Unforgivable Ties

Chapter 34

Stephanie

T he last few days without Vincenzo had been the most difficult of my entire existence. Losing him was like losing an extension of myself, as if my shadow had been stolen from beneath my feet on the sunniest of days. The air tasted different, sour and lifeless. The sun seemed dimmer and the nights darker.

His absence felt like a void in my soul that no amount of solace or consolation could fill.

But I refused to contact him. Keeping the secret of what was happening in that warehouse from me was cruel. I had worked in the medical bay, oblivious to the organ trade going on right under my nose.

It was hard ignoring the dozens of texts he sent me each day, but each time I read one, I reminded myself of what had happened. A few times, I had almost slipped, my fingers hovering above the letters to reply.

Luckily, I always held strong and didn’t respond.

Even though I was able to hold back contacting him, I knew he was watching me. I would see his car out of the corner of my peripherals while I was leaving Jessica’s apartment or walking around campus.

I never left the house alone. I had to resort to calling Preston to ask for rides to school, which was a big hit to my pride. He loved to gloat about how he was right about Vincenzo, and I gritted my teeth each time he brought up the topic. But I put up with it. Everything was better than facing Vincenzo again.

Today I resolved to push it out of my head. It was the day I got to observe Dr. Malden during surgery, and I was going to seize this opportunity without thoughts of Vincenzo plaguing my mind.

There was no one around to take me to the hospital, so I ordered an Uber and sprinted to it, praying that Vincenzo wasn’t around. Luckily, I made it inside and to the hospital with no mishaps.

After I changed into my scrubs, I tried to push down my nerves. I couldn’t believe I was actually finally able to do this. Helping people in a hospital, not in some warehouse littered with illegal practices and dark secrets.

“Hello, Stephanie,” Dr. Malden said. Last time I had seen him, he was giving us the speech in our class. Today, he was dressed in surgical gear, ready to perform a miracle for someone. “It’s good to see you again.”

He was probably just being polite. There was no way he remembered me out of the sea of faces in my classroom.

“It’s good to see you too,” I responded, my voice steadier than I had expected. He gestured to follow him, and we entered the sterile environment of the operating room.

“Are you excited for today?” he asked, his eyes crinkling with a smile under his surgical mask.

“So excited!” I responded, my fists pumping in excitement. “Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity!”

Dr. Malden laughed, and it was soft and gentle. “You are an amazing student. I believe you will go on to do great things.”

Everything seemed to pass in a blur. The nurses wheeled the patient in and transferred them onto the operating table. They hooked up monitors to track the patient’s vitals, and the anesthesiologist readied their equipment. I stood by, watching with wide eyes as Dr. Malden scrubbed up next to me.

The surgical suite was a symphony of movement, each player knowing their role. I marveled at the harmony and efficiency, the steady rhythm of practiced hands. Standing at Dr. Malden’s elbow, my breath hitched as he made the initial incision with the precision and confidence of a man who had done this a thousand times before.

Under the harsh glare of the surgical lights, I watched as Dr. Malden’s hands danced their way through the intricate labyrinth of the human body. His hands moved with such an assured grace, it was easy to forget the fragility of the life they held. He narrated his actions, and requested help from the nurses when needed in a steady, calming voice that filled the room.

After hours of observing the medical staff working, I watched Dr. Malden finish the surgery successfully.

“Well done, team,” he said, his eyes twinkling with satisfaction.

I felt...oddly underwhelmed. This should be the most exciting moment of my life: it was a preview of what my career was going to be. But as I watched Dr. Malden finish up, I just felt empty.

I didn’t get the same excitement as I did when helping Cesare work on injured mafiosos. The adrenaline rush, the fear, and the thrill of uncertainty that came with working on a operating table in the back room of an abandoned warehouse was palpably absent here.

There was a rawness, a tangibility that I missed. The imperfections, the urgency and the chaos. The adrenaline of not knowing if we would be raided by rivals or the cops while I was stitching up a gunshot wound.

I shook my head. My time there wasn’t normal; I just needed to adjust to what being an actual doctor was like. A good doctor, one who helps people in need.

“Stephanie,” Dr. Malden said, interrupting my thoughts. “Will you have dinner with me tonight? I’d like to hear what you thought about today.”

Dinner with the world’s top organ transplant surgeon? Sign me up.

“Of course,” I blurted in excitement.

“Fantastic. Let’s change out of our scrubs and meet in the lobby in twenty minutes.”

Crap, the lobby. I could only hope Vincenzo wasn’t waiting for me, demanding an answer like he was over texts. Fortunately, he wasn’t.

Dr. Malden and I walked out of the lobby and towards a sleek, black car, where a man in a suit held the door open for me. As the door closed behind me, I looked around the plush interior of the car, wide-eyed. I expected his salary to be good, but this was amazing.

The man who opened the back doors for us walked to the driver’s seat and started the car, smoothly merging us into traffic.

“Excuse me for a moment, Stephanie, I need to take this call,” Dr. Malden said, staring at his phone.

I tried not to eavesdrop, because it was rude, but from what I could hear it sounded logistics related. There was only a bit of medical terminology used.

I stared out of the car window at the kaleidoscope of city lights, my mind wandering back to the medical bay at the warehouse. Cesare could come off as rude, but he just had a clinical, matter-of-fact personality that was hard to stomach sometimes.

So, when he delivered the news of the illegal organs, of course I took it terribly. Maybe—

“Sorry about that,” Dr. Malden said as the car stopped at a restaurant. “There always seems to be something going on in this line of work.”

“I can imagine,” I responded. “With all your accomplishments and everything you’ve done. I don’t know how you get a moment of downtime.”

Dr. Malden gave a half-smile, his eyes twinkling with the city lights in reflection. “You get used to it.”

Another man in a suit opened the car door for us, and I became aware that I was horribly underdressed. The place was swanky as hell, with a live piano player and crystal chandelier hanging over us.

“I think I may be a little underdressed,” I laughed nervously, wringing my hands together.

“There’s never a dress code when I’m here,” he laughed, as a hostess led us off to the side.

When we walked down the stairs into the basement, I got a bad feeling. It wasn’t because the area wasn’t nice; if anything, the decorations seemed to get nicer. But after going to the club with Vincenzo, I had picked up on basements containing illegal activity.

The hostess walked us into a private room and bowed before walking away. It wasn’t the two of us alone in this room; two guards dressed in a suit stood against the walls.

Yes, there was definitely something off about this. But what was I going to do? I took a nervous breath in and decided to play it by ear.

Dr. Malden gestured towards one of the plush seats around a small, mahogany table. “Please, make yourself comfortable,” he said.

I nodded and sat down, the butterflies in my stomach fluttering stronger, a swarm of unease. Dr. Malden took the seat opposite mine, his expression inscrutable in the soft glow of the room’s candlelight. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, his light blue eyes studying me with an intensity that did nothing to ease my discomfort.

“Do you know the reason why I chose you to observe today?”

I had still been trying to figure that out. The only conclusion I had come to was my academic performance.

“My grades,” I said, swallowing down the dry lump in my throat.

“No. But that was a bonus,” he chuckled. “I chose you because you work with Cesare.”

I almost vomited on the table. He knew I worked for the mafia. He was going to report me, and I was going to get kicked out of medical school and go to jail forever.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied, but I did a terrible job at hiding it. My body shook and my hands grasped on to the edge of the table.

The server walked in with utensils, water, and an appetizer that I had never seen in my life. I think it was some sort of caviar, but presented in a really fancy fashion.

Dr. Malden waited until he left before continuing. “There’s no need to lie; I don’t care.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “I chose you because I want you to work for me instead.”

My heart pounded like a sledgehammer against my chest. He certainly didn’t mean work for him in the hospital, which begged the question: who was Dr. Malden?

“You probably heard of me while working for the mafia, as Cesare and I do business together,” he said, as if reading my mind. “I’m The Surgeon.”

Time stopped, and I was certain I had heard his words wrong. When I had met David, he asked if I was working for “The Surgeon.” If Cesare did work with him, that left me with one conclusion: Dr. Malden was The Surgeon.

“No way,” I breathed out, my fingers unconsciously loosening their desperate grip on the table. “But...you’re a world famous surgeon. How could you be involved in something so dark?”

He let out a deep, booming laugh, as if I had just told the funniest joke in the world. “Dark? I have some news for you: everything about this profession is dark.”

I tilted my head in confusion. Of course there were dark moments. You’d never be able to save everyone and patients would die.

“There are pharmaceutical companies paying doctors to prescribe their drugs. Doctors are expected to prioritize profit over patient care in hospitals,” he said. He looked amused, while I looked horrified. “You need to find the best darkness in this profession. And to me? Kickbacks and pressure to increase a company’s profit isn’t it.”

I tried to say something, but couldn’t find the words. Everything I knew about becoming a doctor was a lie, and it felt like my world had tilted off its axis.

Finally, I spoke. “What is your business? What do you do with those organs?”

I already knew most of the answer, but I wanted to hear it from him.

“I perform underground organ transplants for the desperate and wealthy,” he stated matter-of-factly. “When someone needs a new heart, lung, kidney or liver and they don’t have the time to wait on a list, they come to me.”

Money really did buy everything.

“Leave the Mafia. I will teach you how to perform transplants before you reach residency,” he said, his gaze narrowed on me. “And will certainly pay you better. I can’t believe they only pay your tuition.”

Everything I knew about ethics, morals, and the Hippocratic Oath I had aspired to take was being shredded before my eyes. It whirled into a grey soup, and I no longer knew what was right.

But I did know one thing: I wanted to stay with Vincenzo. When I saw my future, I couldn’t imagine it without him. I wanted everything that came with him, including his mafia lifestyle, the allure of danger, and an unorthodox sense of purpose.

“No, sorry,” I said. I tried to stand up and leave, but the guard in front of me pushed me back on my seat.

“Unfortunately, you’ll be staying until I’ve convinced you,” The Surgeon said, his voice taking on a dark tone. “By any means necessary.”

The guard next to me pulled out his gun and aimed it towards the floor, an implicit threat that made my skin crawl.

“I...” Tears threated to spill from the corner of my eyes. There was no winning in this situation.

Suddenly, the door slammed open. Vincenzo stormed in with his gun drawn and a wild look in his eyes. With precision that came from years of practice, he took aim and shot at the guard next to me, the bullet piercing his skull.

He had already taken aim at the second guard before he could draw his gun. With a similar brutality, Vincenzo shot the second guard who collapsed onto the chilly marble floor, his blood pooling around him.

Before he could shoot The Surgeon, I jumped in front of him. Cesare would kill Vincenzo if he knew he was responsible for The Surgeon’s murder.

“Please don’t,” I said to him firmly. Then, I spun around to face The Surgeon. “I’m afraid I can’t accept your offer. But, please don’t let this affect your current relationship with the mafia.”

The Surgeon’s cold, hard eyes met mine. It was such a different look than when he had stared at me as Dr. Malden, the friendly organ transplant surgeon.

The Surgeon’s face didn’t betray any fear or apprehension. This man was used to death, to violence; it was part of his everyday life. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, a picture of nonchalance amidst the carnage.

“The deal stands,” he said, waving his hand. “Although I do think you’re making the wrong decision.”

“I appreciate your feedback, but I disagree,” I said, walking to the door. “Have a good night.”

I ushered Vincenzo out first to make sure he wouldn’t turn around and kill The Surgeon. He grabbed my hand with his large one as he led me up the stairs, squeezing it tightly as if to reassure himself of my safety.

We walked in silence until we reached the car parked haphazardly at the end of the dark alley. The night was quiet now; the previous commotion seemed almost like a surreal dream.

“I missed you,” I blurted out.

“I’m sorry,” he said at the same time.

Sobs threatened to overwhelm me, but I pushed them back.

“I missed you, too,” he said, pulling me into him and pressing his lips against mine.

And in that moment, I felt like I was whole again.