Nora's POV
The alarm screamed through the cardiac unit like the world was ending.
I ran. My feet pounded against the floor as I sprinted toward room 511 where the sound was coming from. My heart hammered in my chest. One week of night shifts had taught me that sound meant someone was dying.
Maria was already there, starting chest compressions on the patient—a teenage girl, maybe seventeen, with tubes and wires everywhere.
"She's coding!" Maria shouted. "Page cardiology! Now!"
I grabbed the phone with shaking hands and punched in the code. "Code blue, cardiac unit, room 511. Code blue—"
"I'm here."
The voice was cold and calm, cutting through the chaos like a knife. Dr. Elias Bennett pushed past me into the room, his scarred hands already reaching for gloves.
I'd avoided him all week. Every time I saw him in the hallways, I went the other direction. I'd found three more letters on my desk—each one noticing small things I did, encouraging me when I felt like giving up—but I hadn't had the courage to confront him about that notebook.
Now there was no avoiding him.
"What happened?" Dr. Bennett demanded, his eyes scanning the monitors.
"Emma Rodriguez, seventeen years old," Maria said, still doing compressions. "Routine valve replacement surgery yesterday. She was stable until five minutes ago. Heart rate dropped suddenly. Now we can't get it back."
"Move." Dr. Bennett took over compressions, and I watched his scarred hands work with perfect rhythm. Strong. Precise. Like his hands didn't hurt at all, even though I knew they did. "Prep for emergency surgery. She's bleeding internally. If we don't operate in the next ten minutes, she dies."
The next hour was chaos.
Dr. Bennett barked orders. Nurses ran everywhere. I'd never assisted in surgery before, but there was no time to get someone else. Maria shoved surgical gloves at me.
"You're with him. Don't mess up."
Thanks for the pressure.
I followed Dr. Bennett into the operating room. Under the bright lights, Emma looked even younger. Someone's daughter. Someone's sister. Her whole life ahead of her.
"Focus," Dr. Bennett said sharply, glancing at me. "If you're going to cry, leave now."
Anger flashed through me. "I'm not going to cry."
"Good." He picked up a scalpel. "Because this girl doesn't need your tears. She needs your hands."
For the next two hours, I watched Dr. Elias Bennett fight death and win.
His hands moved like magic despite the scars. He barely spoke except to give orders—suction here, clamp there, check her vitals. I did everything he said, my own hands surprisingly steady.
There was something beautiful about watching him work. He wasn't cold in the operating room. He was focused. Determined. Like nothing else in the world existed except saving this girl.
"She's stabilizing," Maria said from the monitors.
Dr. Bennett didn't respond. He just kept working, stitching carefully, checking everything twice. When he finally stepped back, sweat dripped down his face.
"She'll live," he said flatly. Then he walked out without another word.
Just like that. He saved a girl's life and left like it was nothing.
I helped clean up, my hands shaking now that the adrenaline was fading. Maria noticed.
"You did good, Nora," she said. "First surgery assist, and you didn't pass out or panic. That's rare."
"Dr. Bennett did all the work," I said.
"Dr. Bennett is brilliant," Maria agreed. "But he can't do it alone. You were calm when everyone else was scared. That matters."
After my shift ended at noon, I went to the nurse's station to grab my things. I was exhausted down to my bones. My cheap apartment—a tiny studio in Brooklyn that cost most of my paycheck—was calling my name.
Then I saw the envelope.
Cream-colored. My name written in that now-familiar elegant handwriting.
I opened it with shaking hands.
"You stayed calm tonight when everyone else panicked. You have healing hands. You were meant for this work. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Especially not yourself."
No signature. As always.
But now I knew who wrote it. Dr. Bennett. The cold surgeon who barely looked at me during surgery. Who saved lives and walked away without waiting for thank yous. Who noticed things about me I didn't even notice about myself.
Why was he doing this?
I looked around the empty nurse's station, searching for him. The hallway was quiet. Early afternoon meant most of the night shift had gone home.
"Looking for someone?"
I jumped and spun around. Dr. Bennett stood behind me, still in his surgical scrubs. His dark hair was messy. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked exhausted.
"I—no—I was just—" I held up the letter without thinking. "Did you write this?"
His expression didn't change. "Yes."
My heart stuttered. I expected him to deny it. To make up some excuse. But he just admitted it, cold and simple.
"Why?" The question burst out of me. "You barely talk to me. You told me not to kill anyone on my first day. You're—you're mean to everyone. So why would you write something so kind?"
Something flickered in his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or recognition.
"Because I know what it's like," he said quietly. "To lose everything. To feel like you're drowning. To work the night shift because darkness feels safer than daylight." He paused, and for the first time, his cold mask cracked slightly. "I know who you are, Nora Chen. I know about your engagement party. Your father. The social media posts calling you crazy."
Ice flooded my veins. "How—"
"I Googled you after your first night. You cried at the nurse's station at 2 AM, and I wondered why." He tilted his head, studying me. "The internet had plenty of answers. Most of them were lies."
"They were all lies," I whispered.
"I know." He said it with such certainty that tears pricked my eyes. "I know because I watched you with patients. I watched you hold Mrs. Rodriguez's hand for ten minutes when you had other work to do. I watched you stay late to help Jamie study for her medical exam. I watched you give your lunch to that homeless man outside the hospital." His scarred hands clenched into fists. "People who are actually crazy and jealous don't do those things. They don't see other people's pain because they're too focused on their own."
No one had defended me in two weeks. Not one person. And here was this cold, scary surgeon saying he knew the truth.
"Why do you care?" My voice broke. "You don't even know me."
Dr. Bennett was quiet for a long moment. Then he said something that changed everything.
"Six years ago, I was engaged to a woman named Sarah. She died in a car accident that was my fault. I was driving. We argued about something stupid. I looked away from the road for two seconds." His voice was flat, emotionless, but his hands shook. "Everyone said I was a monster. That I killed her on purpose because I wanted her family's money. Social media tore me apart. My own mother blamed me. The only reason I wasn't charged with murder was because the other driver was drunk."
I couldn't breathe. "Dr. Bennett—"
"Elias," he corrected. "If we're sharing trauma, use my first name."
"Elias," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Just understand." He looked at me with those intense golden-brown eyes. "I know what it's like when everyone believes the worst about you. When the people who should protect you destroy you instead. When you have to rebuild yourself from nothing in the dark." He held up his scarred hands. "These hands almost didn't survive. The doctors said I'd never do surgery again. But I fought for two years to prove them wrong. I work night shift because I can't sleep. Because every time I close my eyes, I see that accident. Because darkness is easier than facing people who think they know my story."
We stood in that empty hallway, two broken people finally seeing each other clearly.
"I write you letters," Elias continued, "because I see myself in you. Someone strong pretending to be fine. Someone who deserves kindness but won't ask for it. Someone who thinks they have to survive alone." He stepped closer, and I could see the exhaustion in every line of his face. "You don't have to survive alone, Nora. Not anymore."
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it.
It buzzed again. And again.
With shaking hands, I pulled it out. The screen was full of notifications.
News alerts. Social media tags. Text messages from unknown numbers.
My stomach dropped as I opened the first article.
"Nora Chen Hiding at Brooklyn Hospital - Former Socialite Working as Nurse After Engagement Scandal"
There was a photo of me in my scrubs, taken yesterday outside the hospital. Someone had found me.
"No," I whispered. "No, no, no—"
My phone exploded with messages.
"Found you, crazy bitch."
"Imagine being so pathetic you have to hide in a hospital."
"Your dad should've drowned you at birth."
Elias grabbed my phone and read the messages. His face went dark with rage.
"Who took this photo?" he demanded.
"I don't know—it doesn't matter—" I was hyperventilating. "They found me. My father will know where I am. Vivian will come here. I have to leave. I have to run again—"
"No." Elias's voice was hard as steel. "You're not running."
"You don't understand—"
"I understand perfectly." He grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. "Your family is coming for you. They want to destroy you completely. But here's what they don't know—" His scarred hands tightened, grounding me. "You're not alone anymore. And I don't let people hurt what's mine."
"What's yours?" I repeated, confused.
Elias's eyes burned with something fierce and protective. "I need to tell you something. Something you're not going to like. But I'd rather you hate me for the truth than love me for a lie."
My heart hammered. "What are you talking about?"
He took a deep breath, and I saw fear flash across his face—real, genuine fear.
"I didn't just Google you after your first night," he said slowly. "I knew who you were before you walked through those hospital doors. I knew because your father tried to use you as a weapon against my family three months ago. He wanted you to seduce me, steal my company's research, destroy us from the inside." He paused. "I've been watching you since your first shift because I needed to know—were you still working for him? Was this whole 'broken nurse' thing an act?"
The world tilted sideways.
"You thought I was a spy?" My voice came out strangled.
"At first. Yes." He didn't flinch from the accusation in my eyes. "But then I watched you. Really watched you. And I realized you didn't even know about your father's plan. You refused him, didn't you? That's why he destroyed you."
I couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe.
"I'm telling you this now because they're coming, Nora. Your father knows where you are, which means he's about to make another move. And you deserve to face it with all the information." Elias's hands framed my face, gentle despite their scars. "I know who you are. I know what your family wanted. And I choose to believe you anyway. The question is—can you forgive me for not telling you sooner?"
Before I could answer, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
My hands shook as I answered. "Hello?"
"Hello, daughter." My father's voice was cold as ice. "Did you really think you could hide from me? We need to talk. Meet me in the hospital parking lot in ten minutes, or I'll make a scene in your precious ER that will get you fired."
The line went dead.
I looked up at Elias, terror clawing at my throat.
"He's here," I whispered. "My father is here."