"Dr. Escobar, we need you. There's been an emergency."
Rafael's heart rate quickened as the director explained the details: Sofia Alvarez, the notorious mafia boss of the Alvarez family, had been shot during an assassination attempt. Her injuries were severe, and they needed Rafael's expertise to keep her alive.
The name knocked him like a physical blow. Alvarez, Sofia Ruling Las Vegas with a harsh, merciless grasp, she commanded not only the criminal underground but also shaped everything, including corporate executives and politicians. Her name was both dreaded and revered; her eyes were the last thing her rivals saw before silence was enforced.
Rafael had never really seen her. He knew only the murmurs, the stories, the cold woman who could have anyone slain with just a glance. Still here she was, depending on him, defenselessand injured.
His breath hung in his throat. He was entering the lion's den, not merely into the operating room to save a life.
His hands shaking, he dropped the phone. Moving from his regimented world of medicine to the anarchy Sofia Alvarez depicted was like sailing from calm waters into a storm.
Rising, he grabbed his coat and the medical bag he always carried for crises. His head spun with questions pouring through it. Who had sought to kill her? Into what was he about to walk? Could someone like her even be saved?
The weight of the choice crushed down on him as he left his flat into the darkness. Now compelled to save the woman whose very mention caused the streets to shake, a man who spent his life rescuing others
His footsteps resounded in the vacant hall as he went inside the elevator. Rafael stopped once the doors closed. He inhaled deeply, filling his chest.
Minutes thereafter he went into the surgery room. Thick tension permeated the air as the personnel moved with urgency. Nevertheless, the air was imbued with a tangible apprehension, an expectation of what was to come, even with their quick motions.
Everything seemed to slow down as Rafael moved forward to the table where Sofia lay asleep, unsure of whether it was the silence of the room or the soft hum of the overhead lights. She looked so different from the strong image he had heard about, the women with the iron determination, a leader in a war she had always been winning.
She was frailty now. She was simply a woman, like any other, the blood soaking her clothes, the way her chest scarcely raised with every faint breath. And Rafael could not suppress a touch of sympathy.
Rafael changed his gloves and got ready for operation. Looking down at her face, he considered this might be the most risky choice he has ever made.
His pulse matched the beat of the ticking clock in the corner of the room as the seconds passed. The operations started.
He reached for the scalpel, solid in his hands, yet he could feel his pulse thundering in his ears. Every incision he made drove him toward her and farther into her realm. He was not blind to the conundrum of the circumstances. His job was basic: save her life. As a surgeon, though, he understood the complexity of the matter transcending what was happening on the operating table.
The clock seemed to hurry with every movement. The space seemed smaller, tighter, as though the walls themselves were pushing in. When his universe had been turned upside down in an instant, how long could he stay focused?
Then he heard it, the quiet scrape of shoes on the floor toward the rear of the room. Just at the brink of his sight, a shadow hung. Rafael's hand stopped midway in air. He was not alone in here when the flash of insight struck. One other person was observing him.
Rafael looked up momentarily and once more found the shadow. Though hardly obvious, it was there. He dared not divert his focus away from the current work even though he knew someone else was watching. Now Sofia's life hung in balance, it was his own as well.
His hands moved fast, the air smelling of antiseptic, the only sound disturbing the quiet the heart monitor beeping. Sofia then inhaled sharply to help her breathing to steady. She had passed the worst portion of her fight for life; it was not finished.
He sighed a little in relief as he laid the scalpel down. The worst was now behind us.
It was at this point he noticed it. The quiet of the room has changed. Just a few steps behind him, the man silhouetted in the darkness had stepped forward. Nobody had mentioned it. Nobody had spoken a sound.
Then low and threatening came a voice. Dr. Escobar, you have done your work. The question is, therefore, why are you still here?
Turning slowly, Rafael came upon a man with cold, analytical eyes. Michael Richards here. right-hand man for Sofia. Only his allegiance to her matched a man with reputation for cruelty. Michael was now assessing him with the eye of a predator.
Alert to the threat stalking Rafael, his instincts erupted.
Michael stopped waiting for Rafael to talk. He handed him a little envelope, fingers stiff and chilly against Rafael's palm. The envelope was plain and unlabeled. Rafael, however, could sense the weight of it, the quiet threat stored inside.
Michael murmured gently, "Stay out of this," his tone so low it felt like a whisper meant just for him. "Or else,"
The soft buzz of the city filled the window as he allowed the words of the hospital director sink in: "Sofia Alvarez has explicitly requested you, Dr. Escobar, as her personal physician. She depends on you right now.
The air around him seemed denser, as though it were dragging him back into his chair, into his old, known pattern. His whole life had been a sequence of well considered choices, ones meant to uphold peace and save lives, never to be caught in the maelstrom of the criminal universe.
Still, here he was right now. His eyes moved to the clock. Sofia Alvarez needed him; her name stirred reverence and terror over every shadowed corner of the city. Ready to smash her rivals at whim, a lady who oversaw everything and everyone in Las Vegas, from corporate magnates to crooked politicians, held their life in her palm. Rafael was not sure what drew her to ask him. He did not live in her universe.
Debating, he fixed his gaze on the phone in his hands. He could hang back, deny, return to the austere realm of medicine where he saved lives without thinking about it. But the choice seemed weighty, more like a decision between two destinies he did not want to live.
His fingers closed the phone tightly. "I'll go," he murmured aloud, but it sounded more to him as an assurance to himself than as a choice taken.
Rafael hung up and felt a cold run down his spine. Though he knew what he was headed into, the sense of anxiety crept into his mind still. Into what kind of universe had he lately entered? And among all the physicians in this city, why had Sofia Alvarez especially asked him?
Minutes later he was in the hospital elevator, his head whirling with unanswerable questions. Every step he took toward Sofia's private ward felt heavier than the last; he could practically feel his shoes pressing against the floor. Like a thread of anxiety coursed through the very air he was breathing, he sensed something was off. He glimpsed his reflection in the polished metal doors as the elevator climbed. His dark eyes were wide, the normal calm in his manner replaced with a discomfort he hadn't felt in years.
Startled was he by the quiet chime of the elevator arriving at its destination. His pulse sharpened as the doors opened. Every inch of him shouted to flee, but the weight of the circumstances pulled him onward, farther into a world he hadn't prepared for.
Their faces tight, a tiny team of physicians and nurses hurried across the hall. Rafael was approaching quickly without a word as he neared the door to Sofia's room, shadows passing him in the passage. Rafael's eyes flicked to the man; something about him made his back of the neck prickle.
Rafael inhaled the scene before him as he entered the room. Seeing Sofia Alvarez unconscious, battered, bleeding, unrecognizable from the feared figure running the city. In her company, he had expected power; but, this? This seemed disconnected from what he had heard.
Rafael looked at her abdomen's big bullet wound; the blood had started to congeal around the entrance point. His eyelids closed and he turned totally toward the current work. He knew only the whispers about Sofia, how she was untouchable, dreaded by every male who came across her path. But what would have put her in this exposed state? Who would dare challenge someone like her?
Focus, he said to himself silently. To let his ideas stray, he hadn't spent more than ten years ranking among the top doctors in the city. The required procedure was quick, exact, and perfect.
While he healed the cut, his gloved hands operated fast; his mind worked the background to create a strategy for the next actions. Though steady for the moment, Sofia's vitals were feeble. The weight of trying to keep her alive and offer her another chance was intolerable.
But the sense of being watched persisted even while he worked. On his back of the neck, the hairs felt prickly. Rafael looked about, his eyes gliding over the immaculate space, but he found nothing to suggest anyone was there. Still, something stayed with him.
He heard a piercing noise coming from the doorway. Rafael stopped momentarily then turned toward the source. A shadow passed the doorframe quickly out of sight. He kept having the impression that someone had been observing from there.
It wasn't merely paranoia. Every action he took was under observation; he had a peaceful assurance, a strong unpleasant feeling that informed him so. By whom, though?
There was one more stitch made. The bullet wound was healed, and for now the bleeding under control. Though Sofia's respiration remained faint, she wasn't sliding away. Rafael removed his gloves gently while his head still whirled. He retreated, peering down at the woman whose possessions had been ravaged.
The phone call came next.
The sharp buzz of his phone broke the still calm in the room. Rafael grabbed it; his heart accelerated with every second. He knew not one of the numbers. He cautiously responded.
"Dr. Escobar," said a low, gruff but clear voice. "I hope you're not growing overly at ease in there."
Rafael's heart rate increased up and his eyes squinted. Demanding "Who is this?" he asked.
The voice on the other end didn't answer directly. Instead, it said one chilling sentence, "Stay out of her world, doctor. Or else, you'll regret it."