Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Pfeiffer
Nineteen nights to go.
“Fiero!” I shout again, my pitch panicked.
I glance about the now-empty lounge, my heart in my throat. “Help! Someone help him!”
Footsteps enter the room, slowly, taking in the scene, then they quicken, thudding across the carpet.
A man halts beside us and carefully pulls Fiero off me, rolling him onto his back. I leap onto my hands and knees, then the room sways. There’s so much blood.
The man beside me shoves his mask up his forehead. For a second I’m completely disarmed.
He’s younger than I’d have expected, with those dark Bellucci eyes assessing his older brother with a cold silence.
A vague recollection of Hallie’s descriptions at Fallen Angels makes me think this is Brando. I’ve never seen his face before, and what shocks me the most is how familiar he looks.
Hands tear apart Fiero’s shirt. I don’t know if they’re mine or his brother’s, but the sight beneath the cotton claws nausea up my throat. There’s a bullet wound on the right side of his upper abdomen and blood is flowing from it like a faucet.
Brando’s gaze meets mine, sharp. “You’re a nurse, right?”
I gulp.
“Can you fix him?”
“What?” I gasp. “No! He needs surgery. We need to get him to a hospital!”
Brando faces me square. “No. We can’t have the fucking authorities here. I’ll call our doc but he’s an hour away. You need to fix him, or—”
My shoulders tremble. “Or what?”
He slowly draws something out of his pocket—a long, thin blade—and turns it over in his fingers. Our eyes meet again and his expression doesn’t soften an iota.
“Or I fucking kill you.”
A shattered sob tears from my throat, then a cool hand on my arm draws my gaze back to Fiero.
“Pfeiffer—”
His lips are dry, his voice broken.
“You’re bleeding,” is all I manage to whisper.
He doesn’t seem to hear me. “Are you okay?”
I blink, confused. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
A long, pained sigh leaves his chest and he stills.
God. I have to do this. I have to try and save him. Not because his little brother will kill me if I don’t but because he put my life before his own.
It doesn’t make any sense but I can’t dwell on it. I need to somehow get the bullet out of his flesh and stop the bleeding, fast.
“Brando.”
His eyes snap to mine, dipped brows betraying just how worried he is.
“I need things.”
He’s on his feet.
“I need a trauma kit. Not a first aid box—a real one. Gauze, hemostatic if you have it. Saline. IV line. Sutures. Now.”
He moves fast.
My fingers shake as I wipe away some of the blood but it’s no use. The more I clear, the more it seems to pool.
Sounds of breaking glass and falling cupboards filter through to the lounge from the back.
“Fiero, I need you to breathe for me,” I say firmly. “Nice and slow. Full breaths.”
His lips part and he begins a ragged inhalation. Relief crashes through me so hard it almost makes me dizzy.
“Good. Keep going.”
Brando returns, dropping the kit beside us.
“I need to roll him.”
Brando lifts Fiero’s shoulder and presses a thick palm against his hip.
“And I need to remove his mask.”
A weak moan rises up from the carpet but it’s Brando I fix my stare on.
“I need to be able to see his reactions.”
Brando nods once.
Returning my gaze to Fiero, I take his mask between shaking fingers. It’s molded to his face with complete precision. It was clearly custom-made. I lift it gently, despite another faint moan, and push it up to his forehead.
My breath disappears like a puff of smoke.
He’s… beautiful.
Thick black lashes that flicker periodically—the only obvious sign he’s in pain. Deep, full brows, sharp cheekbones. His olive skin glows even though the blood has drained from it.
There’s a distinct likeness to his brother but there’s more depth to his features. Something tugs at my memory but I don’t have time to ponder it. Besides, I’ve never met these brothers before in my life. It’s possible I’ve seen pictures in the papers perhaps—that’s all.
I force my gaze to the back of his shoulder.
“There’s the exit wound,” I say on a relieved breath.
It’s better than a lodged bullet but still dangerous. There’s always a chance of internal bleeding, organ damage, infection. Shock.
Wasting no time, I flip open the box and yank on a pair of gloves. My hands are slick with sweat already.
“Can you pass me some gauze?”
Brando pulls out a packet and tears it open with his teeth. I take out the material and pack the wound both sides, as firmly as I can.
“I need you to put pressure on his back,” I tell Brando.
He does as I instruct with a deft hand. He’s clearly done this before but there must be something about seeing his older brother on death’s-door that has knocked his confidence.
With one hand pressed on Fiero’s abdominal wound, I reach for the saline with the other. Biting off the cap, I flush the wound quickly. I need to see exactly what I’m dealing with. The wound is clean and precise and there’s no bubbling, which means it missed his lung.
“IV,” I say.
Brando is already holding it out to me.
I slide the needle into Fiero’s vein, thankful to have done this a million times before, then tape it down with blood-streaked fingers.
“Can you hang it?”
Brando nods and attaches the bag to the nearest tabletop.
“Okay,” I breathe. This used to be a regular part of my job but for some reason, it’s hard to focus. Like the stakes are higher. I’m terrified I won’t be able to heal him.
“Scalpel please.”
Brando hesitates until I dart him a look.
He hands it to me and I breathe out slowly, steadying myself.
This is just another body, another wound, another shift—
Except it isn’t.
The sensation of straddling his thighs with his forehead burning into mine, our breaths dancing together in the small, heated space between us darts through my consciousness, jolting me into action.
I work quickly, cutting, wiping, making small adjustments to the torn tissue where I can, stopping what bleeding I’m able to and asking for Brando’s help with the rest.
I thread a needle, my fingers flying through the motions. I start stitching the exit wound first. It’s neat but not perfect. It’s going to have to do.
“Pfeiffer.”
I look up.
Fiero’s eyes are open and I see them clearly for the first time. Ink dark and piercing, they make his whole face come alive. The result is devastating, especially when they’re focused entirely on me, setting me off balance.
His gaze drags over my face, my pulsing throat, my blood-covered chest.
“You’re… an angel.”
Brando clears his throat and shutters come down over Fiero’s eyes. My gaze flicks between the two of them. Fiero turns his attention to the ceiling, a wince peppering his lips as I pull the thread through his skin.
Brando is glaring at him. So much for caring so hard that if I didn’t fix his brother he’d kill me. Something has gotten him pissed.
“When will the doctor be here?” I ask Brando.
His glare softens slightly and he checks his phone. “He’s twenty minutes away.”
Fiero’s gaze touches my face once more but it’s distant.
I swallow hard and look back down at the wound, stitching faster now, because if I meet his gaze again, I might forget where I am.
When the wound has been fully closed—temporarily, at least—I sit back on my heels and pack everything back into the box.
“I’ll take that,” Brando says, getting to his feet. “The doc’s out front. I’ll be right back.”
He shoots me what looks like a warning glare and stalks away, leaving me and Fiero alone, surrounded by dead bodies, broken glass, upended tables, and blood.
My fingers entwine in my lap. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “That was all my fault.”
His gaze pierces my skin. “What the fuck?”
Nerves make my shoulders tremble. When he finds out the truth, he might just kill me.
“I may have given the Irishman the wrong idea,” I say quietly. “It wasn’t my intention to. I just spoke to him like I would with any guest, but it didn’t seem enough.” I continue to stare down at my hands. “He asked me to sit with him and I said no—”
A rough hand covers both of mine easily. “Pfeiffer, it wasn’t your fault that I got shot. He was going to take you. There’s no way I’d have allowed that to happen.”
My lashes lift. “I don’t understand,” I say with a frown. “Why would he take me?”
He breathes out, eyes roaming my face. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”
I glance down at my shivering hands now toasty and warm inside his. “You saved me,” I whisper.
He gives my fingers a light squeeze. “You saved me.”
A glow passes through my chest, filling and warming every corner.
I take in the stitches, noticing now how rushed they look. “I just did what I would do for any patient.”
It’s the truth, but not the whole truth.
The full, uncensored version is that I cared just then more than I’ve ever cared for a patient in the hospital.
The brazen reality is that if Fiero hadn’t pulled through, I’d have a target on my back, and in a weird, inexplicable way, I’m not ready to say goodbye to him.
It doesn’t make any sense. This man is paying for me. He’s using me for kicks while punishing me for something my pathetic uncle did. Why would I be concerned if he suddenly dropped dead?
My chest contracts. Because there’s more to this than a debt payment.
There’s chemistry. Stupid, raw, combustible chemistry.
And feelings too familiar to dismiss as a coincidence.
Fiero and me… we have a connection I don’t think either of us expected, and while I don’t mind it, he seems to be battling it from the trenches.
The soft silence is broken by the entrance of Brando and his two other brothers, still masked, and a shorter man wearing round spectacles and carrying a doctor’s bag.
I stand, letting my fingers slip from Fiero’s, and wait for the doctor’s verdict. He gives Fiero a onceover then nods in my direction.
“Good job. I’ll take it from here.”
My voice is small. I don’t want to leave him. “Okay. Thank you.”
“Go home, Pfeiffer,” says one of the two masked brothers. “We’ll be in touch.”
My heart plummets.
“But… my next shift is tomor—”
“The club is closed,” he snaps, cutting me off.
My spine stiffens. Why does it feel like this might be the end?
I can sense Fiero watching me but I don’t return his gaze. I’m getting bad vibes from each of his brothers. It’s probably safest if I just leave.
“Okay, well. Good night.”
Then I turn and walk away, feeling strangely hollow, like I might just have left a small part of myself on the carpet.