Page 128 of Dirty Pool

“I’ll be there,” he barked into the phone at his father, “tell her I’ll fucking be there, Dad.”

It was a first birth—so the labor could take hours. Days, even, for some women. Michel knew that, so he didn’t rush, not that he could have, anyway. He worked with the trauma team and the rescue crew to pull the victims out of their crushed cars without losing their life.

It didn’t work for all.

They lost three more before it was said and done.

Michel was on route to the trauma center with one victim who had been flattened under a large piece of cement that fell directly on top of his car—his body was crushed, and somehow, the man was alive. They couldn’t say the same for his wife, but they hadn’t told him that yet. It was better he didn’t know in the current state he was facing, and everything was literally second by second.

It all counted.

That was thirty-six hours after the first call about his wife.

“Michel, you’ve got an emergency family call!”

That was thrown at him as he slipped into trauma bay one to start one of many surgeries that would hopefully save the crushed man’s life. It was a long shot, but nobody wanted to say it out loud. They had to try—it’s what the patient asked.

“Michel!”

“Put them on the speaker for the bay,” he shouted behind his mask, hands up and safe from touching anything as he backed through the door being held open for him. “That’s the best I can do right now.”

Time was still crucial. The more seconds they wasted, the more likely it was that they would lose the man on the table.

The speakers for the trauma bay crackled as Michel glanced at the monitor tracking the man’s vitals—the numbers weren’t great, but that’s about what he expected. It was going to be touch and go for this first surgery, and it would determine if they would be capable of taking him in for the second, too.

Then, the room went quiet as the speakers suddenly got loud.

Michel glanced upward.

So did everyone else.

A baby cried.

Strong, and beautiful, and perfect.

He didn’t need anyone to tell him. A part of him just knew—deep in his fucking heart, so visceral and raw—that it was his son’s cry. He made that child; that boy came from him, and he knew the cry belonged to what was his.

Quietly, Michel said, “Tell my wife I will see her soon.”

And then, to the rest of the room, he added, “Let’s get to work—call cardio again. They should have been down here already. I want Jessi on this man’s heart while we have his torso opened. Two minutes.”

• • •

Twelve hours later …

How long had Michel been awake?

He didn’t know.

Too long, maybe.

The smart part of his brain knew this was bad. He couldn’t function on so little sleep that he was almost falling over as the elevator continued climbing. Somehow, he managed it, but he wasn’t at all sure how.

It felt like he blinked, and he was standing in front of his father. A door was opened, and despite the light shining in from the windows inside the private hospital room, it still seemed like he was in a sleepy daze.

And then he saw her.

And him.