending deposition requests, and the compliance audit for the surgical wing. The hospital board wants the audit finished before the end of the month."
I pull the binder toward me, flipping to the index tab. My eyes scan the lines automatically, taking in case numbers, dates, and names.
Three malpractice notices. One informed-consent dispute in pediatric surgery. Zero actual court filings yet.
"This looks manageable," I answer, looking up at him. "The compliance records for the operating rooms look a little light, though."
"That's because surgical attendings hate paperwork," Marcus shakes his head. "They think filling out a risk-mitigation checklist takes time away from saving lives. Which brings me to your onboarding schedule."
I pause, my pen hovering over the page. "My onboarding schedule?"
"You're an attorney, Kara," Marcus mutters smoothly. "You know medical law, you know state regulations, and you know how to draft a settlement that keeps us out of the local newspapers. But you don't know how an operating room runs during a multi-car pileup at two in the morning."
"I don't need to perform surgery to evaluate liability," I point out, resting my chin on my hand.
"No, but you need to understand the environment if you're going to defend it when a family sues," Marcus counters.
"The board decided that instead of having HR give you a boring tour of the building, you're being paired with one of our senior attending physicians for your first two weeks.
You'll shadow his department, review his chart handoffs, and get a real look at how risk happens in real time. "
I tilt my head, evaluating the arrangement. It's unusual, but logically sound. If I know where the doctors cut corners on documentation during high-stress procedures, I can patch those legal vulnerabilities before a plaintiff's attorney finds them.
"Who did they assign me?" I ask. "Dr. Vance from Orthopedics?"
"Vance is on sabbatical," Marcus stands up straight, smoothing his tweed jacket. "No, you get the chief trauma surgeon. He's young, brilliant, completely uncompromising, and he hates legal administrators almost as much as he hates inefficiency."
Oh please.
"Sounds charming," I scoff. "Does this brilliant chief surgeon have a name?"
"Dr. Leander," Marcus says, turning toward the door as a soft knock echoes through the office frame. "And if you speak of the devil, he usually shows up right on schedule."
The door swings open.
I turn in my chair, preparing to offer a professional handshake and a neutral greeting.
The words die in my throat.
Standing in the doorway, framed by the bright fluorescent light of the hallway, is the man from the sidewalk.
For God’s sake. It could’ve been anybody else but no, it had to be him.
He isn't wearing his suit jacket anymore. He’s dressed in navy surgical scrubs, fitted snugly across his broad shoulders, with a white lab coat unbuttoned over the top.
His hair is slightly damp at the temples, as if he just scrubbed down, and his sharp, angular jawline is set in the same rigid, unyielding line it was twenty minutes ago outside.
He looks tall, cold, and entirely unimpressed by the world around him.
And then his dark eyes sweep across the room, leaving Marcus, and lock directly onto me.
For two full seconds, nobody speaks.
I see the subtle shift in his expression, the faint tightening around his eyes, the slight drop of his chin as he recognizes me.
You've got to be kidding me.
Marcus, entirely oblivious to the atmosphere suddenly dropping ten degrees, smiles and steps forward, gesturing between us.
"Dr. Leander, perfect timing," Marcus mutters cheerfully. "This is Kara Rossi, our new Medico-Legal Liaison. She’s taking over my desk starting today. Kara, this is Dr. Leander Sartori, head of Trauma Surgery and your onboarding partner for the next two weeks."
Leander doesn't move. He stays anchored in the doorway, his hands sliding slowly into the pockets of his lab coat.
"We've met," Leander nods. His voice is deep, smooth, carrying that same raspy edge I heard on the street.
"Briefly," I add, leaning back in my chair and crossing my legs. I keep my voice completely level, matching his cold tone degree for degree. "Outside the main entrance."
Marcus looks between the two of us, his cheerful expression wavering into mild confusion. "Oh. Well... good. That saves us the awkward introductions."
"It certainly saves time," I quip, looking Leander up and down. "Though I see you managed to find a clean shirt."
A tiny muscle twitches in Leander's jaw. It’s the only sign that my comment registered at all.
"The shirt was custom," Leander mumbles, his tone strictly professional, though his eyes remain narrowed on mine. "And the stain didn't come out."
"A shame," I reply smoothly. "Perhaps next time you'll pay closer attention to basic foot traffic."
Marcus lets out a small, nervous cough, shifting his weight from foot to foot. "Right. Well. I'll leave you two to go over the morning schedule. Kara, the keys to the file cabinet are in the top drawer. Doctor, she’s all yours."
Marcus doesn't wait for a response. He slips past Leander like a man escaping a blast zone and hurries down the hallway, his footsteps fading quickly into the distance.
Traitor.
The office goes dead silent.
Leander walks three steps into the room, stopping on the opposite side of my desk. He towers over the furniture, his posture rigid, his presence heavy enough to crowd the air in the room.
"You're the lawyer," Leander drawls.
"I am," I answer, leaning forward and resting my forearms on the desk, meeting his gaze head-on. "And you're the doctor who doesn't know how to yield the right-of-way."
"I was walking in a straight line," Leander mutters softly. "You backed out of a blind spot."
"We can argue about who bumped into who all day, Dr. Leander," I start, picking up my pen and tapping it once against my notepad. "Or we can get to work. I have four risk assessments to complete by noon, and apparently, I'm required to follow you around while I do them."
Leander stares at me for a long beat. "I don't have time to babysit an attorney," he quips cleanly. "My floor is busy today. Two MVA transfers are coming in from the turnpike in twenty minutes. I have a scheduled laparotomy at ten, and three post-op consultations before lunch."
"I don't need babysitting," I tell him, my tone sharpening just enough to set the boundary. "I need access to your charting procedures, your consent waivers, and your incident reports. You do your job, I do mine. You won't even know I'm there."
"I doubt that," he mutters, pulling one hand from his lab coat pocket to check the silver watch on his wrist. "You make a lot of noise for someone who claims to be observant."
Noise?
I smile, though there’s no warmth in it. "I react to my environment. If people don't run into me, I'm remarkably quiet."
Leander's dark eyes flicker down to the brown files on my desk, catching the faint coffee stains on the edges. A tiny, almost imperceptible tilt appears at the corner of his mouth before it vanishes back into his usual stone-faced mask.
"Your files are dirty," he remarks.
"Courtesy of a double shot of dark roast." I reply instantly. He lets out a short, quiet breath through his nose that sounds like the beginning of a laugh.
"Ten minutes," Leander steps back toward the open doorway. "Trauma Bay 2. If you aren't down there by seven-forty-five, I'm leaving you behind, and I'll report to the board that you failed to show up for orientation."
"I'll be there at seven-forty-four," I reply, pulling my notepad toward me and writing his name at the top of a fresh page. "Try not to run over any nurses on your way down."
Leander stops in the doorway, turning his head slightly to look back over his shoulder at me.
“Try to look at where you’re going, lest you ram into patients on your first day.”
He turns and walks down the hall, his scrub pants rustling faintly with his long, fast strides.
I sit back in my chair, staring at the empty doorway for a moment before letting out a low breath.
Charming.
He's cold, arrogant, and completely unbothered by anyone else's authority. But he’s also sharp, disciplined, and clearly used to being the most dominant presence in every room he enters.
I reach into my bag, pull out a fresh black pen, and cap my notebook.
He thinks he's going to intimidate me into sitting in a corner while he runs his department, I think, standing up from the desk and straightening my jacket. He has no idea who he's dealing with.
I grab my clipboard, check my watch, seven-thirty-eight and head out the door toward Trauma Bay 2.
Here goes nothing.