Chapter 8 - Crossfire of the Heart
The basement of an abandoned warehouse near the south docks served as Callum’s secondary safehouse.
Rain drummed violently against the corrugated metal roof as Thomas carried a barely conscious Callum onto a stainless-steel workbench. Audrey followed right behind, having directed two of Callum’s lieutenants to transport the stabilized councilman to St. Jude’s under armed escort.
“Get the halogen work lamps!” Audrey ordered, peeling off her ruined silk sleeves and scrubbing her hands with an entire bottle of surgical antiseptic from a tactical trauma kit. “Boil clean water. Find me lidocaine, forceps, sterile gauze, and suture thread! Move!”
The hardened syndicate soldiers scrambled like terrified interns under her commands. Nobody questioned her. The authority in her voice was absolute.
Audrey cut open Callum’s blood-soaked shirt. The bullet had entered through his right flank, passing through the intercostal muscle below the rib cage.
“Exit wound?” she muttered, sliding her gloved hand beneath his back. Her fingers came away warm with blood, but she felt the ragged opening of the exit point. “Clean through. No retained fragment. Rib intact. But the bleeding is arterial.”
Callum opened his eyes, his face ghastly pale, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. He tried to offer a weak smirk. “You… really have no bedside manner, do you?”
“Shut your mouth,” Audrey commanded, her voice breaking slightly before she forced it back into iron control. “You took a bullet for me, you stubborn, arrogant idiot.”
“Worth it,” Callum gasped, his hand reaching out blindly until his trembling fingers locked around her wrist. “To see you… boss my entire crew around.”
“Stop talking. Save your oxygen,” she ordered. “I have to pack this wound and clamp the bleeder without general anesthesia. It’s going to hurt like hell.”
Callum’s grip on her wrist tightened. “Do it.”
For the next forty-five minutes, Audrey operated in the dim, shadowed warehouse. Every ounce of her clinical training took over. Her hands, usually so gentle when adjusting IV lines, were ruthless and precise, clamping torn vessels, packing sterile gauze, and sewing layer upon layer of damaged tissue with unbroken concentration.
Callum didn’t scream. He bit into a folded leather belt, his muscles locking rigid, his knuckles white where they held the edge of the metal table, refusing to give in to the agony.
When Audrey finally tied off the last suture and taped a heavy pressure bandage over his side, her scrubs were covered in sweat and blood. She stripped off her gloves, her knees suddenly giving out beneath her.
She caught the edge of the table, burying her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with silent, delayed shock.
A warm, heavy hand rested on top of her head.
Audrey looked up. Callum was breathing shallowly, his face drained of color, but his dark eyes were burning with an emotion so fierce it took her breath away.
“Audrey,” he whispered, his thumb gently reaching to tilt her glasses back into place. “Look at me.”
She met his gaze, tears finally spilling over her eyelashes. “You almost died. Because of a turf war. Because of your family’s endless greed.”
“I took that bullet because I love you,” Callum said, his voice quiet, raw, and completely stripped of defense. “I realized it the moment Malcolm turned his shooters on that room. If anything happened to you, Audrey… none of the empire, none of the power, none of it matters. I don't want a kingdom if you aren't in it.”
Audrey froze, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked at the blood on her hands, looked at the scar she had just sewn into his flesh, and realized with terrifying clarity that she felt the same way. The danger, the madness, the quiet dignity of his devotion—she had fallen completely, irrevocably in love with the mafia boss.
She leaned forward, burying her face against his uninjured shoulder, breathing in the scent of cedar and copper. “You’re an idiot, Callum Ror.”
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“Your idiot,” he murmured, his arm wrapping weakly around her back.
From the top of the metal stairs, Thomas appeared, holding a satellite phone. “Boss. It’s Patrick. He’s on his feet. And he wants Malcolm’s head on a silver platter.”
