Chapter 217: Chapter 218: Kidnapped
ARIA’S POV
The morning started the way all good mornings did....with coffee she didn’t have time to finish, a missed call from Damien she’d return on her lunch break, and a seven-year-old boy named Aaron. who’d decided that Dr. Chen was his absolute favorite person in the world and was not shy about expressing this.
"Dr. Aria!" He waved from his bed as she entered the pediatric ward, his other arm still hooked to an IV. "I drew you something."
She crossed to him immediately, accepting the crayon drawing with the gravity it deserved. It appeared to be a figure in a white coat standing next to what might have been a dragon, or possibly a very large dog. Either way, she loved it.
"This is exceptional work," she told him seriously. "I’m hanging this in my office."
Aaron. beamed. His mother, sitting in the chair beside his bed, mouthed thank you at Aria over his head.
It was moments like this....small, uncomplicated, genuinely good...that reminded her why she’d fought so hard to come back to medicine. She tucked the drawing into her coat pocket and continued her morning rounds.
Mont Sanai was loud and busy and perpetually understaffed in the way that all good hospitals were, and Aria moved through it with the comfortable efficiency of someone who’d learned to make chaos feel like home. She checked charts, consulted with colleagues, reviewed labs, talked patients through diagnoses in language that was clear without being condescending.
At her side, five steps back and scanning the corridor with the quiet vigilance of someone trained to notice everything....Seb.
Sebastian Kaur had been her shadow for months now. One of Damien’s men, and second only to Marcus in Damien’s security operation, absolutely impenetrable when it came to small talk. He spoke in monosyllables, communicated primarily through facial expressions that ranged from neutral to slightly concerned, and had once bodily removed a hospital administrator who’d gotten too loud with Aria in a meeting.
She’d come to find him oddly comforting. Like having a very competent, very silent guard dog who happened to be excellent at navigating hospital parking structures.
"Quiet morning," she said as she stepped out of the pediatric ward, checking her phone. A text from Damien: Dinner tonight? I’ll cook.
She texted back: You hired a chef specifically to avoid cooking. But yes.
His response was immediate: I’ll supervise the cooking. Same thing.
She was smiling at her phone when her pager went off.
CODE TRANSFER — BAY 7 — TRAUMA RECEIVING
She redirected immediately, Seb falling into step behind her. Transfer codes weren’t unusual....patients got moved between departments, between hospitals, between facilities all the time. Bay 7 was on the east side of the building, down a corridor that connected the main hospital to the ambulance bay.
She was halfway down the corridor when she noticed the first thing that felt slightly wrong.
The usual transfer team....two nurses, an orderly, the standard equipment.....wasn’t there. Instead, two paramedics she didn’t recognize were moving a gurney toward her. The patient on it was covered to the chin, face obscured, vitals monitor showing steady numbers.
"Dr. Chen?" One of the paramedics stepped forward. "We need your authorization for the transfer. Patient is being moved to Mercy General, cardiac case, attending requested you sign off on the chart."
Aria frowned. "Mercy General has their own attending on call. Why would they need my signature?"
"Dr. Harrington requested you specifically. He said you’d been consulting on the case." The paramedic held out a clipboard. "Just your signature and we can move."
She reached for the clipboard.
Something was wrong. She felt it before she could articulate it....a wrongness in the specific shape of the paramedic’s posture, in the way the second one had shifted to her left without looking like he meant to, in the way the patient on the gurney was utterly, completely still in a way that sedated patients weren’t quite.
She pulled back. "I’d like to see the chart first..."
She never finished the sentence.
Something pressed against the side of her neck...cold, clinical, efficient. A needle. She turned instinctively toward it and caught a glimpse of a third figure she hadn’t registered, stepping out from the alcove beside the supply closet.
The drug hit her bloodstream like a wall. Not slowly...there was no movie-style gradual fading. One second she was standing, the next her legs were simply not working, and the corridor was tilting sideways, and she was going down.
She heard Seb shout....one sharp word....heard the sound of running feet and a collision and something crashing.
Damien, she thought, or tried to think, the word dissolving before it fully formed.
Then there was nothing.
****
SEB’S POV
He saw it a half-second too late.
The third man....the one he’d missed, the one who’d been waiting in the supply alcove...stepped out fast and clean, and Seb was already moving but not fast enough. The needle went into Aria’s neck before he could close the distance, and she went down like her strings had been cut.
He hit the first paramedic hard, drove him into the wall, felt something crack under the impact. The man went down. Seb turned for the second....
Something slammed into the back of his head. Not enough to knock him out, but enough to stagger him, and those two seconds were the ones that cost him.
By the time his vision cleared, they had Aria on the gurney. The third man was already running for the ambulance bay. The remaining paramedic hit the door release and Seb lunged....
Got his hand on the gurney. Lost it as the door swung, the metal edge catching his wrist with enough force to numb his fingers.
He was through the door ten seconds later. Into the ambulance bay.
The ambulance was already moving.
He ran. He was fast....genuinely fast, trained fast....and he made it far enough to slam his palm against the vehicle’s rear doors before it accelerated beyond reach. He caught a partial plate number. The last three characters before it turned the corner and disappeared into the mid-morning Manhattan traffic.
He stood in the ambulance bay breathing hard, his earpiece already in his hand.
The call connected on the first ring.
"Sir." His voice was flat. Professional. He’d learned long ago that panic was not useful. "We have a situation."
