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I’m still thinking them over when Izzy appears in the doorway dressed in tactical gear. She has a gun on her hip and looks like she just stepped off a movie set.
“Sophia giving you the ‘trust and nesting’ speech?” Izzy grabs an apple from the counter and bites into it with casual ferocity. “Cute. My advice is different. Learn how to shoot.”
I blink at her. “I’m a doctor. I took an oath to do no harm. Saving lives is the whole point. Taking them is the opposite of everything I trained for.”
“What about self-defense? What if Marco’s not here to protect you?” Izzy’s eyes sharpen. “Your skills as a healer won’t mean much if you’re dead.”
Sophia sighs. “Izzy, that’s not helpful.”
“It’s realistic.” She shrugs, but her eyes carry a weight her voice doesn’t. “Look, I get it. You didn’t sign up for this life. But you’re in it now, and Marco’s in love with you, so you’re a target whether you like it or not.”
I file the advice away for later, vowing to return to it once my hands stop trembling.
The morning drags on painfully into the afternoon. Izzy leaves for training while Sophia stays behind with me. We trade hospital stories, discuss the baby names she and Enzo have argued over, and circle back, as we always do, to the cost of loving men who leave the house armed.
By evening, no word has come through, and my phone stays silent on the table.
No messages. No calls. Nothing.
My heart lurches when Izzy returns with a blank expression.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” Izzy raises a hand. “No news is good news. The operation’s still ongoing. They’re just taking longer than expected.”
The phrase echoes in my head and multiplies.
Sophia appears beside me to guide me to a chair. “Breathe, Lucia.”
“I can’t…” My voice cracks. “I can’t sit here, waiting, not knowing if he’s okay.”
“He’s alive.” Izzy’s voice is firm. “I’d know if he wasn’t. The compound would feel it. You’d feel it.”
I hold on to that belief long after darkness falls.
At midnight, the men return.
I’m in the clinic when the doors burst open and they carry in the first wounded soldier. His blood has already soaked through makeshift bandages.
I grab the closest man by his jacket.
“Marco. Where is he? Is he—”
“Dunno, Doc.” He pulls free and hauls the injured soldier onto the nearest table. “We got separated.”
I ask someone else. “Marco Santori. Have you seen him?”
He shakes his head and doesn’t release the pressure on the soaked towel he’s holding against his partner’s neck.
My questions die in my throat when another soldier drops to his knees three feet from me, his hands clamped over his stomach. Red gore pulses between his fingers in a rhythm I recognize.
Arterial. He has minutes. Maybe less.
My body acts before my brain gives permission, and I close the distance, pull on gloves, and stoop beside the hemorrhaging soldier.
Lucia the Worried Woman vanishes, and Dr. Romano takes over.
Assess. Triage. Treat.
