Chapter 5 #2
That’s what had burned him with his father. Believing Alden Jenkins was a nice guy, when in the background, he was terrorizing people and arranging their deaths. Eventually, Mack had been forced to face the fact that his father was abusive to his family as well.
In time, he would realize that he was in denial about Kira in the same way. Luca would break it to him gently, but Mack needed to realize that people were usually someone other than who you thought they were. And most folks couldn’t be trusted. That was just the way this fallen world worked.
He’d seen way too much evil to believe otherwise.
Luca knew who the people were in this world that he could trust, and he would happily lay his life down for them. He didn’t need to widen his circle of who he put faith in. That would only burn him when someone inevitably stabbed him in the back—like a doctor who wasn’t just a doctor.
Making the world a safer place for people to raise their families was the reason he did everything he did. And that included keeping Mack safe from himself.
“Maybe I am too suspicious,” Luca said. “But it’s kept me alive this far.”
And for everyone’s safety, he needed to find out what Kira was up to.
Kira stood at the end of the hospital bed.
“As far as I’m concerned, you’re good to go home.
” She looked down at the iPad in her hands and the last set of test results.
“Your vitals are good, and your blood work came back clear. But if you have any more lightheadedness, go see your primary care physician. Okay?”
The patient nodded, relief on his face. His wife stood beside his bed, holding on to his arm, a whole lot more worry in her features than in his. She sniffed, brushing hair back from her face with one hand. “You’re sure he’s going to be okay?”
“As long as he’s keeping down food and doesn’t take a fall, you should be good.” Kira looked at the patient. “Just take it easy for a few days and get some rest.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
The wife nodded. “Yes, thank you, Doctor.”
Kira headed out to the nurses’ station and handed the iPad over to Martin. “No partner in crime today?”
He grinned, revealing a cracked tooth in front. “Rebecca went away for the weekend with her sister.”
“Oh boy. I don’t want to know what the two of them are going to get up to.”
Martin tipped his head back and laughed.
“Could you draw up discharge papers for Mr. Salazar, please?”
He nodded. “Yeah, no problem.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Anything new come in?”
The last thing she needed after yesterday was a quiet night. But that seemed like what was going to happen, whether she liked it or not. It made her want to take a break, sit and have a discussion with the Lord about what she needed versus what He was giving her.
But maybe that was a bad idea. Not the part where she was being honest with Him about how she felt about her life. The problem was more that she knew God would do what was best for her, which wasn’t always what she wanted, and she’d rather complain about it.
I do want to grow. To build a stronger faith. Even if I don’t like how that happens.
Martin clicked the mouse on his computer. “Dr. Barnett took the new patient that came in. Fifty-seven-year-old male in cardiac distress.”
“Let me know if anyone else comes in.” She had a few patients she could check on, awaiting X-rays or tests.
Or simply people they were observing for a little while before they were either admitted or discharged.
But it felt a whole lot like doing laps of the same area and expecting to find something different every time she swung by a patient’s bay.
She walked over to check on Dr. Barnett and his patient, but before she even reached the curtain, Destiny Rousseau stepped out. The woman flushed when she saw Kira.
“I’m so glad it’s you.” Destiny rushed over and flung her twiggy arms around Kira.
Kira hugged the other woman back, and Destiny said, “It’s Ralph.
He just collapsed, saying his arm hurt. I had no idea what to do.
Thankfully, an associate of Ralph’s showed up and called an ambulance.
I was just so—” She waved her hands in front of her face, the movement almost frantic.
“I understand.” Kira touched Destiny’s shoulders and looked into the bay to see Dr. Barnett talking to the nurse.
Kira’s gaze drifted to the monitors, but she couldn’t read the heart rate from this distance.
They didn’t need her help. She didn’t need to go in there and take over.
She would be of more use talking to Destiny right now.
She said, “Does he have a history of heart problems?”
“The EMTs asked me the same thing. I have no idea! Ralph has always been as healthy as a horse. That’s why he bounced back so fast after those bullies tried to kill him.”
Kira nodded, thinking it might also have been the exorbitant sum they’d paid for top-tier private care in Denver. “It does seem like he got his strength back quickly. That’s good. It could help him recover from this in the same way.”
“Assuming whoever did this to him doesn’t try again.” Destiny pushed back her hair with both hands and touched her cheeks, looking a little shellshocked.
Kira frowned. “Do you think someone did this to him?” She pointed toward Ralph, passed out on the bed.
“Ralph isn’t just going to grab his arm and fall over for no reason. Obviously someone tried to poison him.” Destiny gasped. “It’s because he’s a threat to their business. But he hasn’t told anyone anything!”
“If you suspect this was a personal attack, you should tell the police what you know.” They would be able to reassure Destiny that there was no reason for her to worry.
Unless she was right and Ralph had been receiving continued death threats in the months since his capture.
Still, from everything Kira could see, this looked more like a run-of-the-mill heart attack.
One that had nothing to do with him being shot months ago.
“If you believe his life is in danger, perhaps you could seek protection.”
Destiny nodded. “I’m going to tell the police he’s in danger. It’s because they haven’t caught the culprit yet.”
“I can call the police department for you and have a couple of detectives come by to interview you. Once Ralph is stable, of course.”
“If they figure out what was done to him, the doctors will be able to reverse it. Right?”
“It’s usually not that straightforward. But everyone will do everything they can to make sure Ralph is stabilized and that he pulls through.” She touched Destiny’s shoulder. “Don’t worry.”
Most of the time, it was pointless to tell someone not to worry. But people still needed to hear it. They needed to rest in the fact that the professionals were taking care of the situation and that their loved one was in good hands.
“Do you want me to make a call to the police?”
Destiny wavered. “Let’s wait until Ralph wakes up. Then he can decide what to do.”
Kira had never heard Destiny defer to her husband in this way before, but it made sense in this situation. Acting rashly and declaring this to have been attempted murder might not be the best way for Ralph to recover without stress in his life.
“You just let me know.” At the end of the hall, a familiar figure stepped into view.
Luca Saxon, wearing dark blue khakis and a polo shirt with a white embroidered logo she couldn’t make out.
He carried a clipboard and pen and had his phone clipped to his belt.
A security badge hung from his left pocket.
She squeezed Destiny’s shoulder and strode over to Luca. “May I ask what you’re doing in my department?”
She shouldn’t like the way his hair looked, pulled back like that and secured behind his head in a bun.
When she’d first met him, his hair had been short and more of a military style.
Since then, he had grown it out long enough he could tie it back, and now she could honestly say she preferred it long—and wanted to see what it looked like down.
She shouldn’t like anything about him.
“Yes, you may.” Humor lit his gaze. As if she had been trying to be funny. “But if you think about it, you already know.”
And here she’d assumed that he’d come to spy on her or something. “Right, the Marshals job.”
“I’m doing an inventory of the hospital security system and all measures in place, and then we need to find the best spot where the patient can be protected.”
She nodded. “I took a look at the procedure. It’s cutting-edge but has a lot of promise. The doctor who’s going to treat him is one of the best in his field, and he’s a local. Although, he’s very aloof and not many people know much about him.”
“That sounds about right for a clandestine operation like this.” He looked around at the nurses’ station, then the bays that lined the hallway.
She didn’t glance back to see if Destiny was watching them. She had probably gone back into the room with her husband.
“You like it here?”
Kira wasn’t sure he needed a rundown of every issue she had or all the ways she thought this was a great place to work. “In a sense, one emergency department is like any other. There are differences, but medicine is medicine. People get hurt or sick, and we treat them to the best of our ability.”
Okay, so the end of that sounded a little defensive. But why wouldn’t she feel the need to do that? He stood four inches taller than her and was currently looking down his nose with a slight frown between his brows.
“So Renegade is what brought you here?”
“It seemed like as good a place as any to start over.”
The skin around his eyes contracted. Yeah, because she’d just told him there was a reason she felt the need to start over.
“And it just happened to be where I live?”
She folded her arms. “You didn’t live here when I moved here.” This was Hammer’s hometown, not Luca’s. “So the real question is, why did you move to a city that just happened to be where I live?”
“We may be at an impasse on that one.”
“I don’t have any ulterior motives. I live here, and I’m good at my job. I’m not sure why you’d have a problem with any of that.” Or why it seemed like he thought she might’ve moved here because of him.
It just happened to be a place she had come across when looking into his team’s backgrounds. She could just as easily have wound up in Baltimore, where Luca actually grew up. Or in Last Chance County, where Kane was from. So she had chosen this spot. So what?
“Did I say I had a problem with that?”
She rolled her eyes. “I should go check on some of my patients.”
Because that was better than standing here, going around and around in this conversation with him.
“I’ll get back to work as well.”
“So great to talk to you.” She laced the words with sarcasm, not quite sure why he was bringing this out in her.
Okay, fine. The mix of him not being who she thought he was, or who she wanted him to be, and her trying to live a life where she was something completely different than who she had been before…
It was all jumbling together and making her defensive.
As if she had to prove to him that she was a good person now.
She turned away.
“Kira.”
She didn’t want to turn back, but she did, because otherwise it would be rude, and she was trying to convince him she was a nice person. “Yes?”
Those dark eyes stared at her. Did the man have to be completely handsome and one hundred percent someone a mother might have approved of? That’s how she knew the world wasn’t built to be fair—because she had no idea what kind of person her mother would’ve been if she’d lived.
And she probably wasn’t ever going to catch a break.
“If you’re here for some nefarious reason, I’m going to figure out what it is.
” He took a step toward her and spoke in a low tone.
“I don’t know what you did with that flash drive you took from me, and I doubt I ever will unless you tell me.
But I sincerely hope you’re not on some kind of mission here in Renegade.
Because if you are, you have to know that I’m going to stop you doing whatever it is before someone I care about gets hurt. ”
She stared at him, her eyes suddenly burning with unshed tears. She’d worked so hard not to be that person anymore. To do her job trying to save lives and push everything else out so that she could wake up in the morning and go to bed at night feeling good about herself.
The skin around his eyes flexed, and she saw the beginning of a frown. “Kira—”
“Like I said, I have to get back to work.”
She turned and strode away, ignoring the nurses behind the desk looking at her. Destiny and her husband. Dr. Barnett and anyone else. She ignored them all and rushed to a quiet corner where she could shed a couple of tears.
And then she got back to work.