3

The car moved through the dark streets, the city lights casting fleeting shadows over their faces. Lucas drove in silence for a while, his focus on the road ahead. Adriana’s mind raced with a thousand questions, but one lingered at the forefront: What did he actually want with or from her?

As if sensing her thoughts, Lucas finally spoke. “There are things happening in this city, Adriana. Things you don’t know about. But you will soon.”

“I don’t want to know,” she replied, her voice quiet but with a firm.

Lucas glanced at her, his expression unreadable. “You might not have a choice.”

Adriana looked out the window, her reflection staring back at her from the glass. She had spent her life helping people, saving them from the string of death. But now, for the first time, she felt like she was the one who needed saving—from Lucas, from herself, from whatever dark path she was being pulled down from.

The car slowed to a stop outside her apartment building. Lucas turned to her, his dark eyes locking onto hers.

“This isn’t over, Doc,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Not by a long shot.”

Adriana didn’t respond. She couldn’t. All she could do was nod her head, her heart pounding in her chest as she opened the door and stepped out of the car.

As she watched Lucas drive away, disappearing into the night, she knew he was right. This wasn’t over.

And somehow, she wasn’t sure she wanted it to be or not.. But The only thing she knows for now is that He will not leave things like this, Not before finishing it..

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Two weeks had passed since Lucas Romano first walked—or more accurately, stumbled—into Dr. Adriana Stephen’s life. She had managed to bury the unsettling encounter under the endless flow of patients, the organized chaos of the ER, and the exhausting demands of her profession. But in the quiet moments, between surgeries or during brief respites in her on-call room, she found herself thinking about him—his smirk, his cryptic words, and the undeniable pull she felt in his presence.

Despite her best efforts to forget, Lucas Romano had a way of lingering.

It didn’t help that the city itself seemed to echo his presence. There were whispers of a brewing war between rival crime families, of Lucas consolidating power in a way that left bodies in his wake. His name cropped up in late-night news reports, though never explicitly linked to any crime. The police couldn’t touch him. No one could....Ever.

And then, as if summoned by her thoughts, Lucas returned.

It was a cold, rainy night when Adriana found herself once again in the trauma bay, this time treating a severe car crash victim. She had been working for nearly sixteen hours, her body aching from fatigue, but as always, she pushed through. The patient’s condition was critical, and as she worked, she tuned out the rest of the world behind.

But the world, it seemed, wasn’t done with her yet.

“Dr. Stephen,” came the familiar voice of the nurse who had called her the night Lucas first appeared. There was a note of urgency in her tone that made Adriana glance up from the crash victim’s vitals. “You need to come to trauma room three. Now.”

Adriana’s stomach twisted. She didn’t need to ask who was there.

“I’m in the middle of something,” she said, her voice clipped as she adjusted the monitor. “Get Dr. Reeves to take over. I can’t leave right now.”

“He’s specifically asking for you again,” the nurse replied, her voice low. “It’s bad this time, Doctor. Really bad.”

Adriana hesitated, glancing down at her current patient. She couldn’t just walk away from someone in critical condition. But then, the thought of Lucas lying in that trauma room, perhaps dying, crept into her mind. Despite herself, she felt a tug a feeling she had no right to feel for a man like him.. Not in her whole life.

She finished giving instructions to Dr. Reeves, who had just arrived, then turned to the nurse. “Let’s go.”

As she made her way to trauma room three, Adriana tried to prepare herself for what she would find. The last time Lucas had shown up, his injury was serious but not life-threatening. This time, though, something in the nurse’s demeanor told her it was much worse.

She pushed open the door, and her breath caught in her throat.

Lucas lay on the gurney, pale and barely conscious, his white dress shirt soaked with blood. The bandage over his torso was hastily applied, not enough to stem the heavy bleeding from the deep knife wound that stretched across his side. His breathing was shallow, labored, and his eyes fluttered open at the sound of the door.

Despite the blood, despite the obvious pain he was in, Lucas managed a faint smile when he saw her.

“Doc…” he rasped, his voice barely above a whisper. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Adriana’s heart hammered in her chest, but she forced herself to remain composed. She snapped on her gloves, her eyes sweeping over the injury. “What the hell happened to you this time?” she asked, her tone sharper than she intended.

To be honest she was herself shocked to see the new side of her for him, the possessive side for him.

Lucas let out a weak chuckle, which quickly turned into a pained groan. “Business… negotiations didn’t go as planned,” he muttered lowly. “You know how it is.”

Adriana glared at him, her hands moving quickly as she assessed the extent of the damage. “I’m not sure what part of nearly bleeding out counts as business, Mr. Lucas.”

His expression softened at her use of his first name. “Nice to hear you call me by my name for once.”

Adriana ignored the comment, her focus shifting entirely to the procedure at hand. Lucas wound was deep, too deep for simple stitches this time. He would need immediate surgery. Without wasting a second, she barked orders to the nurses, prepping Lucas for the operating room.

“Don’t worry, Doc,” Lucas murmured as they wheeled him out of the trauma room. “I’m not planning on dying just yet.”

But there was a flicker of something in his eyes something that made Adriana wonder if Lucas was closer to the edge than he let on.

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