Chapter 3 - The Call to the Past
The kitchen of the back-alley veterinary clinic behind Halstead was dark, smelling of Lysol and old stainless steel. It wasn't a real clinic anymore—just a room Sully had helped her set up a year ago using a few rusty surgical trays, an old examination table bought from a retiring country vet, and a box of sutures she’d smuggled out of a clinic supply house in Indiana.
Brutus lay on the metal table, his massive black chest rising and falling in slow, rhythmic groans under the harsh glare of a single overhead lamp.
Elena moved around the room with mechanical efficiency, her hands steady as she prepped the syringe and the suture kit. Every movement was automatic, a dance she had performed a thousand times under the blinding lights of Chicago General before the night Dr. Vance—her mentor, the man who had tried to cover up a cartel execution—was gunned down in a parking garage and Elena was blamed for the missing files.
She had run. She changed her name, dyed her hair, and buried her license in a plastic bag beneath a bridge in Gary. She thought she was dead to the world of medicine.
"He's stable," Elena said, not looking up as she pulled off her blood-soaked latex gloves and tossed them into the bin.
Dante stood by the corner of the table, his arms crossed over his chest. The blood on his sleeves had dried into dark, ugly stains. He had spent the last hour watching her work with an intensity that felt less like suspicion and more like profound, unsettling awe.
"You aren't a veterinarian," Dante said. It wasn't a question.
Elena stopped. She slowly turned around, wiping her hands on a paper towel. Her jaw was tight, her eyes dark and defiant. "Does it matter? Your dog is alive."
"People don't sew up a torn internal thoracic artery with a standard needle and monofilament silk unless they've done it hundreds of times on human tissue," Dante replied softly, stepping closer. The dim light caught the sharp lines of his face, the graying temples, the cold, calculating intelligence that ruled half the Midwest. "Who are you?"
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"I'm the waitress who cleans up after your friends make a mess on Halstead Street," Elena said coldly. "Now, take your dog and get out of my clinic. If he gets infected, bring him back on Tuesday. I work the evening shift."
Dante didn't leave. A slow, dangerous smile touched the corners of his mouth. "You just saved the only living creature in this city I give a damn about, Elena. Or whatever your real name is. In my world, that creates a debt that can't be paid with a tip left on the table."
