Chapter Text
The hospital at 2:13 a.m. was a different beast than its daytime self. Gone were the harried footsteps of interns, the clatter of gurneys, the low hum of anxious families in waiting rooms. Night shifts were quieter, but not silent—more like the held breath of a machine that never fully slept, and you were forced to supervise in case it decided to combust. Zayne preferred it this way. No small talk, no bureaucratic meetings, just the soft glow of his office lamp and the endless stack of patient files that needed his scrutiny. As a cardiac surgeon, he wasn’t supposed to be here on a night shift. His job was daylight precision, cracking open chests and coaxing hearts back to rhythm. But he’d volunteered tonight, partly to help the overworked nurses and partly because he’d rather wrestle paperwork than wrestle with the insomnia that haunted his apartment. Plus, night shift meant no one was hoarding the coffee machine like it was a goldmine.
He adjusted his glasses while he walked, the thin wire frames slipping slightly down his nose as he scanned a chart for a six-year-old with a ventricular septal defect. His office was a small sanctuary: a sleek desk, a shelf of medical journals, and a single potted plant that somehow survived his neglect. The automatic sliding glass door hissed softly when he entered or left, a modern touch in an otherwise aging building. He liked the order of it all. Predictable. Controlled.
Which made the scene he walked into after fetching more files from the records room feel like a personal insult.
The glass door was gone. Not open—gone. Shattered into a thousand glinting shards that crunched under his orthopaedic crocs as he froze in the doorway. His office looked like it had been hit by a localized tornado. Drawers hung open, their contents spilled across the floor. His ergonomic chair was tipped over, one wheel still spinning lazily. Papers, patient files and surgical notes were scattered like confetti after a summer festival. And on his desk, where his laptop should have been, lay a man who looked like he’d been dragged through a warzone and dropped there for dramatic effect.
Blood soaked the desk, pooling under the man’s body and dripping onto the floor with a steady, infuriating plop. His black, expensive suit was now ruined, clinging to his frame, torn where bullets had ripped through. Grey hair, streaked with sweat and blood, fanned across his forehead. His face was pale, sharp-angled, and disturbingly striking, even with his eyes closed. Around him stood five men, each built like they could punch through concrete and probably had at least once in their lives. Tattoos snaked up their arms, disappearing under bloodstained jackets. One was rifling through Zayne’s filing cabinet, another was poking at the plant like it might be hiding contraband.
Zayne’s first thought wasn’t fear. It was exhaustion. He’d been up for nineteen hours, and now this.
“Excuse me,” he said, voice flat as a scalpel, “but you can’t just barge into my office.”
The man by the plant froze, looking genuinely surprised to be addressed. The one at the filing cabinet turned, a gun in his hand that he didn’t bother pointing. The biggest of the group with his six-foot-five and with a beard that looked like it could harbor wildlife, stepped forward, his boots grinding glass into the carpet.
“We only need you for however fuckin’ long it takes ya to take a few bullets out of our boss,” he said. His voice was gravelly, like he smoked cigars for breakfast before mixing the ash into his coffee for an extra boost of cancer.
Zayne didn’t blink. He set the stack of files on a nearby counter—carefully, because chaos was no excuse for sloppiness—and crossed his arms. “Oh, wonderful. I was just thinking my night lacked a felony.”
Beard Guy blinked, thrown off by the sarcasm. The others exchanged glances, like they weren’t sure if they were supposed to laugh or shoot him. But Zayne didn’t care. He was too tired to care. He pushed his glasses up and gave the bleeding man on his desk a clinical once-over: four entry wounds, two in the abdomen, one in the shoulder, one near the chest. Heavy bleeding, but not arterial spray. Unconscious, but breathing. For now.
“You realize this isn’t a trauma center,” he said, stepping closer to the desk, glass crunching under his shoes. “This is a cardiac unit. I fix hearts, not bullet holes.”
“A doctor’s a doctor,” said the one with the gun, as if that settled everything. “Fix him.”
Zayne’s eyebrow twitched, a tiny rebellion against his otherwise stoic face. “And you’re trespassers. Yet here we are.” He didn’t wait for a response. He moved to the desk, ignoring the way the men tensed, their hands hovering near weapons. The patient—because that’s what he was now, whether Zayne liked it or not—was in bad shape but not unsalvageable. Pulse weak but steady, skin clammy, lips tinged blue. Zayne’s fingers brushed the man’s wrist, checking for shock. His skin was cool, but not cold. There was time, but not much.
“Move him,” Zayne said, already turning toward the hallway. “There’s a spare operating room down the corridor. It’s not ideal, but it’s better than my desk.”
Beard Guy hesitated. “You ain’t callin’ the cops?”
He snorted, a rare sound that carried more disdain than amusement. “If I was going to call the cops, I’d have done it when I saw my door in pieces. Now move him, or he’ll bleed out while you’re standing there looking like a discount action movie cast.”
They moved. Fast. Two of them hoisted the man rather carefully, to Zayne’s surprise, and followed as he led the way to the spare OR. The room was a relic, tucked away in a forgotten wing of the hospital that needed more funds and less flickering lights. Old equipment, a surgical table that creaked under weight, an air filter that stopped working years ago. Zayne had insisted on having it sterilized every other week, a decision he’d made out of paranoia rather than necessity. Now, he was silently thanking his own foresight.
The men laid their boss on the table, and Zayne didn’t waste time. He scrubbed in, pulled on gloves, and started barking orders. “You,” he pointed at Beard Guy, “hold this light steady. You,” to Gun Guy, “hand me instruments when I ask. The rest of you, stay out of my way.”
They obeyed, which was a minor miracle. The OR was cramped, the air stale with disuse. The overhead light buzzed annoyingly, casting harsh shadows across the patient’s bloodied torso. Zayne cut away the ruined suit, exposing a chest mapped with old scars and fresh wounds. Four bullets, just as he’d thought. Two in soft tissue, one dangerously close to the iliac artery, one lodged in the thoracic wall. Tricky, but not impossible.
He worked in silence, save for the occasional clipped command. Scalpel. Clamp. Suction. His hands moved with the precision of a man who’d spent years mastering his craft, but his mind was elsewhere. Who was this guy? The men hadn’t said, but the tattoos, the guns, the casual disregard for law screamed organized crime. N109 zone, probably. That place was a lawless pit, home to syndicates like Onychinus, who ran everything from drugs to black-market tech. Zayne didn’t care about details he didn’t need, but he couldn’t help wondering what kind of man inspired this kind of loyalty. The kind who got shot four times and still had men willing to storm a hospital for him in the middle of the night.
The first bullet came out cleanly—a small, ugly thing that clinked into a metal tray. The second was messier, buried in muscle, but he got it. The third was the problem child, flirting with the iliac artery. One wrong move, and the guy would bleed out in seconds. Zayne’s jaw tightened, his focus narrowing to a pinpoint. He didn’t think about the men watching him, or the shattered door, or the fact that he was committing at least three ethical violations. Instead, he thought about the artery, the angle, the steady pressure of his fingers.
“Got it,” he muttered, mostly to himself, as the third bullet joined its siblings in the tray. The fourth was a grind, lodged deep in the thoracic wall, but he coaxed it out with a patience that bordered on obsession. Blood followed, but he clamped it fast, stitching with a speed that didn’t sacrifice precision.
By the time he stepped back, his scrubs were spattered with blood, and the clock on the wall read 5:42 a.m. The patient was stable—barely. Vitals were holding, but he’d need monitoring. Zayne stripped off his gloves, tossed them into the biohazard bin, and turned to the men. “He’s alive. For now. Don’t move him until I say so.”
Beard Guy nodded, looking almost impressed. “You’re good, doc.”
“I’m aware,” Zayne said, deadpan. “Who is he?”
A pause, then Gun Guy spoke. “Sylus. Head of Onychinus. N109’s his turf, and now we are indebted to ya. Let us know if ya need anyone taken care of.”
Zayne’s stomach did something unpleasant, but his face didn’t betray it. Of course. The most dangerous man in the zone, and he’d just spent three hours pulling bullets out of him. Perfect. He didn’t bother to entertain the offer, just gestured for them to follow him back to his office.
He needed coffee. And a new door.
Sylus woke up just as the sky outside was bruising purple with dawn. Zayne was back in his office, trying to salvage what was left of his files, when one of the men called him to the OR. He found Sylus propped up on the table, going against all medical advice Zayne had troubled himself with giving them, grey hair mussed, red eyes half-lidded but sharp. The morphine was still in his system, softening his edges, but there was a dangerous charisma to him even now, like a predator playing at being tame.
“You the one who kept me from dying?” Sylus’ voice was rough, low, with a hint of amusement that grated on Zayne’s nerves.
“I’m the one who kept my floor from becoming a crime scene,” Zayne said, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. “You’re welcome.”
Sylus chuckled, then winced, one hand hovering over his bandaged abdomen. “You’ve got a mouth on you, doc. I like that.”
“And you’ve got a death wish. I don’t like that.” Zayne pushed off the doorframe, stepping closer to check the monitors. Pulse was steady, oxygen levels acceptable. He adjusted his glasses, ignoring the way Sylus’ eyes followed him.
“Name’s Sylus,” he said, as if Zayne hadn’t already been told. “You?”
“Doctor Li. And don’t get comfortable. You’re not staying long.”
“Shame.” Sylus’ lips curled into a smirk, lazy but deliberate. “You’ve got nice hands. Steady. Bet they’re good for more than just cutting people open.”
Zayne didn’t blush but he felt a flicker of heat in his chest that he promptly smothered to death. “Flirt with someone else. I’m busy.”
“Busy saving my life. Makes you special.”
“Makes me annoyed that I am here with you instead of checking on patients that actually need me.”
Sylus laughed, a low, throaty sound that shouldn’t have been attractive but was. “You’re cute when you’re annoyed. Those glasses—very scholarly. Bet you break hearts without even trying.”
“You’re high. Stop talking.” Zayne’s patience was a finite resource, and it was running low. He fixed Sylus with a look that could’ve frozen a furnace.
“Not that high.” Sylus’ eyes glinted, red and sharp, like they could see through Zayne’s defenses. “Give me a chance, doc. I’m a fun date.”
“I don’t date patients,” Zayne said, turning to leave. His voice was firm, but there was a traitorous part of him that wanted to keep bantering, just to see how far this would go.
The patient’s voice followed him, laced with morphine and mischief. “I’ll get a new doctor once you discharge me.”
Zayne stopped, one hand on the doorframe. He didn’t turn around, but he let out a long, exasperated sigh. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re intrigued.”
He didn’t dignify that with a response. He walked out, the door clicking shut behind him, and leaned against the wall outside. His pulse was steady, always, but his thoughts weren’t. Sylus was a problem. A dangerous, infuriating, unfairly attractive problem. Zayne didn’t do problems. He fixed hearts, not egos. He didn’t flirt with criminals, no matter how red their eyes were or how well they wore a smirk.
But as he stood there, the hospital waking up around him, he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was only the beginning.