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His bruised lips form a half smile.
“Sebastian, is it true?” I say, leaning forward, whispering to him. “You’re Russian mafia?”
“Done…nothing wrong.”
I stare at him, but his eyes have slid shut again. No doubt the morphine is kicking in, mercifully easing his suffering.
I struggle with what to do. I finally land on the fact that he’s innocent until proven guilty. If the cops have a case, they’ll make it and haul his Russian ass away. But he’s asking me to help him…what do I do?
As if hearing my internal conflict, Sebastian’s eyelids rise. “Framed,” he says, “I’m a businessman…graduated from…Cornell University.”
Since when does the mafia attend Ivy League colleges? Who do I believe, him or the cops?
“Look me up…” a slight smile touches his lips though his eyes remain shut. “Google me.”
I chuckle despite the situation. “Believe me, I will, and if you don’t check out, the gun’s going straight to the authorities.”
His tortured smile widens. “What…what’s your name?”
The question catches me off guard. It’s an innocuous enough question that, technically, doesn’t violate any rules. “Uh, Madison.”
“Madison,” he whispers my name like a prayer. “My angel’s name…is Madison.”
I snort with laughter. “Trust me, I’m no angel,” I say, even as I move to hide the gun in my emergency medical bag. “But for now,” I lower my voice and whisper in his ear, “it’s hidden.”
He nods, a gentle warmth spreading across his face as he drifts into sleep.
***
“What in the world are you still doing here?” says Dr. Emma Weiss, the new chief resident. She eyes me with a mix of incredulity and wonder. “You’ve worked a double shift. Go home already.”
I stop at the main nurses’ station with her. Her green scrubs hang from her tall slender frame. Her auburn hair is pulled back into its usual ponytail. This woman lives for the job. Rumor is, she’s divorced, and her ex has their two kids. Pot, meet kettle, I want to say. But instead, I reply, “Yeah, I am in a minute. I just wanted to check on a patient before I go.”
Her finely plucked brow shoots up. “What patient can’t wait for tomorrow?”
I shrug. “The valve replacement that came in this morning. I just want to look over her charts before I go, I have some thoughts on her case.”
Emma folds her arms across her chest. “You want to run them by me? I’d be interested to hear.”
“I was reading up on a new procedure that I thought she might be a good candidate for, but it depends on how well she’s responding to the current treatment,” I say, refusing to so much as blink. Emma has only been here six weeks and I’m still trying to determine whether she’s a friend or foe.
She eyes me dubiously, then steps aside. I give her a tight smile and head down the hall. I try like hell to remember which room they placed that patient in. I purposefully stride passed Sebastian Petrosky’s room and curse myself for being so obvious. Or am I being paranoid? Emma could honestly be concerned about one of their brightest medical students burning out.
Between my rounds, and the cops always sniffing around Sebastian’s room, it’s almost impossible to make my daily checks on him. My specific attention is no longer required, but the one time I missed a day from pure exhaustion, Sebastian inquired as to where I’d been and why I hadn’t come to see him. And so, I make it a point to stop in to see him for a few minutes every day.
After I swing by the valve replacement patient (just in case Emma is watching), I make my way back down to the 3rdfloor to Sebastian’s room. I glance down the hall before entering it, relieved to find that Emma is gone.
As I move down the hall, I again question my motives. I did my research on Sebastian the night we rescued him. He is the eldest son of the late Alexi Petrosky, a Russian who was rumored to be a major crime boss back in Moscow. Alexi moved his family to the U.S. when Sebastian was eleven years old. A year or so later, Alexi had been gunned down during a business deal gone bad. His wife and youngest son returned to Moscow, while Sebastian was left behind in the U.S. to be raised by Alexi’s brother, Sergei Petrosky.
As Sergei had no male heirs, it was widely held that Sebastian was his heir apparent. Sebastian for his part performed superbly in school and went on to earn an MBA with honors from Cornell University and was then recruited by Goldman Sachs Investment Banking firm as a securities analyst. Today, he runs severallegitimateRussian import/export businesses along the East Coast as well as a small financial services company.
After a few days of interrogating Sebastian, it became apparent that the cops had no clear case against him and had found no incriminating evidence in his car. No mention at all was made of a gun or what evil it might have been used to accomplish. Based upon that, I informed Sebastian that I’d tossed his gun into the Hudson River.
It seemed to please him.Iseem to please him.
I must confess that I did, of course I did, look up images of him as all I saw was a bruised and battered face with brilliant eyes. I’m not one to be caught up in looks and outward appearance, but damn if he wasn’t one of the most gorgeous men I’d ever laid eyes on. He has a face that belongs on the cover of a Calvin Klein cologne ad and a body that looks like it hasn’t missed a single day in the gym. He wore his light brown hair a little on the long side for the business world, but he made it work.
Sebastian’s been at the hospital recovering for about a week now. He’s been moved into a private suite and is visited often by his work associates and a couple of police detectives. When I enter the room, Sebastian is sitting up in the bed tapping a text into his cell phone. His hair is neatly combed and he’s wearing a personal pajama top, burgundy, and opened at the chest where I spy a medallion around his neck. When he glances up, his expression is cold and bleak, until he realizes it’s me. A warm smile spreads across his face and it’s like the sun rising on a cold winter’s day.
