Jagger (Dark Daddies of Delta Force #2)

Chapter 1

“What the hell do you mean, I need a man’s permission?”

The words explode out of me before I can stop them, loud enough to slice through the chaos of the emergency ward.

For a second, everyone stills. It falls so silent in the room that the blades of the ceiling fan above us squeal as they limp through another rotation, stirring up dust and sweat, but it gives no relief.

This place is a shit hole of a hospital.

Before the war, it was a government building.

Now, it’s patched together with mismatched tiles and smears of unfinished plaster.

Cracks run like veins along the drywall, and water stains bloom from the ceiling where the rain seeped through the roof last week.

Generators rumble outside the window, barely enough power to keep the lights from flickering every few seconds. Well, the lights that actually work.

The smell is unlike any of the hospitals where I completed my training and residency. It has the same overwhelming scent of antiseptic, but it’s the sour undertone of death and rot that clings to the blood-stained floors, no matter how much bleach we spread across them.

A glare at Rafi, my translator. His shirt sticks to his torso, a dark patch of sweat radiating from his sternum. He looks at the clipboard in his hand, pretending to read the paperwork, though I know it doesn’t contain the answer to my question.

“Rafi!”

He flinches. “This is how it is here,” he murmurs with a heavy accent, his eyes avoiding mine. “She cannot receive treatment without consent from her husband or tribal elders.”

“You can’t be fucking serious!” I glare at him. “She’s pregnant, not property.”

Another contraction tears through her, and the woman lying on the cot between us winces in pain. Her eyes—dark and wide—dart between the two of us as she listens to our tones, not our words.

I tug at the sagging curtain dividing her cot from the one behind, wanting the frayed fabric to give my patient some semblance of privacy.

After reaching across her lap, I lift her trembling hand from the long, tiny-flower-pattered dress covering her lap.

I cradle it tenderly between mine and softly ask, “What are you here for, Maryam?”

I wait a moment for Rafi to translate, but he doesn’t say a word. Angered, I snap my head toward him, raise my eyebrows, and flatly demand, “Translate.”

He blinks blankly in confusion. “You… want me to ask her?”

My face scrunches, annoyed. “Yes. That’s usually how translation works.”

Rafi mutters something in his native tongue under his breath before letting out a heavy sigh.

Turning toward the scared patient between us, he finally translates for me.

Maryam hesitates, then pulls her hand from between mine.

With trembling fingers, she gathers the fabric of her dress and inches it up to her knees.

I suck in a sharp breath; the metallic scent is instant and nauseating.

To help, I grab the fabric in her hands and lift the dress a little higher to find her thighs are slick with blood.

The dark crimson has stained her skin and is soaking into the fabric beneath her.

I look up to find her staring at me with wide, glassy eyes as she rubs her swollen belly with one hand.

The gesture is both heartbreaking and futile.

“Get her vitals,” I bark to the nearest nurse. “BP, heart rate, fetal monitor.”

Zahra, the American nurse who arrived here almost a year before me, moves fast. She’s one of the best here.

Her hands are always steady, and from her eyes, it’s clear that she has seen far too much.

She wraps the cuff around Maryam’s arm and glances up at me as the gauge continues to fall.

The numbers are bad. She doesn’t need to say it.

“You can’t…” Rafi stammers as Zahra wraps the fetal monitor around Maryam’s stomach. “Her husba—”

“Then fucking call him!” I bark, watching her stats slowly decline with every second that passes.

I move on sheer instinct—ordering Zahra to insert an IV, starting a saline drip, and getting her stats to regulate—before pausing to give thought to the misogynistic rule that our patient needs permission to seek medical care.

“Has anyone reached her husband yet?” My eyes dart around to the staff before falling on Rafi.

Sweaty and anxious, he shakes his head. “No answer. I left a message. He hasn’t called back yet.”

“Try again.”

He hesitates and draws in a deep breath. “Dr. Hart, sometimes—”

“Try again,” I snap. “Please.”

Muttering something I don’t understand, he disappears into the hallway.

When I return my attention to Maryam, her lips move near soundlessly with shallow breaths wafting over them.

I don’t understand what she’s saying. It might be a prayer or a plea for help.

I take her hand, finding the skin hot and clammy.

She squeezes mine gently, as though she knows how helpless I feel.

Unable to do anything else, I hold her hand as the light from the single high window above her gurney shifts from a harsh white to a dull amber from the sinking sun.

The color in Maryam’s face is falling as well, matching the steady decline of her pulse.

The absorbent pad beneath her hips is now saturated, the deep red seeping into the thin mattress beneath it.

I can’t take it anymore.

“I’ll be right back.” I set her hand on her stomach before storming toward the nurses’ station. The rough wooden counter is littered with clipboards. They rattle when I lean over it. “Did anyone reach the husband?” I demandingly ask.

A nurse looks up, startled. “We just called again, Dr. Hart.”

“Do it again!” My voice cracks. “Now!” Every head in the corridor snaps toward me, but every bit of my attention is on the woman a few cots from me, slowly bleeding out in this place that barely qualifies as a hospital. Monitors sound from Maryam’s bedside, and my heart plummets into my stomach.

I race toward her, but my legs move as though my feet are wading through tar. “Tell her she needs help,” I bark at Rafi as I grab the ultrasound probe. “Tell her I can help.”

He looks torn, hard lines of uncertainty etching into his face as he takes a hard, audible gulp. “Even if she says yes, it doesn’t—”

“Tell her!”

He drops his gaze to Maryam and, speaking softly, translates for me. Maryam looks past him to me. She hesitates for a moment before nodding once, weak but sure, she whispers a response.

Rafi cranes over his shoulder. “She says yes.”

It might not be enough for him, but it’s all I need.

I yank the ultrasound closer. The machine is old.

The plastic is yellowed with age, and the buttons are worn smooth, but it works.

Thank God. I squeeze some gel onto Maryam’s belly, and she jumps at the chill of it.

After smearing it across her stomach, I press the probe down, and my gaze flicks between the position of the probe and the grainy screen.

The images wavers, but when it sharpens into what I feared most, I freeze.

Her placenta is pulling away from the uterine wall. A partial abruption. The baby’s heartbeat thumps through the machine, wild and erratic. We’re running out of time.

“She needs a C-section. Now.” I unlock the hospital bed’s wheels, my gloves squeaking against the metal frame. “Zahra, prep the OR. Rafi, find Dr. Durand. We’re moving her.”

As I shove the gurney toward the corridor, a firm hand catches the rail. I turn to find Dr. Durand. He towers over me, his eyes weary with exhaustion. His scrubs are streaked with blood. “You can’t operate, Dr. Hart,” he says quietly.

“What?”

“Not without consent from her husband or her elders.”

“She’ll die.” The word catches in my throat. I knew things would be different than practicing in the States. But this definitely wasn’t in the Physicians Beyond Frontiers brochure.

Dr. Durand places his hand on my shoulder and gives it a firm squeeze as his face hardens. “If you perform surgery on her, so might the rest of us.”

I shake my head, unable to accept the situation I’m in. “This goes against everything we took an oath for, Pierre. You know that.”

“I know.” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But this is how we save the others.”

“The others?” I scoff. “You mean the men. The soldiers. The ones they think deserve saving.”

He doesn’t answer; he doesn’t need to. Something inside me burns. It’s not just anger—but rage. It pulses through my veins, hot and unrelenting.

I look down at Maryam. Her face is ashen, and her breaths are ghosting over her lips. “I didn’t come halfway around the world to let a very savable woman die because someone decided her life was less than.”

Durand’s eyes flick toward the window, where the distant gunfire rattles through the air like echoes of thunder.

“If you defy the rules of the locals, they’ll shut us down.

We’ll be lucky if all they do is burn what’s left of this place.

Then no one gets saved. Not the men. Not the children. Not her.”

My hands flex around the rail of the gurney as I try to quiet my mind enough to think.

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath until all I can hear is the whine of the ceiling fan and the thud of my heart.

“Try again,” I tell Rafi on exhale. “Call her husband. Go to their house and knock on the damn door if you have to. But I’m not letting her die. ”

He hesitates, his eyes flitting between me and Durand.

“Go,” I snap.

His sandals slap against the tile as he disappears down the hall.

I unwrap my fingers to find my hands trembling.

“Hold on,” I murmur, gripping Maryam’s hand.

“Please, just hold on.” I close my eyes, the thud of my heart echoing through my ribs.

Somewhere deep inside, I know what I’m going to do if Rafi doesn’t come back in time.

Because I didn’t swear an oath to politics or fear. I swore it to life.

The monitor lets out a shrill beep, the sound cutting its warning through the air. Her blood pressure is dropping fast. “Make sure he tries again,” I whisper to Zahra, trying to hide the quiver in my voice. “Please, we just need to try again.”

I look at Maryam’s sullen face and the blood continuing to pool beneath her. If no one reaches her family soon, I’ll have to make a choice that could destroy everything.

Even if it kills me.