Chapter 1 - No Doctor Could Help the Mafia Boss—But One Single Mom Reached Him When No One Else Could
Blood smelled exactly like dirty pennies.
Mave Collins knew that because she had spent her 20s scrubbing it from emergency-room floors.
Now it was soaking into the cheap linoleum of Hank’s Diner at 3:00 a.m.
A man in a ruined 3-piece suit was dying inside booth 4, bleeding over the laminated dessert menu. His bodyguards were shouting, and the paramedics were not coming.
Mave did not want to save a mobster.
She hated removing blood from vinyl even more.
The bell above the glass entrance did not ring.
It shrieked.
Mave was halfway through wiping the counter. Stale coffee and industrial bleach clung to her hands, and a familiar ache burned across her lower back.
Outside, the neon sign flickered relentlessly, throwing pink shadows across the rain-covered parking lot.
It was 3:00 on a Tuesday morning.
The diner had been silent except for the failing refrigerator compressor and rain striking the single-pane windows.
Then the front door crashed open.
It rebounded against the wall hard enough to fracture the drywall.
Wind entered the room and scattered paper napkins across the floor like dead leaves.
Mave stopped moving.
Three men came through the storm.
Two remained upright. Their faces were pale and wet.
The 3rd hung between them, both arms thrown across their shoulders and his feet dragging behind him.
A thick trail of blood followed across the linoleum.
“Lock the door.”
The taller of the 2 men spoke harshly.
Panic frayed his voice, an emotion that did not belong in the hand holding a matte-black pistol.
Mave remained behind the counter.
Her heart struck once, hard enough to hurt, before settling into a fast and freezing rhythm.
Her eyes moved immediately toward the kitchen doors.
Inside the rear office, her 5-year-old son, Toby, slept on a camping cot beneath a coarse wool blanket.
“I said lock the door.”
The gun turned toward her.
The man’s hand shook violently.
Mave lowered the rag.
She walked around the counter, her worn shoes squeaking across the wet floor.
She did not look at the weapon.
She watched the man’s eyes.
They were wide and terrified.
Frightened men with guns pulled triggers.
Mave engaged the deadbolt and lowered the metal blinds.
“Put him in a booth.”
Her voice was flat and empty.
The calmness surprised her.
They carried the injured man to booth 4.
He collapsed against the vinyl seat, his head falling backward toward the window.
He wore a charcoal suit made from wool that probably cost more than Mave’s car.
The left side was saturated and almost black beneath the fluorescent lights.
“Call a doctor.”
The younger bodyguard pressed both hands against the man’s chest.
“Call someone. He is bleeding to death.”
Mave stood approximately 6 feet away with her arms folded over her inexpensive pink uniform.
Her fingernails pressed into the fabric.
She assessed the dying man.
Dark stubble covered a strong jaw. His skin had become the color of old ash.
His chest lifted in a shallow and wet gasp.
Blood rose beneath his collar and flowed over the shirt.
It dripped onto the menu.
Drop after drop.
Each impact sounded thick and heavy.
“You do not call an ambulance for this type of injury,” Mave said.
“You think I do not understand that?”
The older bodyguard wiped rain and sweat from his forehead and left blood across his cheek.
“Our doctor is 20 minutes away. He will not survive 20 minutes.”
He looked toward her.
“Do you have medical supplies?”
“For kitchen burns. Not gunshots.”
The younger man made a broken, sobbing sound.
He held a bundle of single-ply napkins against the injured man’s collarbone.
They dissolved immediately into red pulp.
“Dominic. Stay awake.”
The recognition came suddenly.
Dominic Varga.
Mave did not follow newspapers closely, but no one lived in the city without knowing his name.
Dominic controlled the shipping yards, several judges, and apparently the loyalty of 2 men currently allowing him to bleed to death inside a diner.
“You are applying pressure to the wrong place.”
Mave regretted the sentence the moment it left her.
She told herself to remain silent.
Let him die.
Let them leave.
The armed man turned.
“What did you say?”
“You are applying pressure to the wrong place.”
Her voice remained controlled despite the nausea inside her stomach.
“The blood is bright and pulsing. That is an arterial bleed, probably the subclavian artery.”
She indicated the bodyguard’s hands.
“You are pressing against muscle instead of the vessel. The napkins are only absorbing blood.”
The older man lowered the gun slightly.
“Are you a physician?”
“I was a trauma nurse.”
It was a lie.
Mave had worked as an emergency-room technician until she was dismissed 2 years earlier for taking antibiotics from the hospital dispensary for Toby.
The distinction did not matter inside the diner.
“If you do not move, your employer will be dead within approximately 4 minutes.”
The bodyguard looked toward Dominic.
His eyes had rolled back, leaving narrow crescents of white.
Each breath emerged as a terrible rattle.
“Do it.”
The man stepped away but raised the gun again.
“If he stops breathing, I shoot you.”
“Understood.”
Mave looked at the expanding blood beneath the booth and thought of Toby asleep behind the kitchen.
“Bring me a clean apron and the duct tape from behind the counter.”
She moved toward Dominic.
“And stop aiming at me while I work. It is irritating.”
The smell reached her first.
Copper, rust, expensive sandalwood, and the acidic scent of frightened perspiration.
Mave entered the booth beside Dominic.
At close range, his size became more apparent.
His shoulders occupied most of the bench, and damp heat radiated from him.
He was unconscious.
His lips had developed a pale blue tint.
“Move.”
She pushed away the younger man’s hands.
Mave seized the lapels of Dominic’s suit and pulled them apart.
Blood made the fabric heavy and resistant.
His shirt had adhered to his skin.
She tore the collar open.
Buttons struck the window like small pieces of hail.
The wound was severe.
The bullet had entered below the clavicle, damaged the muscle, and torn the subclavian artery.
It was not a clean opening.
The flesh was jagged, and bright frothy blood rose with every weak beat of his heart.
The younger bodyguard gagged and turned away.
Mave entered the detached and mechanical state that had carried her through years of 12-hour hospital shifts.
She had seen gang shootings, highway collisions, and overdoses.
The man in the booth ceased to be Dominic Varga.
He became a damaged system.
A leak requiring pressure.
“Tape.”
The older man placed the silver roll in her hand.
“Give me the apron. Fold it tightly.”
Mave took a bottle of inexpensive vodka kept beneath the counter for the cook’s coffee.
She opened it with her teeth.
The alcohol went over her hands first, stinging every crack in her skin.
Then she poured it into the wound.
Dominic’s body convulsed.
A deep animal sound tore from his throat, and his back lifted from the seat.
“Hold him.”
The 2 bodyguards pinned his shoulders and legs.
Even close to death, Dominic fought with frightening strength.
His uninjured arm moved toward Mave.
She threw her left knee across his waist and used her weight to hold his hips against the booth.
She had no proper gauze, instruments, or hemostat.
She had her hands.
Mave inserted her right fingers directly into the wound.
The sensation was hot, slick, and tight.
She felt damaged bone, contracting muscle, and the erratic pulse of the injured vessel.
Her thumb and forefinger closed around it.
She pressed the artery against the clavicle until her knuckles whitened.
Dominic gasped.
His eyes opened.
They were dark brown, nearly black, and completely alert despite the pain.
He looked directly at her.
Mave straddled his hip with her uniform soaked in his blood and 1 hand inside his chest.
For a moment, the rest of the diner disappeared.
There was only the buzzing neon and the sound of their breathing.
He did not look grateful.
He looked like a trapped wolf assessing the person who had discovered it.
His jaw tightened.
A blood-covered hand closed around Mave’s left wrist.
May you like
The grip was crushing.
“Do not.”
