Too Late, Mr. Mafia: The Surgeon He Discarded

Sienna POV

Elena quickly recovered her mask, taking a step toward me with eyes that flashed with hidden venom.

"You have nothing now, Sienna," she whispered, her voice thick with a feigned concern. "Let me help you. I can call a car."

"I have no ties to the Don anymore," I replied, without turning to look at her. "And I certainly have no ties to you."

The coarse strap of the canvas bag dug into my collarbone. I walked right past her and straight out of the heavily guarded Cavalli compound.

The biting chill of the December wind hit my face; it was freezing, but it was the very taste of freedom.

On the sidewalk, my fingers found the contents of my coat pocket: a crumpled twenty-dollar bill and an old city transit pass.

It was all the money I had left in the world.

In my past life, this moment would have sent me into a panic. Today, however, a fierce fire ignited in my chest.

I needed to find Dr. Thomas Rossi.

He was a legendary surgeon and my former mentor before the mafia swallowed me whole. He had once sent me a letter begging me to return to medicine. Back then, I was too trapped by the laws of Omertà and my duties as a mafia wife to even reply.

The wind cut through my thin coat, and I pulled the collar tight as I walked to the station and bought a one-way Greyhound ticket out of the Famiglia's territory.

The six-hour ride smelled of old coffee and diesel fuel.

As I watched the dark trees blur past the window, my thoughts drifted to Dante—to his cold eyes and his bloody hands.

I forced the image of him from my mind. He belonged to another life, another woman.

By the time I arrived in the city, the sun had already set. With barely three dollars left, my stomach ached with hunger, but I refused to waste my last coins on a stale sandwich.

I trudged for forty minutes through the dark streets until the towering iron gates of the state medical university loomed ahead.

At the small security booth, I found an elderly gatekeeper sitting inside, reading a newspaper.

I knocked on the glass.

He slid the window open with a scrape.

"Excuse me," I said. "I am looking for Dr. Thomas Rossi's office or his home address."

The gatekeeper studied my face, squinting in the dim light before his eyes suddenly went wide.

"Sienna?" he breathed.

I was stunned that he recognized me, but I nodded slowly.

He immediately snatched up the heavy rotary phone on his desk, dialing a number with shaking fingers.

He spoke rapidly into the receiver, then slammed it down and looked back at me.

"Go to the faculty housing," the gatekeeper urged, his voice thick with emotion. "Building four. Dr. Rossi has been waiting for you for a long time."

My eyes burned, and a hot lump formed in my throat.

I hurried across the quiet campus until I found building four. I climbed the stairs to his door, but before my knuckles could even graze the wood, the door was pulled open.

Dr. Rossi stood in the doorway. His back was hunched with age, and his hair, which used to be a crisp salt and pepper, was now completely white.

He looked down at my cheap coat and my single duffel bag.

His eyes reddened with unshed tears.

"You foolish girl," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "You finally remembered me."

I dropped my bag to the floor. I bowed my head, my gaze fixed on the worn floorboards of his hallway, the shame of thirty lost years a physical weight on my shoulders.

"I want to return to medicine," I whispered, the words raw with a desperate resolve. "I want to wield a scalpel again."

Dr. Rossi turned around, marching over to his heavy oak desk and slamming his hand down on the wood.

"It is about damn time!" he barked.

He immediately started pulling massive stacks of medical texts from his shelves, slamming them onto the table in a cloud of dust.

He turned back to me, his eyes burning with a fierce, familiar intensity.

"You have six months to pass all your board recertification exams," he demanded, pointing a trembling finger at me. "Or I will throw you out myself."

I looked at the mountain of books, a small smile finally breaking through my exhaustion.

“I will,” I said, the words a vow. And for the first time in two lifetimes, I knew—bone-deep—that I meant it.

But I didn't know then that a moldering chapter of my past was about to lie, bleeding, upon my operating table.