Chapter Two #4
“Wait.” Harlow looked down at Wilder as they placed an oxygen mask on his face, then up at Rainier. “What?” She was beginning to feel as if she were in a nightmare. None of this could be happening. It was all so surreal.
Rainier took her arm and physically moved her out of the way so his team could take care of Wilder. “I’ll need a place to scrub. You too.”
She indicated the bathroom where Rainier would scrub. “I’ll get ready and be back to get you into your clothes. They brought your med pack here.”
The pack was already open and waiting for Rainier. When she returned, already dressed in her scrubs, hair up and capped with a net, he was waiting for her, and he wasn’t alone. Rush, another doctor, was also in scrubs. He hurried out of the bathroom, moving fast. That was alarming.
“Why were you out running at three o’clock in the morning?” Rainier asked as they followed Rush into the hall.
On some level, she knew Rainier was attempting to distract her from the knowledge that they would be performing emergency surgery on Wilder in her guest bedroom.
Rainier clearly thought nothing of it. He operated in the worst of conditions.
He had an entire team and the latest equipment at his disposal.
He didn’t have to worry about his license, not that Harlow was. She was terrified for Wilder.
“Talk to me, Harlow.”
“I had enough of a lecture from Wilder,” she muttered.
Wilder was out, Rush opening him up enough to repair the damage done by the bullet wound and multiple stab wounds. She detested knives. Often, it wasn’t the initial cut that killed, it was the bacteria on the blade that ended a life.
“Damn it, Wilder,” Rainier whispered as he assisted Rush.
“He had to have been ambushed,” Rush said. “Someone he knew. Someone he trusted. Wilder would never sustain this much damage if he’d seen it coming. You know him, Rainier—he always sees it coming.”
Harlow listened to the two men as she handed instruments and provided any assistance needed.
She had done this so many times that she could anticipate what they needed and have it ready before they demanded it.
Even as she assisted the doctors, she assessed the damage to Wilder and what the two doctors were doing to save him. And they were fighting for his life.
“He parachuted in and headed straight to Harlow,” Rainier said. “Stubborn son of a bitch. I could strangle him with my bare hands.”
She had assisted in trauma surgeries with brilliant surgeons, and she recognized the skill both men had. She also knew Wilder was in a bad way. How he had walked the distance he had, she had no idea. None. He shouldn’t have been able to stand up. They were giving him much-needed blood.
She was working, so she was able to compartmentalize and not dwell on the fact that this was Wilder. Her Wilder. He had no idea she thought of him that way. No one did. She hadn’t even told her closest friends. Not a single person had guessed that she harbored feelings for him.
“Blom will have to face the fact that someone is setting us up,” Rush said. “He’s got a traitor accessing our files and setting us up for these ambushes.”
Elliot Blom was the head of the Special Activities Division in the CIA.
Rainier, Rush, Sam, Wilder and Zale had all worked for him.
Rush, Wilder and Zale still did. Blom was also the birth father of Vienna Mortenson, one of Harlow’s best friends.
Blom didn’t claim her and wanted nothing to do with her.
She didn’t particularly want anything to do with him.
Harlow imagined that made it a little awkward since Zale and Vienna were engaged to be married.
Vienna never talked about Blom or her connection to him.
As far as she was concerned, the woman who had raised her was her mother, and she was quite fine with that.
“He was smart to parachute in. I think it best no one, not even Blom, knows his whereabouts. We need to know who is a friend and who is the enemy.” He ignored Rush’s sharp look.
“No one will suspect he’s with Harlow.” Rainier turned his attention to her.
“The first week I’ll have a team here to ensure he’s stable.
If possible, take time off work. With the crap going on with the senator, no one will think twice if you take a leave of absence. Zahra will give you permission.”
Harlow frowned at him. It was just like Rainier to take over her life.
The men all did that the moment there was trouble.
All of them. Wilder included. Before she could protest, Rainier turned away as if the decision was already made.
Truth be told, it was the best time for her to take leave.
She’d built up sick days and vacation. The hospital had just hired two new nurses, one male and one female.
They had a traveling nurse from Alabama working in the ER.
“We’ve got to clear this up before whoever the traitor is manages to get one of us killed,” Rush said. He looked down at the massive amount of blood. “They came close. He isn’t out of the woods yet.”