The Surgeon's Last Breath

"Do you really think the pennies you scrape together selling street junk can cover a single day of your sister's ICU fees?" The harsh fluorescent lights of the interrogation room dug into my retinas.

Sitting across from me was the arrogant police captain—my exgirlfriend, the very woman who had forced me to take the fall and go to prison five years ago.

Half an hour ago, the flimsy bookstand I'd cobbled together from thrifted scraps was kicked over by a couple of street thugs. I was left bleeding out on the concrete.

She had stood there holding another man's kid—Levi—tossing me pity like I was a piece of trash. And now, she was using my sister's life as a weapon to humiliate me.

I swallowed back the metallic taste of blood rising in my throat and forced a hollow smirk. She had no idea.

She didn't know that because of her betrayal and the cutoff medical payments, my sister, Daphne, had died in the very first year of my sentence. And my own life?

The countdown on that had already started. Chapter 1 I finished giving my statement and walked out of the interrogation room without looking back. "Nolan!" Sloane chased after me.

She was in full uniform, her bob cut sharp, though her chest heaved slightly from the jog. "Have you been doing okay these past few years?" There was a hesitant, probing edge to her voice.

I stopped walking. I didn't turn around. "Fine." Her footsteps halted on the tile. "Why didn't you come find me after you got out?

Are you still mad?" I finally shifted my weight and faced her, taking in the features that used to be burned into my memory.

Five years hadn't left much of a mark on her; she looked almost exactly the same. She parted her lips, swallowed whatever words were sitting on her tongue, and stayed silent.

The night breeze picked up from the open double doors, rustling the loose strands of hair across her forehead.

For a split second, I saw the ghost of the girl who used to dive into my arms the second she got off shift. "Nolan, do you still—" Her phone buzzed.

Sloane glanced at the caller ID, and the tension bled out of her face instantly, replaced by a striking softness. "Hey, baby.

Mommy's just wrapping up, I'll be home soon, okay?" "Yeah, I'll watch TV with you and Daddy.

As many episodes as you want." I could hear Levi's bright, childish giggles pouring through the receiver. Sloane smiled—a real, unfiltered smile that reached her eyes.

She hung up and turned back to me, lips parting to pick up the broken thread of our conversation. But I was already halfway down the block.

Two streets down from the precinct sat a twentyfourhour walkin clinic.

I pushed the glass door open, and the sharp stench of bleach and rubbing alcohol hit me like a wall. "What do you need?" the middleaged doctor behind the counter asked, not even bothering to look up. "Painkillers," I rasped.

The doctor lifted his eyelids, his gaze sweeping over the dried blood flaking on my collar and my faded, cheap thriftstore jacket. "No insurance and no prescription?

I can't give you any of the hard stuff here." I shook my head.

He closed his prescription pad with a cold face, his tone dripping with businesslike indifference. "I can only hand over the cheapest overthecounter painkillers.

You're gonna have to tough it out." Right then, it hit.

A vicious, tearing agony exploded from my stomach and clawed its way through every vein and artery in my body, hijacking my nervous system without a second of warning. "Buddy, you alright?" The doctor's voice warped, echoing like he was shouting underwater.

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. My vision fractured into swimming halos of blinding white light.

The pain drilled straight into my bone marrow, chewing through my defenses, and dragging a tidal wave of lockedaway memories right back to the surface.

It had been this exact same sterile smell of bleach, but back then, it was the brightly lit corridor of my own hospital.

Sloane was sitting on the examination bed in the ER, nursing a nasty gash on her leg from chasing down a suspect. "Dr.

Nolan, easy!" she whined, crinkling her nose as her fingers dug into the crisp white fabric of my lab coat.

I chuckled, gently dabbing antiseptic over her scraped skin. "Officer Sloane, how come you never feel the pain when you're busy tackling bad guys to the pavement?" "That's different." She blinked up at me innocently, then suddenly reached out and poked my cheek. "Wow, our Dr.

Nolan looks incredibly handsome when he frowns." A passing nurse shook her head with a fond smile. "You two are ridiculous.

A doctor and a cop, and you still act like high schoolers glued to each other's hips." It was true—back then, everyone said we were a perfect match.

A doctor saving lives and a cop putting away the scum of the earth. We were the golden couple.

Sloane would sneak out during her graveyard shifts just to bring me midnight takeout in the breakroom, and no matter how late she got off work sporting a new bruise, I would always be right there patching her up.

I still remembered the night she closed her first major case.

She'd come back from the precinct's celebration slightly tipsy, her warm weight pressing against my shoulder as she mumbled into my neck. "Nolan, we have to stay like this forever.

As soon as Daphne is fully cured, we're having a baby.

A little boy, with your gentle eyes." I had pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, my chest so full of warmth I thought it might burst.

Chapter 2 Back then, I was naive enough to believe those quiet, golden days would last forever. Then Conrad came back to the States.

I was slumped in the clinic chair, my shirt plastered to my back with cold sweat. "Sir! Sir, wake up!" Someone was slapping my cheek.

I forced my eyelids open, finding the doctor's anxious face hovering inches from mine. "You lost consciousness!

I need to call an ambulance." "Don't," I rasped, my voice sounding like it had been dragged through gravel.

I struggled into a sitting position, every joint screaming. "It's a chronic thing." The doctor looked like he wanted to argue.

I ignored him and rattled off a list of medication—cheap, aggressive painkillers that most laypeople wouldn't even know by name. "How do you know those drugs?" the doctor asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.

I didn't answer.

I settled the bill and turned to leave, but his voice caught me at the door. "With your symptoms, you need a full workup at a real hospital." I froze at the threshold, my back to him. "I know exactly what's happening to me.

I don't even have a month left." As I stepped out, I heard a young nurse who had just started her shift whispering behind me. "He… he kind of looks like that medical prodigy from a few years ago." The old doctor's head snapped up. "Who?" "Dr.

Nolan. You know, the cardiothoracic surgeon who was everywhere five years ago? But I heard…" Her voice dropped to a low hiss. "I heard he killed a patient and went to prison.

It couldn't be him. A man like that wouldn't end up…" The memory I spent every waking hour trying to bury—the one that haunted my fever dreams—ripped through my mind.

Sloane was kneeling in front of me, her face a mask of tears. It was the first time I'd ever seen her look so broken, so stripped of her pride. "Nolan, I'm begging you, save him!

Conrad just made a mistake.

If he's convicted for a hitandrun DUI, his entire bright future in high society will be ruined!" I stared at her, my heart plummeting into my stomach. "A person is dead, Sloane!

He hit someone, sent them flying thirty feet in the air, and then slammed on the gas and ran like a coward!" "I know!

I know!" She grabbed my hands, her fingers like ice against my skin. "But Conrad was my first love." "I can't just watch him die. Nolan, you're a doctor.

You can say it was a surgical error—a complication during a procedure.

It's just medical malpractice; they won't give you a heavy sentence for that!" I wrenched my hands away. "You're asking me to take the fall? For him?" "I'll hire the best lawyers.

I'll find a way to get your time reduced." She pressed her lips together, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, her gaze suddenly turning sharp and cold. "Nolan, you know how this works.

Even if you say no, I have ways to make it happen." It was the first time she'd ever threatened me. The first time I saw the predator behind the woman I loved. "And Daphne?

Her chemo can't stop." "I swear!" Sloane looked up, her voice echoing with a terrifying conviction. "I'll pay for every cent of her treatment.

I'll take care of her like she's my own blood." Outside, the wail of sirens grew louder, vibrating through the floorboards.

She looked at me, her tone softening into a lethal, desperate whisper. "If you ever loved me, help me this once.

Please." In that moment, looking at the woman I would have died for, I felt like I was staring at a complete stranger. The sirens cut out right outside the building. "Fine," I said.

During my first year in prison, I got a letter from Sloane every month. She told me Daphne was stable, that the chemo was working.

She promised that when I got out, everything would go back to normal. I spent my days in a cramped, gray cell, thumbing the edges of her photograph until the paper frayed.

In the second year, the letters started to dry up. Sloane said she'd been promoted. She was busy. But she assured me the medical bills were being paid on time, every time.

I believed her. I believed her until the day I heard from another inmate that Sloane and Conrad had gotten married and had a kid together.

That was the same day my medical report came back. Midstage bone cancer. My life was already over before I even stepped out of the gates.

Chapter 3 That night, I smashed my head against the cinderblock wall of my cell until my vision swam with red. But for Daphne, I forced air back into my lungs.

I told myself to survive. Five years later, I walked out of the prison gates on early release for good behavior. The road outside was empty.

I headed straight to the hospital, only to have the ground ripped out from under me. Daphne had been dead for three years.

The triage nurse flipped through the archived files, her tone chillingly flat. "Her brother went to prison.

After that female cop stopped showing up, some guy came in and authorized pulling the plug on her treatment.

Our hands were tied." I stood deadcenter in the sterile hallway, staring at the reflection in the observation window. A skeletal, ashpale stranger stared back.

It was me, but there was nothing left of the man I used to be. I found out later that the story of my "malpractice" had been heavily embellished and circulated.

No hospital in the state would let me past their lobby, not even to mop the floors or work the reception desk.

Daphne's body had been kept on ice in the morgue because no one had paid the holding fees.

I dragged this broken shell of a body to the back of restaurant kitchens to scrub grease off plates, hauled bags of cement at construction sites, and stuffed every bloodstained dollar bill into a rusted tin box.

It took everything I had just to buy her an unmarked plot of dirt in a barren graveyard on the outskirts of the city.

The bonedeep agony flared up more frequently with every gig I worked. By dusk, I dragged myself back to my basement apartment.

I sat on the damp floor, piecing together the trampled books from my ruined street stall. The spines were cracked, pages torn. I carefully taped them back together.

Mostly medical textbooks. They were the only things I had left to my name. A heavy knock rattled the cheap wooden door. I turned the deadbolt.

Conrad stood in the narrow hallway, immaculately dressed in a tailored suit.

His gaze swept over me from head to toe, the corner of his mouth ticking up into a sneer of pure, unfiltered disgust.

Conrad stepped forward, his polished leather shoe grinding heavily onto a stray pill bottle on the floor. His tone dripped with absolute contempt. "Stay the hell away from Sloane.

Look at yourself—you're a rat crawling out of the sewer." "A convicted felon. Do you honestly think you deserve to breathe the same air as her?

She's the captain of the homicide division now. She has a husband." "She has a son. What right do you have to show your face in front of her?" I kept my mouth shut.

He lunged, his fist twisting into the frayed collar of my shirt. "Stop trying to play the victim to get her sympathy! You're nothing!" His fist buried itself into my gut.

The stomach spasms made me arch my back like a suffocating fish, and the sharp, piercing agony of cancer cells gnawing at my bone marrow followed instantly.

Cold sweat gathered at my chin, dripping one by one onto the moldy floorboards. "The thugs who wrecked my stall," I gasped, the words tearing out of my throat. "That was you." Conrad smirked. "What if it was?

Consider it a warning. Next time, it won't just be a few books getting tossed." He casually smoothed out his suit cuffs. "Nolan, you need to accept your reality.

This is your life now. Don't even dream of a comeback." "Oh, and by the way… who do you think gave the order to pull the plug on your sister's meds?" My head snapped up.

Conrad drank in my reaction, a sick satisfaction settling over his features. He reached the doorway, pausing with his hand on the frame. "Oh, and one more thing.

Sloane still thinks Daphne is alive. I've been feeding her forged medical records and photos every month.

So, even if she ever finds out your sister is dead, she'll just blame it on you." The door slammed shut, vibrating the walls. My legs gave out.

I slid down the peeling wallpaper, the pain roaring back like a tidal wave.

I dragged myself across the room to the mattress, fumbling wildly through the plastic bag for the painkillers I had just bought. My fingers trembled. The plastic bottle slipped.

White pills scattered across the grimecovered floor like teeth. I crawled on my hands and knees, scrambling to scoop them up. I didn't bother counting.

I threw a handful into my mouth and swallowed them dry. Then I collapsed onto the creaking mattress, staring blankly at the ceiling, waiting for the chemicals to numb my brain.

The muffled sound of a TV drifted through the thin walls. The neighbors were watching a sitcom, the canned laughter filtering through the drywall. I closed my eyes.

Long ago, I used to have nights exactly like this. Sloane resting her head on my shoulder. Daphne sleeping peacefully in the next room. A comedy special playing in the background.

Back then, sitting on that cheap couch… I thought I held the whole damn world in my hands. Chapter 4 The pills finally kicked in.

Right before the darkness swallowed my consciousness, I heard my own hollow voice whisper, "Daphne, I'll be there to keep you company soon." I had prayed to slip away quietly in my sleep, to let the world fade out without making a sound.

But heaven never listened to me. I was jolted awake by the pounding on my door and the vicious, tearing agony ripping through my muscles. I wrenched the door open.

Sloane stood in the hallway. Her eyes scanned the rotting drywall of the decaying apartment complex, wide with sheer disbelief.

The second the door swung wide, her features froze. "You live in a place like this?" The words slipped out of her mouth, dripping with raw disgust and disdain. I didn't step aside.

I blocked the threshold. "What do you want?" Sloane just shouldered her way past me, her gaze sweeping over the hundredsquarefoot basement. The damp, peeling walls.

The black mold creeping across the ceiling. The rusted iron bedframe that squeaked with every breath.

The cheap bottle of painkillers and a yellowed photograph sitting on the rickety table. "Nolan, I'm finding you a new place." Her tone carried that same condescending, topdown charity. "Somewhere clean, at the very least." "Don't bother." I leaned heavily against the doorframe, feeling the tremors shooting up my calves. "Get out." "Why are you playing tough?" She spun around to face me, her voice ticking up an octave. "Look at yourself!

Selling garbage on the street, living in a rat hole—how the hell are you supposed to pay for Daphne's medical bills?" I stared at her.

The woman I had loved so deeply it carved into my bones.

Five years ago, she was on her knees begging me to take the fall for her first love, swearing on her life she'd protect my sister.

Five years later, she was standing in my rotting basement, tossing me scraps like a stray dog. "Captain Sloane," I heard my own voice slice through the air, terrifyingly calm. "Shouldn't you be the one answering for my sister's medical bills?" Her eyes flickered for a fraction of a second.

Then, she straightened her spine, slipping right back into that highandmighty stance of control. "Nolan, don't use these cheap, pathetic lies to get back at me.

I review the hospital billing statements every single month." My head snapped up.

A raspy, gutwrenching laugh tore out of my throat, raw and broken. "Sloane, you can go pay those damn medical bills in hell!

During the first winter after I took the fall for that bastard, Daphne was kicked out of her ward because the payments were cut.

She died screaming in pure agony!" Her pupils blew wide. But a second later, she clamped down on her certainty. "Impossible.

Conrad shows me the receipts every time." "Right," I whispered. "Why would Conrad ever lie to you?

He is your devoted, deeply trusted husband, after all." Sloane pressed her lips into a thin line, a flicker of something resembling guilt crossing her face. "Nolan, you have to move out of this place.

At least let me—" "Let you what?" The dam finally broke. "Let you buy off your guilt? I don't need it, Sloane.

Where the hell were you when I actually needed you?" "I was—" "You were planning your wedding with Conrad." I finished it for her, my voice turning into a serrated blade. "You were raising your son.

You were getting promoted. You were busy living your perfect new life." She went rigid. "So please, go right back to living it." I pulled the door wide open. "My sister is dead.

I'm going to be dead soon, too.

You don't have to pretend to feel sorry for what you did five years ago, because it doesn't matter anymore." "What did you just say?" Her head jerked up. "What do you mean, you're going to be dead soon?" I shook my head.

I didn't say another word. Sloane stood frozen. The shock quickly curdled into defensive fury. "Do you have to act like this, Nolan?

Throwing around these extreme, twisted lies just to push everyone away? Fine.

If you want to be this stubborn." She took a sharp breath, and dropped a sentence that turned the blood in my veins to solid ice. "Believe it or not, I'll pull the plug on your sister's meds." Chapter 5 Time flatlined.

I stared at her, the woman standing in front of me suddenly twisting into a terrifying stranger. Five years ago, she threatened me to save Conrad.

Five years later, she used the exact same words just to buy off her own guilt.

And Daphne had been dead for three years. "Sloane," my voice cracked, lighter than a breath. "Get out." "Not until you agree to move out and accept my help," she pushed back, her jaw set in that familiar stubborn line. "My sister is dead," I repeated. "I don't believe you!" "Then go look it up!" I pushed my voice to the absolute limit.

A violent fit of coughing ripped through my chest. The hot, metallic taste of blood flooded my throat. "Look it up! You're a cop, aren't you?

How hard is it to pull a dead girl's file?" The coughing wouldn't stop. I doubled over, my spine bowing as heavy drops of crimson splattered against the rotting floorboards.

Sloane froze. "Nolan…" Right then, her phone buzzed. "Is this Conrad's wife? Conrad is in critical condition at the City Hospital.

You need to get here now." She hung up and bolted for the door. At the threshold, she stopped and shot a final look over her shoulder. "Nolan, wait for me.

Once I handle this emergency at the hospital, I'm going to rearrange your life. Including where we stand with each other." The ringing in my ears drowned out whatever else she said.

I collapsed onto the freezing concrete, feeling my life bleed out drop by drop. A million jagged needles drove themselves directly into my bone marrow. My lungs were on fire.

Every single breath tasted like copper. I dragged my dead weight toward the bed, my trembling fingers reaching blindly for the pill bottle on the table.

My knuckles clipped the plastic. The bottle tipped. White pills scattered across the floor, melting into the fresh pools of my blood.

The yellowed photograph fluttered down right beside them. Forget it. I stopped fighting. I lay flat on the floor, staring up at the spreading black mold on the ceiling.

The edges of my vision turned to ash. Officer Sloane, lean a little closer to Dr. Nolan! Three, two, one! In the photo, our smiles were blinding.

On the back, in faded ink: You are the evergreen tree in my life, rooted in love. The thick, dark blood seeped into the paper, blurring the words until there was nothing left.

By the time I burst through the double doors of the City Hospital ER, Conrad was already hooked up to a ventilator. The heart monitor shrieked in a continuous, highpitched frenzy.

He was thrashing against the restraints, his face a terrifying shade of purple, severe convulsions racking his limbs.

Thick white foam bubbled at the corners of his mouth. "Preliminary assessment is poisoning!" a nurse shouted over the chaos. "The patient experienced severe abdominal pain half an hour ago, followed by confusion.

He was comatose upon arrival." "Poisoning?" I gasped, my chest heaving. "What kind of poison?" I grabbed the attending's arm. "Doctor, what's his status?" The doctor scanned the lab results, his jaw tight. "It's critical.

These symptoms are incredibly rare. The toxin appears to have been specially synthesized—slowacting but highly lethal.

Captain Sloane, did Conrad come into contact with anyone or anything suspicious today?" I froze. The blood drained from my face.

Conrad's assistant sprinted into the room, gasping for air. "Captain Sloane! We just looked into it.

Nolan visited a walkin clinic this afternoon and purchased a large quantity of unidentified drugs." One of my detectives stepped through the door, his expression grim. "Captain, we pulled the security footage.

Conrad went to Nolan's apartment building yesterday. They got into a brutal physical altercation." The room started to spin. My knuckles turned white.

The doctor looked up from the chart, his voice slicing through the frantic noise. "If this is indeed a synthesized toxin, formulating it would require an extremely high level of specialized medical knowledge.

An ordinary person could never pull this off." Every single pair of eyes in the ER turned and locked dead onto me. Chapter 6 I remembered the way Nolan had choked on his own blood.

I remembered his hollow voice telling me he was going to die soon. I remembered the cheap, unlabelled pill bottle sitting on his rotting table.

Did he… did he plan this all along? "Captain Sloane," a rookie detective whispered, his eyes darting nervously to the floor. "Nolan used to be a toptier surgeon.

He has the exact medical expertise to pull something like this off…" "Arrest him." My voice scraped like sandpaper.

A heavy tremor seized my hands. "Arrest Nolan immediately." "On what charges?" "Attempted murder by poisoning." I squeezed my eyes shut, then snapped them open, the sterile ER lights burning my retinas. "I'm bringing him in myself." The patrol car tore through the city streets, sirens wailing as we headed for the slums.

I sat in the back seat, watching the neon lights blur into streaks. My stomach churned. A part of me couldn't fathom Nolan doing this.

But the evidence was a noose, and it was wrapped tightly around his neck.

The tires screeched to a halt. "Captain, we're here." I dragged a jagged breath into my lungs and kicked the door open.

I led the tactical team up the decaying stairs, stopping dead in front of that familiar, peeling door. I pounded my fist against the wood.

Silence. "Break it down." A heavy boot slammed into the lock. The door splintered open, revealing a pitchblack abyss.

Several blinding flashlight beams swept through the dark, eventually locking onto a figure on the floor. He was lying on his side.

Beneath him, a thick pool of dark crimson blood was seeping into the cracked concrete. "Nolan!" I broke through the tactical formation and dropped to my knees right beside him.

My fingers shook as I reached for his collar. "Get an ambulance! Now!" "Captain…" The tactical medic's fingers rested on his neck.

He paused for two agonizing seconds, then silently pulled his hand away. Click.

The heavy medical kit was snapped shut. "I said get a damn ambulance!" I screamed, my voice tearing at the seams. Heavy tears crashed onto his pale face.

They started out warm, but quickly turned freezing cold against his lifeless skin. I dragged his heavy, lifeless body into my arms.

Just like the way he used to hold me all those years ago. But my arms were spasming. My entire body was quaking uncontrollably. "Nolan, wake up.

Look at me." I slapped his cheek, my breath coming in jagged, broken gasps. "The ambulance is almost here. Hold on.

Daphne is still waiting for you to pay for her treatments!" His muscles were already frozen solid. He couldn't move a single inch. He had told me the truth over and over again.

Why couldn't I just believe him, just this once? The ambulance arrived, but the sirens were quickly cut off. The paramedic shook his head. "There are no vital signs.

Time of death was roughly half an hour ago." "Impossible!" I grabbed the medic's arm, my nails digging fiercely into his jacket sleeve. "He was just talking to me!

He was coughing up blood, but he was still talking!" The words left my mouth. Suddenly, all the oxygen was sucked out of the room. He was coughing up blood.

But why did I just turn around and walk away? "Captain Sloane," the medic sighed, pointing a gloved finger at the empty plastic bottle near Nolan's hand. "The deceased was already in the late stages of severe bone cancer.

Furthermore, we found numerous massive contusions and bluntforce physical trauma all over his torso…" "Bone cancer? Physical trauma?" The words felt like ground glass in my throat.

A rookie detective tentatively handed me a crumpled file folder. "Captain… Nolan was officially diagnosed with bone cancer while he was serving his sentence.

We pulled this from the penitentiary's medical archives." I stared at the wrinkled diagnostic report.

The harsh black ink stamped across the official prison letterhead seemed to crawl off the page, burning its way directly into my retinas as the suffocating truth finally wrapped its icy fingers around my throat