Episode 3

The scalpel tore through the skin as if it were wet silk.

The first incision was clean, firm. As I was taught. As I've done hundreds of times… though never like this. Never with such a literal threat looming over my back.

"He....They say he's the head of the English mafia," Mateo stated without stopping his sucking. "They're going to kill us all, even if we save him."

That would explain a lot. The man had multiple wounds. Two bullets were still lodged in his body. One of them had possibly compromised an artery.

"Active bleeding, I need more compresses," I said, with the exact tone between order and urgency.

Clara reacted effectively. Her movements were precise. She was trained. But it wasn't just training… there was something else in her. There was panic hidden behind every gesture she tried to control. I saw it in her trembling fingers when she handed me the forceps.

"Where did you learn to work like this?" I asked quietly, just to break the tension.

"St. James Hospital, London… years ago. Until…" She hesitated, "until they brought me here."

I didn't ask more. I couldn't. Not now.

"Mateo, hold the lamp for me, I need more light in this area," I said, pointing to the abdominal wound.

He moved quickly, but his eyes didn't leave the patient's face.

Gabriel, the anesthesiologist, kept his eyes fixed on the monitors.

"Pressure dropping. He's losing more blood than we calculated."

"I'm going to clip the artery. Hold it here."

Clara's hands lowered the retractor precisely. With my other hand, I inserted the hemostatic clamp. I felt the hot jet against my gloves just before tightening it. Blood splattered my forearm and for a second I froze watching the monitor.

"Pressure stabilizing," Gabriel announced.

I sighed. Not in relief. But to keep from screaming.

It was a damn choreography. A waltz between death and science. And every false step could be the last.

As I worked, I noticed something I didn't expect. The man's body… was full of scars. Not just bullet wounds. Old, poorly closed, some even with signs of having been treated without anesthesia or medical technique. Clean cuts in strange patterns. Old burns. A scar crossed from his eyebrow to his right eye, a long, straight line, under the collarbone.

"Has this man… been operated on before?" I asked, more to myself than to the others.

"We don't know," Mateo said, in a very low voice.

"How long have you been here? How do you not know? Shouldn't they have at least given you the medical history of this man?"

Gabriel turned to me, without releasing the respirator valve.

"Here, no questions are asked, Doctor. Only work is done."

That, more than anything else so far, gave me chills.

I concentrated again. I identified the bullet lodged near the small intestine. I cut carefully, freed the tissue, and extracted the projectile.

Clara handed me the holding clamp and Mateo cleaned the area as if he knew exactly what to do before I said it. He was certainly new to working in operating rooms, no doubt. I knew it from the way he looked at my movements, as if he didn't quite understand them, but recognized them.

I extracted the second bullet from the thigh, reconstructed the muscle tissue, sutured layer by layer. Time ceased to exist.

When I finally tied the last knot and removed the gloves, my arms were trembling as if they were made of paper.

I stepped away from the table. Clara cleaned the blood from the patient's abdomen and covered him with the sterile sheets. Gabriel turned off the machine and adjusted the serum. Mateo began to organize the instruments, in silence.

The room was silent, except for the constant beeping of the monitor.

Constant.

Rhythmic.

That meant he was still alive.

"Is he going to live?" Clara asked, as if her soul depended on my answer.

"For now, yes." I took off the mask. I took a deep breath. "But we'll know for sure in the next twelve hours. I need antibiotics, constant monitoring, absolute rest, and—"

The door opened with a dry thud.

The woman.

Still impeccable. As if the night and part of the morning we had been here hadn't affected her at all. Neither fear. Nor blood.

"Well?" she asked from the entrance.

"He's alive. But he needs care. It's not just a matter of taking out the bullets. He has internal damage. He needs—"

"Will he live?"

"Yes. If there are no complications."

She nodded. A smile barely curved her lips, but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Good."

She walked to the stretcher. She leaned over and placed her fingers on the forehead of the unconscious man.

For the first time, I saw in her something more than control and threat.

I saw love.