Chapter 19
BOLT
Nicoletta’s head lolls against my shoulder.
“C’mon, babe, you gotta stay awake.” I jostle her against me, and when she moans, I feet like a total shit.
Diesel’s t-shirt along with my hand are soaked with her blood. “She’s bleeding out. We gotta pull over.”
I spy a gas station up ahead. Perfect. “Pull into the side of that gas station,” I tell Manny.
He looks at Smoke, and when Smoke nods, Manny pulls the SUV off the road. We park at the far side of the building, and he keeps watch in the rear-view mirror.
I ease away from Nicoletta, open the door and retrieve the first-aid kit from the cargo space. I unzip it, already knowing what I need. Says a lot about my life. Gauze, med tape, and antiseptic.
I cut away more of her gown. “Flesh wound,” I say more to myself.
Diesel pulls out the antiseptic and hands it to me.
I hold it in front of her face. “This is gonna feel cold, then sting.”
I drench the wound, and she sucks air through her teeth, then clenches her jaw.
“I know, babe, it hurts like a bitch.”
Diesel unwraps the sterile gauze and hands it to me. I press it to her side, and she arches her back off the seat.
“Keep it together, babe,” Blood says. “You’re doin’ great.”
I pull off the length of tape, tear it with my teeth, then press the edges down against her skin. I shove everything back in the bag, toss it in the back, and gently lift her onto my lap.
Diesel leans in to take a look. “That should keep the bleeding down till we hit Long Beach.”
I sure the fuck hope so, but I keep that to myself. Nicoletta is half out of it, but I know she can hear us.
“Call the Seashell make sure the doc is there,” I say to Diesel.
“Where the hell else is he gonna be?” Diesel smirks. “He owns the place and lives in the back.”
“Just call him,” I repeat.
Forty minutes later, Manny pulls up to the front of The Seashell, a squat single-story building a block off the beach. The air smells like salt and neglect, with a single light over the door and a neon sign half burnt out, making it The Sea*hell. Accurate description.
I ease out from under a now delirious Nicoletta and head for the front door as Manny pulls the SUV around the back.
At one in the morning, the bar is filled with washed-out surfers and locals with nowhere else to go.
I pick out Dr. Ezra Callahan perched at the end of the bar with no problem.
This guy has been patching me up since way before I was a Royal Bastard.
He’s maybe fifty-five, salt-and-pepper scruff along his jaw, shaggy hair pulled into a long braid halfway down his back, and the bored expression of someone who’s seen too much of life.
I move to his side at the bar, and he turns to me. “What the hell are you all dressed up for?” Then looks me over. “You don’t look in need of a doctor.”
I haven’t seen the guy in over a year, and it’s like I just saw him yesterday.
“It ain’t me.” I jerk my chin to the back of the room. “Your patient is around back.”
He nods, slides off the barstool, and heads for the back of the bar.
I catch the bartender’s eye, then nod at the empty tumbler on the bar. “How many has he had?”
The bartender shrugs. “Not many.”
I push off the bar and catch up with Callahan.
His pace seems steady, and he’s definitely in better shape than when he sewed me up last year.
Fuckin’ guy could barely stand upright, but he managed twenty stitches in my forearm.
Doesn’t matter though ‘cause right now, he’s our only choice for getting Nicoletta patched up.
I follow him into a room just past the restrooms. Then he unlocks the door leading out to the alley, and Diesel steps inside, cradling Nicoletta.
I move to her side. “We’re gonna get you all fixed up, babe.”
A pool table pushed against the far wall, its green felt surface draped with a surgical sheet, serves as an examining table.
A rolling tray sits beside it, instruments laid out and covered in sterile wrapping with a neatness that doesn't match the dinginess of the bar.
Stacked kegs sit in the corner, and a faded Zeppelin poster curls off the wall above the emergency exit.
A surgical light — the real kind, adjustable arm, daylight bulb—is clamped to a shelf beside a basin of water.
Diesel eases Nicoletta onto the sheet, and when I stroke her arm, her eyes flicker open, wide and scared, then her head twists from side to side.
“It’s okay, babe. Doc is gonna help you.”
Callahan snaps on a pair of surgical gloves, then cuts away the rest of Nicoletta’s dress and tosses it to the floor.
“So much for giving Marisol back her gown,” Nicoletta mumbles.
“She’ll get over it,” Smoke says from the back of the room.
He covers Nicoletta’s lower body with a sheet then eases the surgical tape and the gauze away from the wound before gently probing the area. She squirms and winces, and my hands ball into fists. That bastard Williams is gonna pay for this one.
“We’re gonna take care of you, hun, but first I’ve got a few questions.” Callahan shines the light on the area. “Any numbness below the waist? Tingling?”
Nicoletta shakes her head.
“Does it hurt to breathe? Any pains in your chest?” He changes the direction of the gooseneck lamp.
Again, she shakes her head.
“Good.” He presses higher, closer to her ribs, then looks at the wound again.
“You’re lucky the bullet went clear through.
” He looks at me. “You did a good job dressing it. I’m thinking you’ve had as much practice with stabbings and gunshots as me.
” He ends with a cocky grin, and if it were me on the table, I would’ve grinned back.
"How long ago did this happen?" he asks me.
I glance at my phone. “Little over an hour ago.”
He rips open more gauze, then holds it firmly to her side, and this time she doesn’t flinch. I don’t know what to think about that.
When he lifts the gauze, the bleeding has slowed. “Also lucky you didn’t hit any arteries.”
Nicoletta’s eyes are trained on Callahan like they’re the only two in the room.
Callahan lifts a syringe off the tray. “This is going to sting, then it’s going to burn.
NICOLETTA
The doctor’s voice floats just above me. I know every word he’s saying, but it’s like he’s talking to someone else in the room.
The initial prick of the needle is bearable, but the promised burning is overwhelming. A groan I didn’t plan creeps up my throat.
“I know,” Callahan’s steady, knowing voice calms me. “The epinephrine is the worst. The next few shots you won’t feel at all. Promise.” His lips quirk up, and for some reason I believe him.
This tall, lanky stranger, dressed in worn jeans and a faded t-shirt advertising the bar has kind eyes and a thick, braided ponytail halfway down his back.
“We’ll give it a minute for the shots to set in, then we’ll continue.” Callahan’s eyes shift to Bolt. “Don’t you know better than to get a girl like this shot?”
My tired brain examines his words, but he doesn’t say them with malice, more like intrigue.
“Yeah, that’s a long fuckin’ story,” Bolt answers.
Callahan shakes his head. “It usually is with you.”
He moves back to the table and presses two fingers against the wound. “Feel that?”
I shake my head. Miraculously, the intense burning and overall pain has subsided too.
He makes a few more injections I don’t feel, then exchanges that syringe for a larger one. “Now we clean it. Most important thing I’ll do.”
“Really?” I like that he’s talking and telling me what he’s doing.
“Bullet isn’t what usually kills people—it’s the infection if we don’t clean it out good.”
The only thing I feel is the pressure of the fluid being washed over my side. He does this many times, then picks up forceps, angles the light closer, and examines the wound.
“Gotta make sure there’s no fibers or anything else that doesn’t belong inside you.”
Callahan works in silence for a stretch. Clean, deliberate movements. No wasted motion. Whatever brought him to the back room of a nameless Long Beach bar, his hands have not forgotten what they were trained to do. This man is hardly the quack or renegade I imagined.
“Why aren’t you practicing in a hospital or regular office?” I ask.
"The state of California disagreed with me on a technicality."
"What technicality?"
"The kind that has a file number and a court date attached to it.”
I feel more pressure, then a rhythmic, methodical tugging and cutting of sutures. The thought makes me queasy, so I keep talking. "What did you do?"
He’s quiet for a moment. At the end of the table, Bolt shifts his weight.
"I treated people who needed treating," Callahan says finally.
"The wrong people, according to the licensing board.
People who couldn't walk into an ER for the same reasons you're lying on my pool table right now instead of lying in an emergency room in Santa Monica.
" He reaches for a sealed packet. "Medicine is supposed to be about the patient.
It took me too long to accept the institution doesn't always agree. "
I stare at the watermarks in the ceiling. "Does it bother you?" I ask. "What you gave up?"
"Every day," he says simply. "Now hold still. This part requires your full cooperation.”