Chapter 6 Claire
CLAIRE
“That was a rush.”
I smiled at the nurse who'd just finished helping me with a patient who came just in the nick of time to deliver her babies. Despite the call up to the maternity ward, there was no hope to transport the woman up there in time. Her first daughter was crowning as she was wheeled into the emergency room, and because of how quickly her baby was descending, she had to give birth down here. The second twin wasn’t waiting either, and it really was a rush.
The urgency.
The excitement.
The experience of watching proud but freaked-out parents bringing new lives into the world.
Sometimes, it was nice to help out with emergencies that weren’t full of gore and gloom.
Of violence and chaos. Sometimes, it was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
Should that young woman ever want more children, I had a strong hunch she’d pay attention to her body more acutely and realize what active labor was like quicker than she had this time.
“It was,” I agreed.
“And I bet you’ll be delivering many more babies when you go off on that missionary program.” She smiled and looked me over. “I almost envy you.”
That wasn’t something I heard often, not about missionary work.
It wasn’t only altruism that had me signing up for it and already putting in the paperwork for the sabbatical, despite just starting here.
It was the desperate need for something else.
Something new and foreign because somewhere in my delusions, I thought that finding a new “normal” without my parents or a family would be easier if I tacked it on to a new “normal” of life after a mission in the extremes of weather and civilization.
“I would love to travel like that.” The young nurse sighed wistfully.
“It’s not a vacation,” I replied.
“I know. But, like, it would be so exciting!”
You could always be a traveling nurse…
I didn’t have time to advise her about an alternative career path because someone else arrived.
“Need some help here,” a man called out.
At first sight, I cringed.
Again?
More of these mobsters already?
My head threatened to spin with the constant of violence around here. Talk about an extreme of civilization. With the rate of these Mafia men shooting up the city, they reduced New York to something like a dystopian hellscape.
“Are you kidding me?” I muttered as I hurried forward to help the two men dragging another in. Flanked by the pair of strong-looking suited men, the older guy hung his head. Short blond hair was matted with blood as he was dragged in limply, clearly unconscious.
“He was drugged and shot,” the man on the left reported. “Gunshot to his right arm.”
I nodded curtly, understanding the process of triage would be shifted here. Collecting information would end up being a broken-up and backward process, but it would have to wait.
Stabilizing a patient came first, and that was what we prioritized. With the charge nurse, an older woman instead of Fatima today, I ordered a couple of nurses and techs to assist me with getting the wounded and unconscious man wheeled into a room.
Stethoscope in hand and calling out orders to those around me to better equip me to assess this man, I worked quickly. We all did. In the systemic flurry of movements that was standard in this environment, we hustled to inventory what we were working with.
“Lots of bleeding down here,” the nurse reported, cutting away at the open gash in his pants. Torn apart from something that had cut him already, the fabric gave way and we collaborated as a team to remove his clothes to better assess his injuries.
“One of those guys handed over this,” a tech said as they joined the efforts. She dropped a baggie with a tranq dart in it. It sat on the counter of the small space, and I frowned at it.
“He was tranq’d,” the tech said. “Looks like something used on horses.”
I nodded, compressing the open wound while preparing to debride it and clean it out.
Keeping my hands busy to slow the blood loss, I called out orders for blood work and labs.
A tox screen would be most accurate to tell us what he was given, but I agreed with the tech.
The dart was something used on horses, and I’d know it because of my childhood of riding lessons and being in the stables near vets.
For two hours, we worked on the man. He didn’t wake once, but my confidence grew that he would be fine.
His vitals were tracking well. Even though he looked older, perhaps in his late forties, he was fit.
Muscled. Rugged. All that taut skin and those sinewy tendons proved that this John Doe took care of himself.
But not so well that he’d avoid being shot and drugged.
I kept my judgment to myself, oddly intrigued about this man. Even though he was unconscious, a dangerous aura emanated from him. As though in sleep, he was still a force to be reckoned with.
Why do I feel like I’ve seen you before?
I furrowed my brow, checking his vitals and reading the lab results that had just been sent in. A nurse left the room, leaving me with the patient as he rested comfortably. Stitched up and physically set up to recover from whatever he’d endured to get here, he lay still on the bed.
His heart thumped steadily, and his respiration cycles evened out.
Everything looked good in the labs. Not a single thing worried me in terms of the blood loss, any signs of infection, or anything else that could be a concern with a gunshot wound to his upper arm and what looked like a grazing of a bullet on his inner thigh.
I glanced at him, taking in another look of his masculine face, all those taut lines and sharp angles that made him seem like he’d been chiseled from stone.
You’re lucky that shot didn’t get you another inch over…
My cheeks heated up with the indecent thought. Making an offhand and inappropriate joke to myself about his not wounding that appendage wasn’t like me. But something drew me toward this hulk of a man, this dangerous and strong patient I needed more information from.
The two men who’d brought him in had left. Without a word. Without any contact information, it was like they’d dropped him off and dumped him here.
But we needed to know more. His medical history. What happened.
Deep down, I warred with a personal curiosity that shocked me.
Maybe it was just because he’d been shot with a tranq dart and was vulnerable.
That could be why I was reluctant to leave his side.
Or perhaps it was because he seemed like such an enigma, a stranger with no ID at all.
That wish to make sure he didn’t feel alone when he woke up peeved me.
Who are you?
I lowered the tablet, satisfied with the results of the lab work. Peering at him instead, I strained to figure out why he seemed so familiar.
Was he here last week after that bombing?
Do all of them just look the same?
It wouldn’t be smart to assume anything about a man like you.
Why do I care?
Furrowing my brow, I grew uneasy with why he was intriguing me this much. I saw and met so many people in my line of work. So many different people came in and out of my life, but this man was in a league of his own.
Snaring me with this… awareness.
The door opened and I flinched. Jarred out of this trance-like wonder about this man, I stepped back from the bed and looked up to see Jack entering.
“Sounds like I missed out on some excitement earlier when I was off at my meeting.”
“Oh, right. The delivery of the twins,” I said with a slight smile.
He stepped closer to the mystery man and frowned. “No, I meant him.” Smirking as he looked over the unconscious patient, he held his hand up, as if to ward me back. “Another one of those fucking Orlovs.”
“You know who this man is?” I asked, surprised by the curt and cool tone he’d spoken with.
“He’s no one you want to mess with,” he replied in a more clipped tone than before.
“I’m not messing with him. I was saving his life.” As I was expected to! Shocked by Jack’s instant dislike, I dug in my heels more. I wasn’t leaving this room now. I wasn’t backing away at all.
“I’m not sure he’s worth saving,” he retorted as he took the tablet and skimmed the results.
“What the hell?” I took the tablet and stepped closer, almost blocking his view of the man. “Jack.”
“Claire, you don’t understand. A man like him…” He shook his head. “He’s not— Just stand back.” As he reached for his phone, he gave me a frown of disapproval. “I’ll call the cops now and have him arrested.”
My jaw dropped. I let out an indignant huff. “You will not!”
He furrowed his brow, staring me down. “Claire, you don’t understand who this man is. Who he might be.”
“No, I do not,” I said, agreeing. “Until he wakes up or those other men can vouch for his identity, I do not know who this is. But I am certain that whoever he is, he should not be arrested in this state. He needs critical care. Supervision after those wounds. Not to be subjected to an arrest and transported in this fragile moment.”
“Fragile?” He smiled meanly and laughed once. “You’re calling a member of the Orlov family fragile. That’s rich.”
I had no clue who the Orlovs were. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. But I refused to let Jack order this man to be moved before he was more stable for transportation or anything else.
“Out,” I ordered.
He dipped his brows at my order.
I pointed at the door, marching him backward to exit with me. “He is my patient. And until I discharge him, you will not do anything to hinder his recovery.”
“Claire—”
I didn’t stop, making him backpedal out of the room. “No.” Shaking my head, I wondered if I should have security watch over this door.
It seemed like that wouldn’t be necessary, though, because the two men who’d brought the man in were striding down the hall now as if they were looking for him.
They couldn’t have been told where he was. No nurse or lobby employee would’ve divulged information like that, and with my patient still sleeping, it wasn’t as though anyone entered his personal information into the registration process.
While I was alarmed by these two men helping themselves to walking through the department, I was more bothered by Jack’s immediate insistence that this man was some kind of villain to be moved to police custody. Not now. Not yet. He wasn’t even awake yet!
“You will not be calling anyone about my patient or discuss his medical information,” I warned Jack, surprising myself with how natural it was to defend the unconscious man lying naked and recovering in that room behind me.
“Who do you plan to call, Doctor?” the taller man asked as they approached.
Jack backed up, hardening his expression at the pair of them.
“How about we take a walk and chat?” the other man suggested. His smile was charming but his tone was too cunning. He wasn’t asking Jack to speak with them. He was ordering it as they steered him down the hall.
I frowned after them, concerned and bewildered about this situation.
Nervous to leave the man unattended—and eager to know just who he was—I retraced my steps until I opened the door and slipped back inside again to watch over him.
Who are you?
I frowned as I watched him sleep.
And why can’t I stay away?