CHAPTER 23 #3
“Please, please, open your eyes! Don’t leave me! Damián, look at me!”
I want to tell him I love him.
I want to tell him he’s safe now.
But the cold is spreading too fast, and the blackness finally swallows me whole.
— ¤ —
Two Weeks Later
I am sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. My muscles still feel stiff as hell, and my side hurts.
Ugh… I am so nauseous.
I need water.
I move to grab the glass of water that’s on the counter next to my bed and accidentally pull my sutured skin—argh! I growl with pain.
“Are you okay?” Bjorn asks, just as Alexios cuts in with, “Do you need a doctor?” while Knox barks over both of them, “Do you want food?”
“Oh, Dios mío! Go away, you suffocating old men!” I shoo them away with my hands.
“Don’t stretch by yourself.” Alexios grabs the glass of water and passes it to me. “We can pass you whatever you need.”
I take the glass and glare at them. “Why are you babying me in bed while that tattooed giant is walking around?”
“He’s Swedish,” Knox shrugs. “They don’t even do antibiotics, Dami.”
“It’s not good to medicate yourself,” Bjorn says with a shit-eating grin.
“You were stabbed, asshole!”
“Still,” he gestures at his tattooed, bare chest, which is covered by a thick bandage. “Viking blood.”
“You are so fucking annoying,” I grunt.
Bjorn bursts out laughing and pats my leg. “I’m glad you’re better now.”
“Be glad when you’re—”
SLAM!
The door swings open, and Tae walks in. Right on his heels is an older man in a white lab coat whose face is so red he looks like he is about to have a stroke.
“Do whatever the hell you want!” the doctor growls.
He snatches my medical chart from the foot of the bed and shoves it into Tae’s hands. Tae smiles and starts reading the chart.
The doctor turns around, his brown eyes bloodshot and ringed with dark bags, and glares at me with exhaustion.
“You’re free to leave, Mr. Soto! Sign the AMA forms at the desk, because I am washing my hands of this entire circus,” he states before leaving the room, slamming the door behind him.
“You know, Tae…” Leif smiles. “You really need to be nicer to the doctors. The man went to school for twelve years.”
“The man needs to be less incompetent,” Tae answers without looking up from the paperwork.
Alexios lets out a soft snort, crossing his arms over his chest. “Tae, he’s the best trauma surgeon in New York City.”
“Then he should learn how to have thicker skin,” Tae replies, his eyes narrowing as he flips to the next page. “Besides, I can take care of Damián better than this entire wing combined. Half of these charts are missing post-op notes, and his vitals tracking is completely incomplete. It’s pathetic.”
“I’m pretty sure they have it covered,” I tell him, trying to calm him down, but nope… our beautiful non-Korean idol sprints toward the door.
“I’m going to go find that incompetent idiot and make him fix this,” he says, leaving the room.
We all stare at the door in silence.
“Should we go save the doctor?” Leif asks.
“Nah…” I shake my head. “Though he’s probably going to get us banned from this hospital, too.”
“You know how he is. He doesn’t trust anyone on this planet to take care of us but himself,” Alexios says, passing me the glass of water again.
I take a sip of the water, and against my will, my mind drifts back to him.
Oliver.
It’s been almost a week since I woke up, and I haven’t seen him.
I miss him.
“Has Oliver come by?” I ask no one in particular.
Knox sighs, shaking his head. “No. Not since you woke up.”
My heart drops into my stomach.
Fuck, Ollie…
I turn my head to see the chair next to the window. The day I woke up, Bjorn told me Oliver spent all day and all night sitting in that chair, holding my hand while I was unconscious.
Every single day and night, until a cartel guy had to come and fuck it up.
He came to avenge his boss, but even though my brothers intercepted him, the attempt spooked Oliver.
And he’s been gone ever since.
And knowing Oliver… he’ll stay gone forever just to protect me.
“He’s still checking on you, Dami,” Alexios says. “I might have slipped into a little backdoor of the hospital’s network. I set up some… let’s call them alerts. I get a notification whenever someone tries to look at your medical database from an outside server.”
“He’s checking on me?”
“Constantly,” Alexios confirms. “Multiple times a day.”
I smile, and my chest starts feeling lighter. “Are Logan and Law back from Washington?”
“No,” Knox says, sitting on a couch. “They already finished with the FBI and the CIA, but they still need to present the cartel evidence to the DEA.”
“Oh… okay.”
“But I’m leaving tomorrow to meet up with them,” Knox adds. “You want me to send them a message?”
“Not to them… but I am going to need all of your help.”
Leif leans against my bed and pats my leg. “What do you need, Dami?”
I turn to Alexios. “Can you trace Oliver’s exact location?”
“The second he pings the hospital network again.”
“And what do you need from the rest of us?” Bjorn asks.
I look at my brothers and grin. “I’m gonna need you to kidnap my man.”