Chapter 1 – The Quiet Kind of Broken
1135 Words
The hospital lights never slept. They buzzed above like anxious thoughts, too bright, too cold, always watching. Dr. Sabrina Cuevas scrubbed her hands in silence, the scent of antiseptic oddly comforting, like a shield she’d worn for years. Her hair was tucked neatly into a cap, her eyes heavy with a fatigue that went deeper than sleepless nights.
Trauma surgeon. Lifesaver. Professional.
She repeated those words like a prayer, a mantra—anything to drown out the noise.
Her shift had already stretched into its 20th hour. Another gunshot victim. Another call. Another life hanging by a thread she had to stitch together with numb fingers and a face that didn’t flinch. Emotions only got in the way. And Sabrina had learned long ago how to shut hers off.
“Dr. Cuevas,” a nurse called breathlessly. “Level one trauma. Chest wound, unresponsive en route. They're five minutes out.”
Sabrina nodded once, already pulling on gloves. Her heart rate never changed. It never did.
But when the gurney crashed through the ER doors, pushed by panicked paramedics, something shifted.
Blood soaked the man's clothes, dark and heavy. His pulse was thready. His skin was cold. But it wasn’t the injury that gave her pause—it was his face.
Handsome, sharp-jawed, cruel even in unconsciousness. A deep scar ran just beneath his jawline like a signature left by a blade. Black ink crept from beneath his shirt, but what made her fingers still were his eyes. They fluttered open for a second, and locked onto hers with a kind of cold fire.
The air changed. Just for a moment.
"Gunshot to the chest. Lost a lot of blood en route. No ID, wouldn’t say a word,” the paramedic said, panting.
Sabrina nodded sharply, pushing the gurney toward the operating room. “He’ll talk later—if he makes it.”
She didn't know who he was. She didn't ask. That was the rule in the ER. But something in her gut whispered: dangerous.
She'd seen this kind of man before—in the newspapers, in her nightmares.
The surgery was long. Complicated. A bullet lodged near the lung, cracked rib, punctured artery.
Sabrina’s hands moved without error, her mind clinical, precise. She didn’t let herself wonder why a man like that—expensive watch, foreign cufflinks, a tattoo that looked like it belonged to something far bigger than a gang—was alone and bleeding out on a Tuesday night.
When it was over, and he was stable, she stood over him, gloves off, arms crossed. He looked peaceful now. Out cold. Harmless.
But she didn’t believe it.
“Who are you?” she whispered to the sleeping man. “And what the hell have you brought into my hospital?”
The next morning came slowly, dragging the weight of rain with it. Sabrina walked through the halls with her coffee untouched, her steps echoing in the stillness of dawn.
Room 403.
He was awake.
She expected confusion. Maybe pain. What she didn’t expect was composure.
His dark eyes landed on her instantly. No blinking. No questions.
“You’re the doctor,” he said.
Not a question. A statement.
“You’re awake,” she replied.
He looked around the room like it bored him. “For now.”
His voice was low, rough like it had weathered too many storms. There was no panic in him, no gratitude. Just an unnerving calm.
“You had a bullet an inch from your heart,” she said, arms crossed. “You’re lucky.”
“I don’t believe in luck.”
“Right. The kind of man who gets shot in the chest probably doesn’t.”
A ghost of a smirk tugged at his lips. “You don’t scare easily.”
She didn’t respond. Because it was true. Or at least, she liked to believe it was.
“You have a name?” she asked.
He leaned his head back against the pillow, watching her like he was deciding something. Then, finally:
“Isaac Hale.”
She didn’t react. But the name hit like thunder in her chest.
Hale.
The media had whispered about the Hale family for years—disappearances, money laundering, ties to organized crime. But nothing stuck. They were shadows in the dark. Powerful, untouchable.
And now one of them lay in her hospital bed.
Sabrina's jaw tightened. “Well, Mr. Hale, you should know this hospital doesn’t tolerate threats, bribes, or visitors with guns.”
“I’m not here to start a war,” he said.
“But you are a war,” she muttered under her breath.
He heard her. His eyes flickered.
“You saved my life,” he said simply.
“I save a lot of lives.”
“But not all of them, right?”
That stopped her. Her fingers curled slightly at her sides. The words were casual, but too close. Too sharp.
“You don’t get to ask that,” she snapped.
Silence.
And then he tilted his head. “Touch a nerve?”
She turned to leave.
But his voice stopped her at the door.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
She didn’t look back. Didn’t trust what might show on her face.
That night, she dreamed of glass. Shattered glass. And a child crying behind it.
Sabrina didn’t visit his room again for two days. But she thought about him more than she wanted to. The way he’d looked at her. The way he didn’t ask her anything, yet saw through everything.
She didn’t like it.
She didn’t like that he made her wonder if he saw the broken parts of her she kept hidden under lab coats and credentials.
On the third day, she walked past his room on purpose. He was sitting up. Reading. Waiting.
“You’re back,” he said, like it was expected.
“I’m here to check your stitches.”
“You could’ve sent a nurse.”
“I could’ve.”
A pause. Then:
“I had a psychologist once,” he said suddenly.
She looked up.
“He told me people don’t get broken all at once. It happens in pieces. Over time.”
She stared at him. “That supposed to mean something?”
“I’m saying I know what you look like.”
“What do I look like?”
“Someone who still hears the glass breaking.”
Her hands froze.
“How do you—”
“I don’t. Not exactly. But I recognize the silence.”
For a long moment, neither of them said anything.
Then, softly, she said, “Psychologists lie.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Some do.”
And Sabrina realized, for the first time in years, her hands were shaking.
Not from fear.
But from being seen.
- Writer
