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34
“Doctor Fuze?” I hear Dakar’s voice come through the speaker to my office. I was between surgeries, working through a migraine, and still very much processing my appointment with the OBGYN.
“Yes?” I sigh. “Has Miss Fitzsimmons arrived for her pre-op yet?” This was possibly going to be a long surgery. The woman was thirty-one, younger than me, and had to have a double mastectomy about two years ago. She’s had clean scans for the past eight months and is officially in remission. She’s getting married in July, and her fiancé is footing the bill because she wants to fill out her wedding gown.
I’m happy to help, but I have a queasy feeling, and it has nothing to do with this surgery.
“Yes, but that is not why I’m interrupting your quiet time. That skinny young man is back, looking a little rough.”
“Skinny—” I stop rolling my eyes. He better have chocolates and flowers for Saint standing me up. “Send him on through.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Dakar opens the door, and in walks Finn. “Ma’am, I was sent to stay with you.”
“Let Miss Fitzsimmons know I’ll be just a moment to say hello and see that she is prepped properly.”
Dakar nods, then closes the door. I look back to Finn. “So, did they patch you or not?” I ignore his demand for my presence.
“Um, well, if I keep you alive, I get the patch. If not, I get dead? Saint said for me to tell you that I need your guns.”
I open and close my mouth, twist my lip and narrow my eyes. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you tact? Look, I have like three weapons here, and two of them breathe. I don’t know what is going on, but I’m not giving you a pump-action shotgun to walk around with while I’m in surgery.”
“My sister tried and failed. Um, I can’t tell Saint you wouldn’t let me have it. He’ll kill me for not forcing this situation. I’d like to have sex at least once before I die.”
I laugh, “Well, I’m certainly not fulfilling that quota for you. What’s going on, I really don’t have time for craziness, and that woman out there has been kept waiting for longer than she should. So either tell me or get out of my way because you, my child, are simply not enough to stop me from going to do my job.”
“I—well—can you keep Saint from killing me?”
“Depends on what you do in the next thirty seconds as to whether he will be the least of your worries. You feel me?”
“You’re spending too much time with him. You’re starting to speak like him—”
“Twenty-six seconds.”
“The compound has been locked. There's no way in or out. I don’t know much more. I had to sneak the van out while they were in church—there was a tunnel—then I had to go to Costco for baby wipes and sweats for all the blood. They ain’t hurt—but had to go meet that Alverz guy and nobody else could get here, so I boosted a Benz. Please don’t kick my ass—I just gotta keep my eyes peeled and keep you safe till they get here.”
I run my hand over my head in frustration. “Is everyone okay? What can I do to help?”
“Um, nothing—I don’t think we are okay, and dead can’t be fixed. I was told to keep you here till we hear from them.”
“If I can’t leave, then there is no reason I can’t work.” Finn looks at me in total disbelief. “Look, I’m not worried about it because nobody who knows where I work will hurt us.” I walk back to my desk. “This place is under constant surveillance because of the kind of drugs I keep here. I know the cops that do their rotations, and yeah, I got the shotgun.” Dislodging it from beneath my desk, I give it a pump, like out of the corny-ass action movies from the eighties.
“So you’re working. Can I at least have the gun so at least I look like I’m protecting you?”
“I guess, but it and you don’t leave this room.” I give him a pointed look. “You can’t come into the operation space, and if you walk around with that, you’re more likely to shoot yourself than an intruder. I’ll turn on the surveillance system, and you can watch from here.” I tap my laptop. “It’s all hooked right in. I like to watch.” I smile, thinking about my kinky fuckery with Saint.
“Um, but how can I protect you if someone gets in?”
“Well, anyone that comes through that door after five o’clock isn’t supposed to be here, except maybe Mister Lopez, my patient’s intended, or her father, Mister Morales. They couldn’t be here early.” Finn looks at the computer screen and turns three shades of red. I forgot about the candid photo I had of Saint as my wallpaper. I mean, his face isn’t in it, as I cropped it, but anyone that has seen him without a shirt would know those tattoos, and well, now Finn is aware of just how well hung his president is in the morning.
“Can you just open the window?”
I clear my throat, “Yeah, sorry, girls gotta have something to look at when listening to boring people drone about their flaws.” A few clicks has the building’s typical nighttime surveillance going. “Cameras are rolling. Now I need to go. I have a woman's wedding dreams to fulfill.”
Leaving Finn, I do what I do best, making people feel good about themselves. “Dakar?” I stop at the front desk on my way past. “See that you get that boy some good food. He’s way too skinny, and keep your eyes open for anything weird.”
His eyes narrow, and he zeros in on me like a jungle cat. “Define weird.” I hired him not simply because he was a great assistant, but because his background check showed six years in the Israeli Army, he was well versed in violence, and as at the time, a single woman working in a male-dominated profession in a not quite yet gentrified neighborhood, I was going to need security.
