Chapter 23 - Steel and Titanium
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The surgery lasted seven hours.
I refused total general anesthesia. I demanded a spinal block instead because I refused to let my mind slip into darkness while my world was being restructured. I sat propped up on the operating table behind a blue surgical curtain, listening to the metallic clinking of bone drills, saws, and titanium pins inside the underground bunker at Pier 9.
Dr. Harrison, a brilliant former orthopedic surgeon who had lost his license years ago for operating on mobsters, wiped sweat from his brow as he finished closing the incisions on my right knee.
"You're a tough girl, Emily," Harrison said, his voice raspy from hours of intense focus. "Most men would have passed out from the shock alone. The kneecaps were crushed, but I managed to reconstruct the joint using titanium plates and four surgical screws on each side."
"Will I walk?" I asked, my voice dry as sand.
"You'll walk," Harrison replied, pulling off his bloody latex gloves. "It's going to take months of brutal physical therapy, heavy braces, and sheer willpower. But yes. You will walk again."
"Good," I said. "Because I have an empire to run."
Dad walked into the surgical suite moments after Harrison stepped out. He looked ten years older, his eyes red-rimmed and hollow. He pulled a folding chair beside my bed and sat down, staring at the white bandages wrapping both of my legs from ankle to thigh.
"Cooper is safe," Dad said quietly, taking my cold hand in his. "The vet flushed the toxins from his system. He's sleeping in my private quarters upstairs. He's going to be okay."
I let out a long, ragged breath, closing my eyes for the first time in ten hours. "Thank God."
"Emily," Dad whispered, his voice trembling. "Why did you do it? Why didn't you let me handle Brandon? I could have erased him. You didn't have to break the seal. You didn't have to take the throne."
I opened my eyes, looking at my father with a coldness that startled him. "If you handled him, Dad, I would have spent the rest of my life as a helpless victim waiting for the next husband to break my bones. You tried to protect me by keeping me weak. That ends today."
May you like
Dad bowed his head, unable to meet my gaze. "What are your orders, Sovereign?"
"Bring me the master ledgers from the black envelope," I commanded. "If I'm going to rule the Syndicate, I need to know every politician, judge, and police chief we own before the sun comes up."
