Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary Crumbles
By midnight, the clinic had been converted into a makeshift fortress. Damian had used his encrypted satellite phone to contact the only two men in the city he still trusted—Reeves, his aging, fiercely loyal head of security, and Marcus, a quiet logistics expert who managed the docks.
They arrived through the back alley like ghosts, slipping into the clinic carrying duffel bags packed with encrypted comms, ammunition, and heavy ballistic vests.
Reeves stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Elena standing beside Damian, handing him a cup of black coffee. The old enforcer looked from his boss to the nurse, his bushy gray eyebrows rising toward his hairline.
"Boss," Reeves said slowly, his voice dripping with skepticism. "Word on the street is running wild. The boys at the docks are saying you took a wife. Please tell me you didn't lose half your blood and hallucinate a wedding."
Damien took the coffee, his expression unreadable. "It's a tactical necessity, Reeves."
"A tactical necessity that has every rival lieutenant from here to the harbor salivating at the thought of finding her weakness," Reeves retorted, casting a sharp, protective glance at Elena. "You just handed Victor Calloway a hostage on a silver platter."
"She's not a hostage," Damian said, his voice dropping an octave, carrying a dark, dangerous edge that brooked no argument. "She’s under my protection. Treat her accordingly."
Elena stood silently off to the side, listening to the men talk about her as if she were a piece of military hardware acquired in a hostile takeover. A cold knot twisted in her stomach. For three years, her life had been her own—messy, poor, but free. Now, because of a split-second lie told by a bleeding mob boss, she was trapped in a lethal game of chess she didn't know how to play.
"The board meeting is in forty-eight hours," Marcus reported, tapping a digital tablet against his palm. "Victor has been calling emergency consultations behind your back. He’s telling the capos that you're medically incapacitated, that you can't hold the territory, and that it's time for a leadership transition. If you walk into that boardroom looking like this, they’ll smell blood in the water."
"Then I won't look like I'm dying," Damian said, standing up straight with a sharp hiss of pain, rolling his shoulders back until his joints popped. He looked at Reeves. "Get the armored suburban ready. We're moving the clinic."
Elena’s eyes widened. "Moving the clinic? Are you out of your mind? This is my life's work! I can't just pack up St. Agnes and move it because your friends want to play turf war!"
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"If you stay here, Victor will burn this building to the ground with you inside of it just to prove a point to me," Damian said, stepping close to her—so close she could smell the clean scent of antiseptic mixed with expensive cedarwood soap. "You have ten minutes to pack whatever matters to you. The rest can be replaced."
She wanted to fight him. She wanted to scream, to hit him, to tell him to get out of her clinic and leave her alone. But the dark, unyielding resolve in his eyes told her something terrifying: Damian Cross didn't negotiate. He survived. And for better or worse, he had just decided she was going to survive with him.
