Dr. Lucien Moreau

Word spreads fast.

To the streets, to the organization, to my clinic—especially here. Blood has a way of talking. It leaks into cracks, clings to shoes, stains voices.

Last night, they were attacked.

The people I stitch back together. The men whose pulse I know better than their own wives. Strange—how the Big Boss didn’t catch the way those fuckers were hiding their guns. A half-second too late. A bad angle. A room that shifted wrong.

She would’ve seen it.

She always does.

But she wasn’t inside. She was outside with the car. Distance enough to be useless. Close enough to hear the gunshots rip through the air like a bad confession.

Things went south fast. They always do.

It’s been a few hours now. Long enough for adrenaline to wear off. Long enough for pain to get ambitious. I know I’ll have visitors soon. I’m reorganizing my instruments at the far end of the clinic—scalpel, forceps, clamps, lined up like obedient thoughts—when the door slams open hard enough to rattle the glass.

I don’t flinch.

Footsteps. Weight dragged wrong. Blood on tile.

“Doc!” a man shouts, panic cracking his voice. “She’s bleeding—quick!”

I turn slowly.

They’re holding her upright like she might fall apart if they let go. Torn fabric. Dark red spreading where it shouldn’t. She’s conscious. Of course she is. She always is. Jaw tight. Eyes sharp. Too stubborn to collapse even when her body is clearly voting otherwise.

Shielded the Boss again, I think. She has a talent for it. A bad habit.

Another gunshot wound. That’ll make thirteen.

Yes. I remember.

I take exactly one full second—no more—to assess. Entry point. Exit missing. Angle. Blood loss. Breathing. The way her left hand trembles just enough to be honest.

“Lay her down,” I say calmly, already pulling on gloves as I step toward the examination bed.

The men hesitate. They always do, like I might accuse them of something.

“I didn’t ask,” I add mildly.

They move.

She hits the bed with a sharp breath she tries to swallow. I don’t comment. I never do. My fingers are steady as I cut away fabric, exposing torn flesh, heat, blood. The bullet was greedy this time—chewed muscle, kissed bone. Messy, but survivable.

“You’re bleeding like someone who ignored cover,” I say, tone neutral as I clean the wound. “Again.”

Her jaw tightens. No apology. Good. I hate apologies.

“Relax,” I continue, almost bored. “If you wanted to die, you’d have done it more efficiently by now.”

A clamp. Pressure. Her pulse jumps under my fingers—fast, stubborn, familiar.

“Thirteen,” I murmur. “You’re collecting these like souvenirs.”

The man who brought her in looks at me like he wants to argue. I don’t look at him.

“She stepped in front of the Boss—”

“Yes,” I cut in calmly, not lifting my eyes from my work. “I have eyes. And a memory.”

I glance at her then. Really look. Sweat at her temples. Blood on her skin. That defiant, dangerous stillness. She’s watching me like she always does—alert, measuring, waiting for the blade to slip.

It won’t.

“You’re lucky,” I say softly, pressing gauze into the wound. “Two centimeters left and I’d be explaining anatomy to you in the afterlife.”

A pause. Then, quieter—meant only for her.

“And don’t mistake luck for permission. You’re not indestructible. Just... persistently inconvenient to kill.”

I straighten, finally meeting her eyes. Calm. Unreadable.

“Stay still,” I add, almost mockingly gentle. “I’m trying to fix what your loyalty keeps breaking.”

The clinic hums around us. Tools gleam. Blood pools. And like always— I will put her back together.

Again.

I knew before the phone rang.

Some instincts don’t need confirmation—they settle in the bones like old scars, aching when something’s wrong. I was still in my clinic, sleeves rolled, hands rinsed clean of blood that wasn’t hers, when the familiar weight pressed against my chest.

Then the Boss called.

“Did you treat her?” he asked, voice tight, already knowing the answer.

“No,” I said, honestly. Straight. I don’t lie to men who rule by consequence.

Silence. Then anger—controlled, but sharp enough to cut.

“She’s bleeding. Go to her penthouse. Now. If she loses more blood because of pride, it’s on you.”

The line went dead.

Running after her after last night’s argument wasn’t my responsibility. Keeping her alive was.

I left without my coat buttoned, hair still loose, clinic lights dimmed behind me. The elevator ride up to her floor felt longer than it should’ve. Every second stretched thin, filled with images I didn’t invite—her jaw set in defiance, her silence sharpened into a weapon.

The door accepted the password on the first try.

Of course it did.

I stepped inside without announcing myself. She knew it was me. She always did.

The penthouse was quiet—too quiet. Curtains half-drawn. City lights bleeding through glass walls. The smell of iron hung thick in the air.

I found her on the sectional leather sofa.

Suit trousers discarded somewhere between stubbornness and survival. Shirt gone. Sitting in boyshorts that looked painfully normal in a room like this—private, vulnerable in a way she’d never admit. Her right leg stretched out, unmoving. Blood darkened her thigh, steady and unapologetic.

In her hand—

A skin stapler.

My jaw locked.

She didn’t look at me. Just swallowed, breath shallow, hands trembling despite her will. She was iron, yes—but iron fractures under enough pressure.

I stayed where I was. Distance first. Observation.

“A muscle’s torn,” I said, voice flat, clinical. “It needs to be stitched.”

She ignored me.

—CLICK.

The sound snapped through the room.

Metal bit into flesh. Her breath hitched—quick, sharp—but she didn’t cry out. Pride does that. Turns pain into silence.

I slid my hands into my pockets. Fists clenched hard enough to ache.

“Such stubbornness will kill you one day,” I said calmly, stepping closer now. Measured. Controlled. “If a bullet doesn’t.”

Another step.

Another pulse of blood.

Then I spoke again, quieter this time—deliberate.

“I believe you’re getting weak.”

That did it.

Her hand stilled. Just for a second. Long enough for me to see it land.

I stopped in front of her.

Close enough now to see how pale she’d gone. How sweat dampened her skin. How the pain she refused to voice was carving itself into her posture.

“You don’t close a wound like this alone,” I continued, tone even, dangerous in its restraint. “Not unless you’re trying to prove something.”

I reached out—not touching yet—and took the stapler from her hand before she could stop me.

My fingers brushed her skin.

Warm. Too warm.

“This,” I said quietly, eyes on the wound, “is not strength.”

I met her gaze at last.

“It’s punishment.”

I set the stapler aside and crouched in front of her, close enough now that leaving was no longer an option—for either of us.

“Sit still,” I told her, voice low. Final.

And for the first time since last night, I didn’t sound like a man arguing.

I sounded like a doctor who refused to lose his patient.