Chapter 5 - The Trap at the WarehouseThe warning came three days later on a humid Friday afternoon.
Marin was at the downtown medical clinic she had set up for Ambrose employees when her secure satellite phone buzzed violently.
She picked it up on the second ring.
"Marin," Declan’s gravelly voice came through the speaker, breathless and laced with static. "You need to lock down the clinic. Viktor Vance’s men have breached the south shipping depot. Boss is there now."
"Is Raphael hurt?" Marin demanded, her nurse's training kicking in instantly.
"He's pinned down in the main warehouse office," Declan cursed as automatic gunfire echoed in the background. "We're two miles out. He’s bleeding from a shrapnel wound in his side. If he doesn't get a pressure dressing and a line started in twenty minutes, he’s going into hemorrhagic shock."
Marin didn't hesitate. She grabbed her heavy medical trauma kit from the supply closet, ran out to her car, and floored the accelerator toward the riverfront docks.
The south depot looked like a war zone when she arrived.
Smoldering shipping containers, shattered glass, and abandoned vehicles littered the concrete tarmac. Two of Vance’s mercenaries were slumped near the loading dock, neutralized by Ambrose’s security team, but the heavy oak doors of the main administrative office were splintered from a breaching charge.
Marin threw her car into park, grabbed her medical bag, and sprinted toward the office.
"Halt!" A bruised Ambrose guard raised his weapon before recognizing her. "Dr. Sloan—you shouldn't be here!"
"Move, Declan!" she snapped, shoving past him into the smoke-filled office.
Raphael was sitting on the floor against a steel filing cabinet, pressing a blood-soaked rag against his right side. His custom white shirt was ruined, stained dark with crimson, and his face was pale with blood loss.
When he looked up and saw her standing in the doorway, his dark eyes flashed with sudden, blinding anger.
"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" Raphael snarled, wincing as a wave of dizziness hit him. "I told you to stay at the clinic!"
"And let you bleed out because you're too stubborn to die?" Marin dropped to her knees beside him, ripping open her trauma kit with shaking hands. "Shut up, Raphael, and let me do my job."
She sliced through his ruined shirt with trauma shears, exposing a jagged shrapnel wound just above his hip. Blood was pumping out in a steady, dangerous rhythm.
"Declan, hold this pressure dressing!" Marin ordered, her voice dropping into the absolute, unshakable authority of an ICU nurse.
For the next ten minutes, Marin worked with terrifying speed. She set an intravenous line, pumped saline and plasma expanders into his veins to stabilize his blood pressure, and packed the wound with hemostatic gauze before securing a tight compression bandage.
By the time the sirens of Raphael’s backup security teams echoed outside, Raphael’s breathing had stabilized, though he was pale and soaked in cold sweat.
He reached out, his bloodstained hand grabbing her wrist with surprising strength.
"You shouldn't have come," he whispered, his stormy eyes locking onto hers. "It was too dangerous."
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"You saved my life by paying my debts and giving me a purpose," Marin whispered back, her fingers gently resting over his hand. "Do you really think I was going to let you die on a filthy warehouse floor?"
Raphael stared at her, the hard, impenetrable armor of the mafia boss completely shattering. For the first time since she had met him, the terrifying predator of Grayport looked entirely, beautifully vulnerable.
