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“Here, get him inside.”
Warm colors and bright lights greet us when we step through the front door. This place is the furthest thing from a hospital. “Please don’t say put him on the kitchen table.” Granted it is big enough to fit at least twelve people. “Look, I’m glad he trusts you and all, but Hark needs serious medical attention.”
“Down here. I have everything ready. What happened?” Rook signals down a dark hallway.
Against my better judgment we follow, the new guy taking most of Hark’s weight over his shoulder. Hark has a good thirty pounds on him, but together we somehow manage.
We stumble down a set of narrow stairs and when Rook flicks on the lights I immediately change my mind about needing a serious hospital. I knew the doctor made house calls, but this place is on par with several private clinics I’ve visited. And then some.
Everything is either stark white or stainless steel. Several hospital beds line the walls to my left and to my right is an operating room. We bust through flapping plastic and I now see what Rook meant about being ready. Every monitor arealhospital has is fired up and the operating table is prepped for a patient. A set of utensils is lined up on a rolling table at the head. Or at least I think that is what hides under the blue cloth draped over a raised cart.
Above us hangs a massive round light putting out an intense amount of heat.
“Let me take over,” Rook offers in a deep voice to match his height. He’s taller than any man I’ve met with shoulders that resemble a Sherman tank and test the stitches of his olive-green T-shirt. If you’d asked me his profession, a doctor would not even be on the list. More like a showrunner for the WWE or an MMA fighter.
By looks alone, at the very least he could easily be confused with sharing a bloodline with the god of the sky. Long ash-blond hair runs down his back. From the top to the ends the masses are pulled back in a rigid braid that makes me kind of jealous. Unless his lover has major skills, this man is wicked-good with his fingers.
And then he speaks and you know the man is no Greek god, but of Russian blood instead. Andthatnight comes back to me in a flood of memories. The night he helped give me a reason to live again.
Rook moves in, slips an arm the size of my leg around Hark’s waist, and lifts. Two seconds later he and the new guy have him spread out on an operating table.
The large man snaps on a set of gloves. “We were in a shootout,” I start. Rook’s eyes swing to me a second, the blood on my dress and then my face.
His hand stills over a set of scissors and he looks like he’s about to round the table and throw me on another. “You hit, too, Titan?”
I can feel the new guy’s eyes latch onto me. I hold my hands up. “No, no. I’m okay. I promise,” I assure them both.
Rook nods. “Da.Good. Cuz I haven’t mastered operating on two people at once. Yet.”
His tone is matter-of-fact like dealing with gunshots in a basement is his regular MO.
Or delivering a mafia princess’ daughter in the dead of night is just another day on the job, says a small voice in my head.
“Get me warm water from upstairs.” Rook hands the man at my side a large metal bowl and points to the stairs.
“You, help me with getting his cut off.”
Cut. Not a vest. Right.
Peeling leather off someone as big as Hark is not easy.
I feel Rook hit me with knowing eyes when it’s finally off and I take the heavy thing to throw it on a nearby chair. Large drops of red hit the floor.
Those ever-piercing eyes are hard to avoid. But the woosh of air conditioning and Hark’s labored breathing are the only things between us so I make eye contact and hold it. “Don’t,” I state simply and leave it at that.
“Later. We talk.”
Not if I can help it. “Sure.”
Hark’s eyes are closed. I can’t tell if he’s conscious or really damn good at suffering in silence but I don’t want to take the chance his hearing works just fine either way. I slip my fingers into his and meld our palms together.
“Will he be okay?”
You’d think being the daughter of a mafia lord would make me immune to violence and bullet wounds, but my father kept me on the fringes and only had me learn the numbers of the business. Never the gory side. Well, almost never.
I don’t think my father trusted me with a gun in my hand after Hark died in his office and I swore I’d kill him someday.
“Little more than a flesh wound. He’ll live to get shot another day.”
