The Reborn Tycoon: Taking Back My Life

Rescued

Meanwhile, in the Zwartebos Forest.

"What was that sound? A wild boar? Or... have those bastards sent by my family already found me?" Sienna muttered quietly.

"There's no way they found me this fast. I already destroyed all the trackers in that car," Sienna said to herself, trying to calm her suddenly racing heart. She immediately extinguished the oil lamp on her cabin's wooden table.

"But my father is no fool. If they found me tonight, I'd rather die fighting than return to that cursed house."

The woman pressed her ear against the damp wooden wall. Outside, the rain was still raging, masking most of the sounds of the Zwartebos Forest. However, Sienna's trained hearing could catch even the slightest noise.

"Let's just hope it isn't a wild boar," Sienna whispered curiously.

Sienna grabbed a long-barreled hunting rifle from behind the door, pumped a shell into the chamber with one smooth pull, and stepped out into the bone-chilling rain. Her plastic raincoat flapped violently in the night wind. She crept stealthily toward the overflowing river.

"Who's there? Come out right now or I'll blow your head clean off!" Sienna shouted over the roaring river, her rifle aimed straight into the darkness. "I'm not joking! Show your hands this instant!"

There was no answer. Only an eerie silence, answered by a clap of thunder. Sienna slowly lowered the barrel of her rifle, clicked on a high-powered flashlight, and swept the rocky riverbank. The beam of light finally stopped on a human body wedged between a fallen tree trunk and sharp rocks. Half of the man's body was already submerged in the ice-cold river water.

"Good lord! Hey, Mister! Are you still alive?" Sienna called out as she sprinted closer, tossing her rifle onto the wet grass.

Sienna roughly rolled the man's body over. The flashlight beam illuminated a face utterly destroyed and drenched in blood from a long slash, along with a stomach torn wide open. The man groaned incredibly softly, barely louder than the night breeze.

"Damn it. You're still breathing. Please don't die here just yet, you bastard. I don't want the cops sniffing around my hideout cabin because of your corpse," Sienna said in a cold yet brisk tone.

"Help... me..." the man mumbled weakly, his voice muffled by the pouring rain.

"Keep your mouth shut and save your strength. You need immediate surgery," Sienna cut him off quickly.

Sienna slipped her hands under the man's armpits. With strength entirely unexpected for a slender woman, she hauled the CEO's massive, half-naked body out of the river.

"Come on, stand up a little! Use your legs if you don't want to rot in this place and get eaten by wild animals!" Sienna snapped, forcing the man to keep his nervous system responding to stimuli.

Martin could only let out a hoarse groan, his consciousness lingering on the absolute brink of death. His legs dragged limply across the gravelly mud.

Sienna dragged the heavy body through the mud toward her wooden cabin. She kicked the cabin door wide open and hoisted the man's body onto the wooden dining table in the middle of the room. Thick blood instantly pooled across the grimy surface.

"Listen to me very carefully," Sienna slapped his cheek quite hard. "Open your eyes! Open your eyes right now!"

The man's eyes fluttered half-open. He stared at the beautiful yet extremely fierce face above him through a blurry gaze. "Cold... my stomach... it hurts so much..." the man whispered in despair, his breath hitching.

"Of course it hurts! Someone just brutally ripped your stomach open and threw you off a cliff. Now, I need you to stay conscious while I work. What is your name?" Sienna demanded as she dashed to a wooden cabinet, pulling out a fully stocked emergency medical kit.

"Martin... my name is Martin... Whitlock..."

Sienna froze for a second upon hearing that last name, her eyes narrowing sharply at the disfigured man on the table. "Whitlock? Are you one of those bloodsucking conglomerate families from downtown Amsterdam?"

Martin didn't respond; his eyes began to close again as he fought the searing pain.

"Hey! Don't you dare close your eyes while I'm talking to you!" Sienna slammed her hand on the table right next to Martin's ear. "Good, Martin. I am Doctor Sienna. You are incredibly lucky you washed up near my territory tonight. But the bad news is, my equipment here is extremely limited. I am going to operate on you right now, on this very dining table."

"To... a hospital... please take me to a hospital. I will pay you whatever amount of money you want," Martin whimpered, trying to lift his trembling, blood-soaked hand.

Sienna roughly swatted Martin's hand back down to the table. "The nearest hospital is forty kilometers away from here! This insane storm will get my car stuck on the muddy roads. Before we even reach the asphalt, every last drop of blood will have drained from your body. Do you want to die on the road tonight, or wake up alive on this table tomorrow morning?"

"Live... I have to live... I have to kill him..." Martin replied, a sudden, blinding vengeance flaring to life in his bloodshot eyes.

"Good. Hold tightly onto that rage. Hatred is the absolute best painkiller. It will keep your heart beating stronger than any medical adrenaline ever could," Sienna said with a faint, mysterious smile.

She cranked up a small generator in the corner of the room, flicking on several blindingly bright portable surgical lights, and attached heart monitor electrodes to Martin's broad chest.

The machine began to beep at a painfully slow, weak tempo. Beep... beep... beep...

"I don't have general anesthesia," Sienna snipped away the remains of Martin's shirt until his torso was completely bare. She poured a massive amount of antiseptic liquid directly over the gaping wound on Martin's stomach.

"Aaaaargh!" Martin screamed, arching his back off the table, his chest muscles tensing extremely as he endured an agonizing sting that felt like it was burning his flesh alive.

"Quiet! Stop moving around so much! I only have liquid local anesthesia; this will only numb your outer skin, not your internal organs. You are going to feel my scalpel slicing and digging into your flesh. Bite down on this hard!" Sienna mercilessly shoved a clean, rolled-up towel into Martin's mouth.

Martin bit down on the towel with all his might. The veins in his neck bulged. His eyes widened in indescribable agony.

Sienna snapped on thin latex gloves and a surgical mask. Her movements were incredibly calm, cold, and mechanical; entirely devoid of the panic a general practitioner might show when treating an attempted murder victim. Sienna had seen bullet wounds and dagger stabs far too often throughout her family's dark history.

"The slash on your face can wait. Your face is ruined, but your stomach is the main issue that's going to kill you," Sienna stated, staring down at the gaping tear in Martin's abdomen. "The knife that stabbed you had highly serrated edges. The bastard who stabbed you yanked the blade out violently. Your large intestine is safe, but I can't see the source of the bleeding in there. The blood is pouring out way too fast."

Sienna used stainless steel retractors to stretch the wound wider. Martin let out a stifled growl from behind the towel he was biting. Cold sweat poured heavily down his forehead and temples.

"Your blood pressure is dropping drastically, Martin! Eighty over fifty! Take longer, slower breaths!" Sienna commanded, her eyes glaring intensely into the abdominal cavity flooded with fresh blood. "Damn it! The bleeding is coming from a deep artery. The space is too narrow; I can't get my clamps in there without damaging other organs!"

Sienna looked up at Martin's face, which was now turning as deathly pale as a corpse. His lips had already turned completely blue.

"Listen to me very carefully, Martin," Sienna leaned forward, staring directly into Martin's eyes, which were beginning to lose focus. "I have to make a new horizontal incision. I need to slice your wound into a cross-shape so I can fit my entire hand inside and clamp down on your severed blood vessel. This is going to be excruciating. Far more painful than your first stab wound. Do you understand me?!"

Martin weakly shook his head, tears streaming rapidly from the corners of his eyes. He couldn't endure this agony any longer. He just wanted to give up and die.

"Don't act like a weak loser! You said you wanted to kill him, didn't you? Revenge requires you to be alive, Mr. Whitlock! Grip the edge of this table tightly, right now!" Sienna barked, forcefully yanking the towel out of Martin's mouth.

"Do it... do it right now! Cut me open!" Martin roared, surrendering his entire fate with the very last ounce of his life force.