Page 57 of Break For Me
"Dr. Adrian Sterling," I say. My voice is raspy, unused to the sterile air. "I performed the initial laparotomy in the field. Jejunal resection with primary anastomosis, single-layer running suture, 3-0 absorbable. The drain was detached during a blast event approximately four hours ago. He’s had ceftriaxone and metronidazole, last dose eighteen hours ago. He needs a CT to rule out blast-related pneumothorax and a repeat CBC for post-surgical anemia."
She stops. She looks at me for two seconds. She takes in my raw, bruised hands. The dirt packed under my nails. The blood-stained flannel shirt that hangs off my frame. She looks at the clinical precision of my report and the wreckage of my appearance.
She makes a decision.
"Scrub in if you want," she says. "Bay two."
I scrub in.
The sink is stainless steel. The soap is antiseptic. The water is hot. I scrub my hands until the skin is raw, watching the grey water swirl down the drain. It feels like washing away the last four days.
I stand beside Killian while she runs the diagnostics I’ve been unable to perform. The CT scanner hums. The monitors beep.
The scan is clear. No pneumothorax. The blast pressure bruised his ribs but didn't perforate the pleura. The bloodwork shows anemia—expected, manageable with a transfusion.
The anastomosis is intact. My repair held. Through an explosion, a tumble down a mountainside, and a two-mile drag through frozen woods, the suture line held.
A guard stands at the end of the corridor. Older than the others—mid-fifties, heavy through the shoulders, a face that carries its history in the broken capillaries across the nose and the deep grooves bracketing the mouth. He watches me pass with an expression I can't catalogue. Not hostility. Not respect. Something between assessment and resentment—the look of someone who’s been in this organization longer than the current leadership and still hasn’t reconciled himself to the change.
He doesn't speak. He doesn't nod. He turns and walks the other way.
I file him under observation. The human nervous system recognizes threat before the conscious mind names it.
I should feel satisfaction. Relief. Professional validation.
I feel nothing.
I feel the absence of the man who should be on the next gurney. The man whose hand I stitched three times. The man whose body I washed in a cold room. The man whose chest I slept against because it was the only warm thing in the world.
Killian’s eyes open. He looks at the ceiling, then at me. His gaze is clear, lucid, sharp with pain but alive.
"You’re still here," he says. His voice is a whisper.
"I’m still here."
He grips my wrist. His fingers are weak, but the intent is iron.
"Go get him."
The war room is the study.
It is the room Rocco described to me in the truck—mahogany desk, repainted walls. The place where their father’s suicide was erased and replaced with the architecture of command. It smells of leather and old paper.
Alessandro sits behind the desk. He has changed clothes since the extraction. A fresh suit, dark wool. His hair is combed. His tie is knotted perfectly. The mask is flawless.
But his hands are flat on the desk, and the pressure he is applying turns his fingertips white. The veins in his forearms stand out like cables. He is holding himself together the way a bridge holds itself together—through tension, through the refusal of opposing forces to let the span collapse.
Rory Kavanagh sits on the arm of a leather chair in the corner. He’s younger than I expected—twenty-three, maybe. He has the lean, wiry build of a pickpocket and the same green Kavanagh eyes as his brother. His fingers are stained with ink. He vibrates with a kinetic energy that reminds me of a live wire.
A laptop is open on the desk. Satellite imagery.
"Rossport Maritime Terminal," Rory says. He has a Dublin accent—three years at Trinity College, his grandfather's insistence—softened by years back in New York. "Russian shell company acquired it eighteen months ago through a Cypriot holding firm. Officially it’s a freight logistics operation. Unofficially it’s their primary staging ground for the northeast corridor. Weapons. Product. Personnel."
He taps the screen. The image zooms. Building outlines. Vehicle positions. Heat signatures from a thermal overlay that has no business being in a civilian’s possession.
"Twelve to fifteen men on-site at any given time," Rory continues. "Rotating guard shifts on the perimeter fence. Two reinforced entry points—main gate and a service entrance on the east side. Internal layout is partially mapped from a source inside Kazimir’s logistics chain."
He looks at Alessandro.
