Zane Jennings leaned over the second-floor railing, a cigarette clenched between his teeth. He took off his watch, aimed, and hurled it downward.
It landed hard on a knee. The watch fell to the ground, shattered.
Julian Donovan clutched his knee as he knelt on the ground, hissing in pain, his face flushed red.
Cigarette in hand, Zane Jennings walked down the stairs. The man who had come with Julian Donovan had already backed up nearly to the door.
Mason Quincy walked over with a wrench to chase the man off. "My big bro is teaching his dog a lesson. If you're a dog, stay. If not, get the hell out."
Before he could even finish, the man had already sprinted dozens of meters away.
Zane Jennings walked up to Julian Donovan, squatted down, and grabbed him by the collar. The fury in his eyes was palpable. "Learn how to be a decent human being. Don't wait until you're bleeding on the floor to know when to quit."
It might have sounded like a lesson on how to be a better person, but Julian could hear the real message: it was a warning.
Julian Donovan gritted his teeth, waves of pain throbbing from his knee. "Zane Jennings, even if you become a world champion, Nora Donovan will still dump you."
Because the one thing Nora Donovan hated most was Zane Jennings becoming famous.
Zane Jennings raised an eyebrow, his gaze lowered in a mirthless smile. 'Perhaps I haven't been causing enough trouble lately. People are starting to think I'm a nice guy.'
He stood up and asked Cian Sinclair for a lighter. Turning his head to light his cigarette, the golden flame mingled with the white smoke, blurring the contours of his profile.
Zane Jennings glanced at the ash on the floor, then planted his foot on Julian's leg and dragged it forward, using his clothes to wipe away the ash and spittle on the ground before stopping.
He took a drag from his cigarette, then lowered it with a blank expression. He flicked the ash onto Julian Donovan, his warning delivered one deliberate word at a time.
"You don't touch the people here, and you don't come to this place. If you want to keep living and bouncing around on that field of yours, then from now on, you stay the hell away."
"Otherwise, however you scraped your way up to this glory of yours, I'll be the one to drag you back down."
He had never been a good person, not since middle school.
Smoking, drinking, fighting, skipping class—he'd done every single thing a bad student could do.
If there was truly a line between good and bad, he knew he was firmly on the wrong side of it.
Sadie Yates was completely stunned. She had never seen a man look so charismatic while being so bad. Broad shoulders, long legs, and a face that just screamed trouble. His eyes were filled with a fierce energy, his gaze always cold, and his entire being radiated a wild aura. The way he was squatting was a sight in itself. If this were high school, he'd be the perfect picture of the hormone-fueled school tyrant.
Once his cigarette had burned down, Zane Jennings tossed the butt and crushed it out with his foot. He turned, gave one last order, and walked out: "Make sure he cleans this place up before you let him go."
Mason Quincy, still holding the wrench, stood stunned for a long moment. "Zane is so damn cool."
In the evening, the setting sun replaced the day. Tonight's sunset was a particularly vibrant red, blanketing the city in a crimson haze, the clouds nestled within it.
「Mercywell Hospital.」
The light above the operating room door was on. A crowd of the patient's family members were gathered at the entrance, crying and clamoring, and the smell of disinfectant in the air was particularly acrid.
Inside the operating room, it was silent. The shadowless lamp cast a soft white light, gentle and easy on the eyes.
Erin Lowell was dressed in blue sterile scrubs, complete with surgical gloves and a mask. Only her eyes and brows were visible. Her long lashes were lowered, a faint sheen of sweat beaded on her forehead, and her gaze was detached, pure, and utterly focused on the operation.
"Forceps."
"Hemostat."
Her voice was low, like an evening breeze in September—calm and steady, yet it coiled in the ear with an undercurrent of gravity.
BEEP—BEEP—BEEP—
The long silence in the operating room was suddenly broken by the warning alarm of the ECG monitor, its alert echoing throughout the room.
Erin Lowell glanced up. The data was abnormal; the ECG readings were changing rapidly.
"Dr. Lowell, the patient's heart rate is dropping."
The patient on the table was a young man, only twenty years old. His face was covered in so much blood his features were unrecognizable. A speeding car had collided head-on with an out-of-control truck, and a foreign object had pierced his left chest.
Erin Lowell lowered her head and continued the surgery, doing her best to keep the scalpel steady. Her lashes were low, her composure perfectly controlled and free of panic.
Suddenly, a few drops of blood sprayed out, splattering her body, her cheek, and the upper half of her sterile scrubs.
It wasn't the nurse's first time in an operating room, but she was still startled by the sight. "Dr. Lowell, the patient's blood pressure is dropping."
"Gauze," Erin Lowell said steadily, her lashes pressed low. They couldn't hide the flecks of scarlet on her eyelids, nor the red in her own eyes. "Suction."
The bleeding from the incision slowed slightly, but the shrill beeping of the ECG monitor continued without pause.
BEEP—BEEP—BEEP—
"Dr. Lowell, the patient is—" The nurse's voice trembled, her panic rising. Fortunately, this wasn't her first time in an operating room, and she managed to keep her composure just enough.
Erin Lowell cut her off, her eyes crinkling slightly above her mask. "Vascular clamp."
It wasn't a smile, nor was it a look of blame. It was a look of reassurance, one that had the power to calm a person's heart in a moment of sheer panic.
With a foreign object embedded in the left side of the chest, the surgery's success rate was incredibly low. To remain calm, composed, and snatch someone from the jaws of death—that was the only thing she, the chief surgeon, could do.
"Forceps."
Erin Lowell took the forceps from the nurse and methodically parted the patient's wound. She remained calm amidst the mangled flesh and blood, continuing to clear out the residual fragments of the foreign object.
As the blood-soaked fragments were removed piece by piece, the ECG alarm stopped abruptly, and the readings slowly began to return to normal.
BEEP—
The nurse's eyes crinkled in a smile as she let out a sigh of relief. "The patient's heart rate and blood pressure are normal."
Erin Lowell's eyelashes fluttered. "Don't let your guard down," she said, her head still bowed. "Prepare for suturing."
His injuries were too severe. He had only made it through the surgery. Whether he would wake up, whether he would even live, was now up to fate.
The assisting physician pointed to his own face. "Great work," he said with a smile. "I can handle the suturing. You go wash your face."
Erin Lowell shook her head. "It's alright. I'll do it."
After finishing the last of the sutures, Erin Lowell set down her scalpel and gave a slight nod to the medical team. "Thank you for your hard work, everyone."
The four staff members nodded, clearly still shaken from the ordeal. "Dr. Lowell, you're the one who truly worked the hardest."
With the patient's vitals temporarily stable, Erin Lowell turned to give her final instructions. "Transfer the patient to the ICU. Keep him under observation for three days, and don't let any family visit for the time being."
"Understood," the nurse replied with a nod.
Her instructions given, Erin Lowell placed the surgical tools into the tray, her hands trembling, and followed the nurse out of the operating room.
Outside the door, a few people were waiting—the patient's family.
"Doctor, how is my son?"
It was a woman who spoke. Seeing someone emerge, she wiped the tears from her face and walked over slowly. Her face was streaked with tears, and her eyes were unbelievably red.
The patient's condition was highly unstable, so Erin Lowell was careful not to over-promise. "The surgery was a success, but he's not out of danger yet. We'll need to keep him here for observation to see how he does."
The woman understood what that meant. She grabbed Dr. Lowell's arm, nearly falling to her knees as she pleaded, "Doctor, you have to save him. If he's gone, how am I supposed to go on?"