?Chapter 1455:


    Maia’s eyes locked immediately onto the soldier sprawled across the floor, a dark pool of blood spreading beneath him. He was held upright only by the trembling hands of his colleagues.


    A neck injury. One wrong move, one dyed second, and it could be fatal.


    Her instincts surged forward — swift, precise, upromising. She raced over, her gaze already scanning the wound, her fingers mapping the fastest way to control the bleeding.


    “Press down — hard!” Her voice was calm and unwavering, yet carried an authority that brooked no argument. She snapped orders at the approaching nurses, each word crisp and unhesitating. “The gurney — now! Prepare for surgery and get ready for a blood transfusion!”


    “Right away!”


    The familiarity of that voice stopped Cade cold. He had been standing a few paces away, but in that instant the world seemed to slow, the air thickening around him. That voice. That tone. That unmistakable edge of determination.


    His head snapped toward the source. Even with the mask covering her face, her eyes — sharp, steady, impossible to mistake — met his for a fraction of a second.


    Maia? Impossible. Was she even alive?


    A wave of dissonance mmed into him. He had heard the news — the fire at the charity event, the missing persons list. She should have been counted among the vanished. And yet here she was,manding the emergency response with theposure of a seasoned surgeon, pulling a life back from the edge of death.


    He shook his head, trying to force logic back into ce. Maybe it was just the voice. The posture. But no — even her back, the graceful and upright silhouette, the confident stride — matched every memory he carried of her.


    Cade’s pulse hammered in his ears. He wanted to push forward, pull off her mask, and be certain. But the soldier’s life hung in the bnce.


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    “Make way — move aside!” The nurses cut through his daze. A gurney barreled past him, and the soldiers quickly lifted the injured man onto it. Maia pushed the gurney herself, sprinting toward the operating room with relentless precision.


    Bang.


    The operating room doors mmed shut behind them. A glowing sign flickered on above: Operation in Progress. Absolute. Final. No one could enter.


    Cade stood frozen, throat dry, words lodged uselessly in his chest. The man who had risked everything to protect the patient was now in the hands of the medical team, and there was nothing left to do but wait. Interfering now would be unforgivable.


    What am I thinking?


    His mind resisted the impossible notion — Maia, a doctor capable of standing alongside surgeons of Carsen’s caliber? It was absurd. And yet the certainty refused to leave him. He exhaled slowly, trying to push the tidal wave of disbelief back.


    He nced down at the thugs lying unconscious across the floor, then at the bandaged figure sitting silently in the wheelchair. The patient’s face was entirely obscured. Cade had no way of knowing it was Chris.


    “I should call the police,” he muttered, his voice low and steady.


    He pulled out his phone and dialed the station, reporting the incident with crisp efficiency. Anyone who dared brandish a de in a hospital, who dared raise a hand against soldiers, was finished.


    Within minutes, sirens tore through the city, and a battalion of armed officers swept in with practiced coordination, handcuffing the thugs and loading them into waiting vehicles. Strangely, once conscious, the captured men offered no resistance — some even wore expressions that bordered on relief, as if the police station represented a safer destination than whatever they had just walked into.


    The lead officer jotted down notes, asked a few curt questions, and departed without inquiring further about the injured soldier. It was all too smooth, too efficient. Cade’s instincts prickled — something was off — but he couldn’t ce it.


    Outside the operating room, soldiers slumped against the walls, heads bowed under the weight of guilt.


    “He can’t die.” A young soldier struck the wall with his fist, eyes red and brimming. “I should have been the one to step forward. His child was born just a month ago — if anything happens to him, what bes of his wife?” Another soldier stared at the floor. “What will we tell the general when he wakes up?”


    The tension in the corridor was suffocating, thick enough to taste. Every man bore the invisible weight of a responsibility he felt he had failed to carry.


    Then a series of steady, rapid footsteps echoed down the hall.


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