Breaking Wicked Rules (Wicked Dade #3)

Chapter 1

“Either his colon has a bright idea, or we are looking at a lightbulb in his rectum.”

They say everything comes in threes.

Traffic lights. Primary colors. Bad luck.

The second I started my twelve-hour shift, I was immediately hit with a woman whose nosebleed was so severe that she fainted three times, covered my scrubs in not just her blood but her vomit too, and then proceeded to hit the trifecta with a seizure.

Not to mention the man who stumbled drunkenly into the emergency room with his hand barely attached to his wrist. Drunk man versus chainsaw never ended well, resulting in my fresh scrubs once again being covered in blood.

Little wonder that to top off my shift, I was now staring at the X-ray of either a very brave or very stupid man; the verdict was still out on that.

“How… I mean, how does that even work?” Minnie, my overly eager, too-bright-for-this-world intern, asked. “How did it not, you know, shatter into a million pieces?”

“The human body is a miraculous thing.”

“But it’s made of glass. Glass breaks very easily. I can’t understand the physics of it.”

I handed back the X-ray. “With enough lube and patience, anything is possible.”

Her brows pinched together. “He said he fell on it.”

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I cracked my neck from side to side. “Of course he did.”

“You don’t believe him?”

“Rule number one, and it’s one of the most important things you will learn working here, Minnie, patients lie.”

A damn understatement.

It was human nature to try and conceal truths that embarrassed and humiliated us, but goddamn, my job would have been a hell of a lot easier if patients told me the whole truth from the beginning.

If only they realized that no matter what, the truth always revealed itself, no matter how hard they tried to run from it.

Then again, who am I to judge?

“That’s not true,” Minnie countered quietly. “I haven’t met a single patient who has lied to me, at least not to my face.”

Like I said, she was too bright and precious for this world. Especially the world of medicine. It was only a matter of time before the hospital chewed her up and spat her back out barely alive.

I gave it a year. Maybe less.

“Book an O.R and see what surgeon is on call,” I said as the beeper on my waist vibrated. “Between the risk of the glass breaking or the object going deeper, it’s too risky for us to try and do anything for him down here. Let surgery take him.”

Minnie tucked the X-ray under her arm. “On it.”

My beeper vibrated again.

“If there is somewhere else you need to be, I’ve got it from here, Dr. Dade,” Minnie assured. “Dr. Lorenzo is about to start her shift in half an hour, and Dr. Ferrington is up on sixth if I have an emergency.”

Silencing the third buzz, I reluctantly nodded. “I’m not due to clock off for another thirty minutes.” Joy oh joy. “Don’t bother Dr. Ferrington if there is an emergency, bleep me straight away.”

“Will do.” Minnie grinned from ear to ear. “Oh, by the way, thanks for taking me under your wing today.”

Something like a smile passed my lips. “Just doing my job.”

It wasn’t like I had a choice. When I took the job, moving my unfurling-at-the-seams life from Ontario to New York, it came with a list of stipulations.

Be willing to teach the interns, much to my dismay.

Attend weekly check-ins with my boss and former university mentor, Dr. Adam Martin, to ensure I remained on track—his words, not mine.

Build a relationship with all the heads of departments, even if it makes me want to vomit and double my daily dose of Xanax.

And of course, let the only man who pulled me back from the depths of my own destruction coddle me like a toddler.

Okay, that was harsh.

Especially considering Dr. Martin didn’t have to help me when I called him six months ago. However, the man I looked up to during university, the same man who I aspired to become, now looked at me with enough pity that it just about covered his disappointment.

I could barely stomach it.

Though it would all be worth it once I got promoted.

Then I’d show him that I was still the same person he saw something in at university.

“Still, it was amazing learning from you today. Your knowledge and skills, they’re something else,” Minnie said. “I hope you don’t mind, I’ve asked for the remaining months of my rotation to be matched to your schedule.”

“Oh…that’s great,” I lied. “Looking forward to our time together.”

Fucking hell.

I used work to distract myself, a way to silence the demons slithering around my brain, trying to tempt me into jumping headfirst back into my destructive ways. The hospital, the patients, and the constant, never-ending workload silenced the voices.

That and my increasing doses of benzos.

I was focused during my long shifts and able to give my full attention to helping others.

Although Minnie was a nice girl, she was talkative. It wasn’t her questions about work or patients, those I enjoyed. Rather, it was the moments when she wanted to fill the void, somehow latching onto my hip and making it her ungodly mission to get to know me.

No matter how many times I sent her away to run tests, grab coffee, or do meaningless tasks to get her to stop talking, she always came back with a new list of questions.

The girl was a sparkly boomerang that I couldn’t get rid of.

Leaving Minnie with the strict instructions to only do paperwork until either I or Dr. Lorenzo was there to supervise, I made the ascent to the fourth floor and dragged myself to Dr. Martin’s office.

My mentor, now my boss, had changed drastically in the last six years.

His black hair had bypassed the greying phase and jumped straight to bright white, thinning on his crown. Green eyes no longer shone brightly, dark bags adorning them. My once-bursting-with-life professor had been replaced by an old, tired man.

Adam Martin had gone through a lot in his life, and the years of pain and grief had unfortunately taken its toll on him physically and emotionally.

“Elliott, my boy,” he greeted me with a smile I didn’t deserve. “How are you?”

“Fine.” I closed his office door. “I got your page. Is everything okay?”

“Come in and sit down.” Adam motioned to the seat facing his desk. “Do you want some water? Or I could send Emily down to get us some coffee from the cart?”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Probably for the best. That coffee from there is as strong as tap water.”

“You paged me, sir?”

“Didn’t I tell you to stop calling me that?” He chuckled. “We’re colleagues now, Elliott. Adam is perfectly okay.”

He was avoiding the question.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, uncertainty planting a seed in my stomach and twisting my insides.

Something was wrong.

Why else would he have paged me? We weren’t due to meet up for our weekly check-in for another two days. Asking to see him earlier than normal wasn’t a good sign.

The corners of my vision blackened behind my glasses. The familiar sinking claws of anxiety plunged deeper into my skull, while my heart felt too big for my own chest.

Maybe he’s changed his mind.

Maybe he realized I’m too much of a liability.

Maybe someone has found out about my ‘little problem’ and has finally reported me.

A hand rested on my shoulder, the grip reaching through my skin into my bones and yanking me from my thoughts back into the office. “Breathe, Elliott, you’re going to pass out if you’re not careful.”

Inhaling deeply, I held the breath in my lungs until it turned to fire before slowly exhaling and focusing on Adam.

His forehead creased. “Better?”

I nodded.

Adam kept his hand on my shoulder as I walked to the chair and finally sat down. “How’s your therapy going?”

“We’re making progress,” I lied through my goddamn teeth.

“How often are you going?”

“Weekly.” The lies flowed too easily. “Definitely starting to see improvements.”

Adam hummed, unconvinced. “If you say so.”

Truthfully? I quit therapy after my second session.

Not that Adam needed to know that bit of information. He’d only worry and pressure me into going back, when honestly, I would rather take a scalpel and drive it through my temple.

I didn’t need a shrink to tell me what I already knew was wrong with me.

As a teenager, I quickly learned that I had an addictive trait.

With my vice moving from obsessing over my calories during high school, to marijuana to shut my mind off for more than five seconds at home, to using Xanax to be able to combat my social anxiety at university, to most recently chasing the high and distraction that gambling gave me.

For as long as I could remember, I battled these urges and compulsions.

See, I didn’t need to sit in a circle-jerk with other addicts and tell strangers my issues.

After all, I was dealing with my problems in my own way.

I currently had everything under control.

“The only reason I paged you was to check in on you.” Adam settled himself into his own chair. “I’ve noticed that you’ve clocked two hundred hours over the past three weeks.”

“Oh, that. I’ve been picking up extra shifts in the emergency department,” I said, my breathing coming a little easier. “Just trying to do what you said, make good impressions with the Attendings and heads of departments.”

“Good.” Adam’s eyes softened. “Between you and me, it’s working. Both Higgins and Ferrington have spoken highly of you.”

Thank fuck!

Having the likes of Ferrington in my corner would do wonders to cement my position as Attending of General Medicine with the other doctors.

When Adam finally gave me the promotion, a resident who had only been in their hospital six months, it was going to ruffle some feathers.

But I needed this promotion.

I needed to prove not only to myself and Adam that I was worth a second chance, but also that, without the generous pay-packet and initial recruitment bonus that came with it, there wasn’t a chance in hell I could fix my biggest mistake before anyone noticed.

“You know I am proud of you, don’t you?” Adam said without warning.

“Yes,” I forced the word out. “You don’t need to tell me that every time we meet, sir.”

“Adam,” he corrected. “Listen to me, I know I have said it before, but I hope you realize that it takes a lot of courage to do what you did.”

A lump wedged itself thickly in my throat.

I felt anything but courageous. After all, I was the one who fucked up. I let my own demons take total control of me six months ago, and only in a moment of sheer panic did I reach out to Adam.

That wasn’t courage.

It was pure and utter desperation.

“You need to learn to cut yourself some slack,” Adam continued. “Everyone makes mistakes in their life. Every single one of us. Those mistakes do not make us bad people, Elliott. They make us human, you understand?”

The difference being my mistakes kept coming. It was like I couldn’t help myself. One damn mistake after another, steamrolling into an avalanche that I couldn’t outrun.

“What is important is that we learn from our mistakes and try to be better.”

Pretty sure I was going to vomit on my fresh scrubs. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re a good doctor, Elliott. You’re an even better man,” he said, “and although the circumstances aren’t ideal, I am happy to have you here with me. It’s like the good old days, back when I took you under my wing. And I know, you’re going to make a mighty fine attending.”

I needed the hell out of the office.

The compliments, the raw belief he had in me, I didn’t deserve it. I was nothing more than a screw-up.

Before I got the chance to make my escape and find an on-call room to sleep in before starting my next shift, Adam’s eyes widened as he suddenly grabbed at his chest.

I jumped from my seat. “Sir?!”

His face paled to translucent as he struggled to catch a breath while the veins bounced to alarming attention on his forehead.

“ADAM!?”