Page 82 of Unforgivable Ties

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 notknowing 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.”

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