Collateral
636 Words
The FBI was back. Raines and the same cold-eyed agent from before, Agent Lira. Elara sat in the same sterile room with the same bland coffee.
“Do you know anything about the death of Mark Donnelly?” Raines asked.
“I operated on him. He didn’t make it,” Elara replied.
“We’re aware. His vitals dropped unusually fast.”
Elara kept her expression neutral. “He was bleeding out. Sometimes things go sideways.”
Lira folded her arms. “You’ve never had a mid-surgery crash on your record before. Until Donnelly.”
A chill crept up Elara’s spine. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“No,” Raines said. “We’re just connecting dots. Like who Donnelly worked for. Like how quickly Nurse Zeller disappeared.”
Elara’s heart pounded. She knew where this was going.
“You’re being watched, Dr. Voss. And not just by us,” Lira added.
---
That night, Elara sat in her car for twenty minutes before starting the engine. Every face in the hospital hallway felt like a threat now. Every turn a trap.
When she finally got home, the lights were off—but the door was unlocked.
She reached for her phone. Then she heard it.
> “You lock your windows like you lock your heart. Poorly.”
Lucian.
She spun around. He sat in the dark, bleeding through his bandages, a pistol on the table beside him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed.
“Someone followed you from the hospital. You were marked. I took care of it.”
Her breath caught. “Took care—what does that mean?”
“It means you’re still breathing. You’re welcome.”
She wanted to scream. Instead, she poured whiskey and handed him a glass.
“I hate this,” she muttered.
“You should.”
“Why are you really here, Lucian?”
He looked up. Serious now.
> “Because you’re the only person I can trust. And I think the people who want me dead... want you gone, too.”
---
Lucian had cleaned himself up, but the strain of movement showed in every line of his body. Elara patched his wound again, this time in her kitchen, hands shaking.
“You can’t keep showing up like this,” she said.
“I won’t have to if you leave the hospital,” he replied.
“I can’t just walk away from my job.”
“You can walk away from a funeral. Yours.”
The warning in his voice wasn’t empty. She felt it in her bones.
---
Later, when he was asleep on her couch, Elara opened his jacket and found a folded note inside.
It was a list of names. Some had checkmarks. Two were circled.
At the bottom, scribbled in the corner: “Elara Voss – undecided”
She stepped back. Her name. On his list.
---
The next morning, she dropped Lucian back near the hospital. She didn’t speak the whole ride.
He got out, looked at her one last time.
“Elara. I didn’t write your name there. But someone else did.”
And then he disappeared into the city like he was never there.
She stared at the paper, heart pounding.
Someone wanted her gone.
The only question was:
Mafia or FBI?
Elara just found her name on a hit list.
Lucian swears it wasn’t him…
But can he really be trusted?
💬 Drop your thoughts below:
🖤 Do you believe Lucian?
🕵️♀️ Who do you think put Elara’s name on that list — mafia or FBI?
🔥 And be honest… would you have let him stay the night?
Don’t forget to vote & comment — your feedback fuels the next chapter ❤️
See you in Chapter 5!
- Writer
