Diavolo

Chapter 1

Wham! Wham! Wham!

The loud, relentless pounding at the front door roused Elyse from her slumber. She groaned into her pillow. Feeling groggy as hell, she rolled over to grab her phone from the nightstand. Not her regular phone. Her second phone. Her burner phone.

Light from the screen cast a faint glow in the dark of her bedroom. Elyse winced as her vision adjusted to the brightness. She checked the time. 2:07 am. Her green eyes soon darted toward her notifications. Seventeen unread texts and five missed calls flooded her screen. They were all from the same caller. A relentless son of a bitch named Stefano Russo.

¡Mierda! Shit!

Yesterday had been a long-ass day in the emergency room. During the fourteen-hour shift, Elyse had treated a teenager with burns on his hands, two car accident victims, a new mom with low oxygen levels, and one traumatic brain injury patient. She came home, exhausted, and had forgotten to switch out of silent mode before passing out in bed. She had been careless. Too careless. Stefano hated being ignored. He was probably frothing at the mouth at this point.

In a drained stupor, Elyse forced her body out of bed. She pulled on a robe. With lethargic steps, she shuffled through the living room toward the front door.

Elyse peered into the peephole. Two very familiar-looking men in their forties came into view. A grimace drew her mouth tight. As she feared, Stefano and his merry band of fuckers were paying her a visit. Although, this time, they were accompanied by a third man.

A younger, not-so-familiar-looking man?

"Just a minute," she called out.

"Took you long enough," came the muffled reply from the other side of the door.

Elyse breathed out a heavy sigh as she undid the chain guard. Next, she unlocked the swing guard. Finally, she got to the slide bolt. These measures, Elyse suspected, were useless against the kind of criminals she was trying to protect herself against, but the locks gave her the illusion of being in control. As a woman born into her unfortunate circumstances, holding onto these pathetic delusions helped her sleep better at night.

Her hand turned the knob. The door opened to reveal three dark-haired men. They stood before her in gray and black suits.

Well, she noted, two of them were standing. The third man was slumped between them with his arms draped over their shoulders. Elyse predicted that he would've likely toppled to the ground if the other two hadn't been supporting his weight.

Curiosity buzzed through her. Elyse recognized Stefano, of course, and his long-time associate, Mikey, but she had never laid eyes on the third man before. Stefano rarely ever brought strangers to her door.

Elyse narrowed her gaze. The poor, slumped-over fucker obviously needed her help. She began to assess the damage, scanning the stranger from head to toe. He appeared to be semi-unconscious but still breathing. There was dark red blood everywhere on his nice expensive suit. So much blood. The crimson-soaked fabric seemed to be concentrated near his abdomen. The ugly stain contrasted starkly with the crisp white of his dress shirt.

Her eyes darted over to Stefano. She deduced, "Abdominal wound?"

Stefano nodded and added with a grunt, "From a goddamn bullet."

To date, Elyse had treated several drug and alcohol overdoses, broken limbs, and a few other types of blunt force trauma injuries in her apartment. Surprisingly, though, this was the first gunshot wound victim Stefano had presented to her.

Elyse cursed under her breath. "I can't run a CT scan or X-ray for a GSW in my apartment. You need to take him to a hospital."

"He's from out of town and doesn't want any attention," Stefano growled. "You know how to keep your mouth shut. That's why we brought him here."

"I see."

Stefano added, "We don't have time for a hospital. He looks half-dead already. You're his only hope now."

"He can't die, doc," Mikey warned.

"Or else—what?" Elyse taunted softly, "you'll kill me?"

Their threats no longer fazed her.

Stefano let out a snort of laughter. It was a raspy, unpleasant sound. "If this bastard doesn't survive, then we won't be the first in line to kill you. Just know—he's very important to Cosa Nostra."

Elyse recognized this term. Cosa Nostra referred to the Sicilian Mafia. Her cool expression wavered slightly.

Stefano taunted, "You let him die tonight, doc, and his men will put a bullet between those pretty green eyes of yours before anyone can even blink."

Elyse stifled a gasp. Stefano had never threatened her in this way. At least, not in the sense that she might die from someone else's bullet other than his own.

"Noted," she murmured. "Bring him inside. I'll do my best to keep him alive."

The three large men entered her small apartment. Elyse rushed to her closet for the heavy-duty tarp that she always kept around for this sort of situation. Bloodstains were a bitch to clean up. She spread the expansive square of blue plastic across the floor. Elyse then pulled out her collection of surgical supplies: Top-of-the-line equipment that she had either "borrowed" from the hospital or received as "donations" from Stefano, again, for the life or death emergencies, like this one, that he often dumped on her doorstep.

Stefano and Mikey lowered the wounded man onto the tarp as though they were handling a baby bird. Never had she seen these two brutes look so anxious. She tried not to let their nerves rattle her. It would appear this mysterious guy wielded some serious clout in the underworld, which also meant the less she knew about him, the better.

La curiosidad mató al gato. Curiosity killed the cat.

She had no intention of ending up dead. Elyse took in a deep, shaky breath to get herself in the zone. Fear wasn't an option. She couldn't lose herself to the endless spiral of what ifs and God forbids. Not now. Not ever.

Without wasting another second, she snapped on some surgical gloves and got to work. Elyse cut away her new patient's clothing to inspect the damage up close. Relief spread in her chest. Luckily, the bullet was visible to the eye and could be removed without any major or invasive surgery. Judging from the shallowness of the flesh wound, there was, hopefully, minimal damage to his organs. A promising sign. Of course, without a CT scan or X-ray, she couldn't be sure.

In a steady, clinical voice, she addressed the half-conscious man, "My name is Dr. Elyse Romero. I am a trauma surgeon from New York Presbyterian Hospital. I am here to help you, and I will need your cooperation if you want to survive the night."

She instructed Mikey to turn on the lights. As the living room lit up, the man's eyes flickered open for a brief moment. Their gazes locked. Her mouth parted in surprise. His eyes were different colors. The right one was dark brown. Almost black. Like obsidian. The left one was bluish-gray.

"Angelo..." he whispered.

Was he calling her an angel?

She frowned at his sorry state. The man's olive-toned skin looked too pale, his breathing was becoming labored, and the blood loss was making him confused and delusional.

"I'm no angel," Elyse mumbled as she grabbed her scalpel and forceps, "and you'll probably think of me as the devil by the time we're done here. A warning, my friend, I don't have any anesthesia on hand. This shit is going to hurt like hell."

The man closed his eyes as though in resignation. He replied in heavily-accented English that was steeped with thick Italian influences and traces of British origins, "Do your worst, angelo."