Chapter 6 #2
“We can hire you as Ralph’s bodyguard. He knows you, and we both trust you because you’ve saved his life before. So what do you say? Because I think you’re the perfect person to keep my husband safe.”
“I have a number of cases and clients currently on my desk.” He needed a better reason to turn her down. He waited for Ralph to tell her no or argue with her, but the guy said nothing.
“I’ll pay you double to get rid of them.”
“I’m afraid one of the jobs is with federal law enforcement, and it’s time sensitive. But I can find someone with the same level of training as me who is available, if you’d like me to do that.” He looked at Ralph, wondering if the guy would speak up at all.
Luca had no intention of protecting a guy mixed up with the Shadow Syndicate. And he would put money down that Ralph didn’t want Luca in his business either.
No matter what his wife said.
Destiny frowned. “But I wouldn’t trust them. I trust you.” She lifted her chin, as if that was enough for him to rearrange his entire schedule.
“I’ll inform hospital security that there’s a possibility the two of you are in danger. Make sure they come by regularly and ensure you’re safe.”
He hoped that would placate her for now and prevent her from convincing herself he was her only option. Luca needed to come up with a good plan B for these two.
“Until tomorrow.” Destiny nodded, certain of what she said. Convinced that he was going to figure out a way to personally protect Ralph.
He stepped out of the bay and almost collided with Kira. She had sweat across her hairline and was breathing hard. He reached for her, but she shifted away from him. “Is everything okay?”
Her mouth opened, but she said nothing. Still trying to catch her breath.
Luca held out a hand. “Come on, we can find somewhere quiet to talk about whatever it is.”
She shook her head. “Why would I want to do that?”
Kira turned and walked away.
Dawn lit the sky with swatches of orange and white, marbled across the horizon. Kira pumped her arms and legs back and forth. Each foot strike on the asphalt of the greenbelt path was more purposeful than usual. Focusing on form and the cool of early morning helped her keep out errant thoughts.
What she could’ve done differently.
What more she might’ve tried.
Patients die sometimes, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
She banished Dr. Barnett’s face from her mind.
As if she didn’t know that. Kira had been a doctor long enough to have accepted facts she couldn’t change.
What mattered was that she never lost the sense of grief that came with losing a patient.
The moment she grew cold to loss, she might as well give up being a doctor, because she’d lost her compassion.
The truth was that a nine-year-old boy had died, and now his family would be faced with having to live all the days to come without him in their life. With memories fading and the constant, nagging absence of their loved one.
Because she couldn’t save him.
A dog across the park barked a couple of times. The owner threw a tennis ball, and the dog shot across the stretch of grass between the path and the kids’ playground. Life moved on. Another day, another chance to save someone’s life—except she wasn’t working tonight.
Lord, comfort the brokenhearted today.
She blinked and the child’s face filled her mind. She saw Rebecca on the gurney, administering CPR, trying to do everything she could to keep the kid alive. The bacterial infection had simply been too bad, too far gone.
A tear escaped the corner of her eye. Kira swiped it away and ran faster. Until sweat beaded at the small of her back and her leggings seemed overly warm.
Her thoughts drifted to Luca, and she let them.
Did the guy really have to be so good-looking?
It was almost unfair, considering she had objections to so many other things about him.
Her fault though, considering she’d built him up in her mind as the epitome of the American military warrior hero.
What was even sadder was the fact she’d agreed to work with the US government because of his team.
The way they’d clearly looked out for each other like brothers, and how they’d come back to check on her after she was struck.
Care and concern.
The same kind of concern he’d shown her in the hospital last night.
It had thrown her when he’d suggested they go somewhere quiet so she could tell him what had happened and why she was upset.
She hadn’t had anyone in her life who cared about her like that in years.
She hadn’t known what to do with it, and in the emotion-laden heat of the moment, she’d chosen solitude rather than facing her feelings in front of someone else.
She had no idea what he’d do with an emotional woman dealing with something heavy. Kira didn’t need any more disappointment when it came to Luca.
She spotted a woman running the opposite direction and recognized her from other mornings, though the woman didn’t run on the same days each week.
Not that Kira was obsessively keeping track, but it seemed like the woman’s schedule shifted days from week to week.
She looked to be about the same age, her hair a dark blonde that looked almost brown, tied back behind her head.
She wore shorts and a Renegade Fire Department T-shirt.
The woman nodded. “Morning.”
Kira sniffed. “Morning.”
They passed each other, and she focused on her form again, slowing at the four-mile mark, where there was a fountain by the fishing pond. She got a drink, then wandered around a little in an off-center circle, just to keep moving. Cooling down from the hard run.
Not too far away, on one of the benches that lined the path, a young woman sat hugging herself.
She wore black jeans and flat canvas shoes, a gray zippered hoodie over her shirt.
Hair hanging forward, covering the sides of her face.
She looked a little familiar, but that wasn’t surprising considering Kira saw so many different people every time she worked a shift at the hospital.
But it was the way the woman held herself that drew her attention.
Kira wandered over, keeping her distance and giving the woman a chance to notice her.
The woman drew in a sharp breath and looked up.
Eyes wide, one of them rimmed with a blue bruise.
Her lip was split, and she had a gash on her cheek.
Those looked to have been tended to at one point, which made sense.
This was the woman from the other night, the domestic-violence victim Kira had treated—the one Mack brought in.
Her ribs hadn’t been cracked, just bruised. Still extremely painful. Now she held her elbow to her body with her other arm, which was new.
“Hi.” Kira kept her distance and didn’t get closer, not wanting to spook the woman and cause her to leave quickly. “I’m Dr. Yassan. From the hospital?”
The woman nodded slightly. “Hi.”
“What was your name?”
“Frankie.”
Kira took a half step toward her. “Did you hurt your arm, Frankie?”
Her nose wrinkled and she said nothing.
“Can I take a look?” She motioned to the arm.
“I heard it pop.”
Kira crouched in front of her, barely close enough to touch. “You might need an X-ray if you think there’s damage to it.” She needed to phrase things carefully, or it would sound like an accusation. “You might need a cast to keep it secure until it heals.”
And Frankie might need to file another police report, if she’d even done that the other day.
The police had shown up to talk to her after the nurse had called them, but Kira didn’t hear what happened after that.
What happened next was this woman’s choice, whether she felt like she had one or not.
She had to grasp the fact that she had the power to change her own life.
When a person felt stuck or trapped, they often believed they had no choices available to them. Whether there weren’t any options or the choices had been taken from them often didn’t matter. They believed there was no way out.
The change came when the person realized they still had power and the ability to change their life, even in a tiny way.
Or the first of a series of tiny ways that, in the end, added up to a whole lot.
In Kira’s case, it was because a friend had seen what was happening and offered her a new choice.
Not out of an abusive relationship, as such.
Just out of a situation where she felt stuck and things weren’t going well.
“Can I see?” Kira motioned to her arm.
Frankie unzipped her sweater with one hand and lowered it off her shoulder, gingerly pulling out her arm.
Kira asked her a couple of questions before she palpated from Frankie’s shoulder down to her wrist, noting the girl’s reaction to what she was doing.
Once she was done with that, she assessed what damage there might be to Frankie’s shoulder and elbow.
Most of the injury seemed to be in her wrist.
“I don’t have my lab coat on right now, so this isn’t official.” She waited for Frankie to smile just a fraction, then said, “But it would be a good idea to get an X-ray and maybe have your wrist put in a cast.”
“It hurts a lot.”
“I’m afraid it won’t heal right if it doesn’t get treated. It’s something you might always have problems with.”
Kind of like the festering wound of an abusive relationship that was allowed to continue, getting worse and worse. That kind of thing inclined Kira toward amputation.
She eased a little closer. “The best way to give yourself time to heal is to find a safe place to be.”
Frankie tensed, and if Kira had still been holding her arm, she probably would have pulled away and hurt herself further.
“I know of a women’s shelter in South Eagle. It’s unregistered and unlisted, so there’s no way he would be able to find it.”
“He always finds me. It doesn’t matter where I go.” Frankie’s voice quavered.
“But you can’t give up. You have to keep trying.” Kira kept her voice gentle. “You never know if your next choice will be the one that sets you free.”
Kira shifted out of the crouch, turned, and sat on the bench so that she faced Frankie with a couple feet of space between them. “I can call you a rideshare on my account, which will take you to the house. No one will know where you’ve gone, and he won’t be able to find you.”
A tiny bit of hope lit Frankie’s eyes, and Kira was glad to see it.
“If you’re able to file a police report that includes your medical records from visiting the hospital the other day, that’s another little safeguard.
And all of them add up. Everything you do.
It all gives you a little bit more protection from him than you would have without it.
” Kira laid her arm on the back of the bench.
“You don’t have to be afraid. You don’t have to live like that. ”
Frankie hugged herself again, staring out across the path to the irrigation canal that ran along the edge of the park. A group of ducklings waddled after their mother over to the water.
Last week, Kira had been watching them when a hawk swooped down and grabbed one of the babies, momentarily startling the mother.
Since then, she tried not to pay too much attention to them.
Nature was a savage thing, and that was yet another reminder she shouldn’t get too attached. She should do her job and stay home.
God didn’t want her to live her life swallowed up in a spirit of fear, but she wasn’t sure how to face the threats every day brought any other way than to just duck her head and keep going.
“What do you say, Frankie? I can get you a ride to the hospital, or I can ask the rideshare to take you to the shelter.” Kira smiled. “I volunteer there once a month on a Saturday, so I’ll be able to see how you’re doing.”
The young woman glanced over. “Shelter.”
Kira nodded. “I’ll order you a car.” She slid the cell phone from her leggings pocket and used the Renegade rideshare app. “Someone will be here in five minutes.” She glanced over at the far side of the park. “The pickup point is at the fountain.”
“Thank you.”
Kira smiled at her. “You deserve to feel safe and live your life without fear.”
The trauma of relationships like the one Frankie was in and a life lived in a war zone weren’t something the nervous system could differentiate between.
A threat was a threat. Constant day-to-day trauma created similar responses in a lot of people, and Kira knew all too well the taste of fear on her tongue—and the way rest seemed like such an elusive thing when peace was hard to come by. When the next moment could be anything.
Kira walked the young woman to the car, closing the door for her.
Promising to check on her the next time she was at the shelter.
Aside from this small thing, there wasn’t much she could do for Frankie.
If the young woman was going to change her life, then it would be up to her to make those changes.
She stood at the curb, watching the car disappear down the busy street.
A black SUV pulled up where the car had stopped. A tall man wearing a dark suit climbed out of the passenger seat and held open the back door. That was when she noticed the silver star badge on his belt. A US marshal.
He looked at Kira. “Dr. Torres would like to speak with you, if you’re available.”