Chapter 11 #2
I lock the door and then lean my back against it. Did Killian really go find Lenny and make him fix my air conditioning? I puff out a laugh. It was ridiculous. Why would he care? But he did. He must have. Something warm floods my stomach. No one has ever stuck up for me before.
Except Michael. But that was just manipulation.
Was Killian doing the same thing? He’s made it clear he doesn’t like me. So, this actually makes more sense than him doing something to help me.
Whatever warmth I’d felt cooled into a hard rock in my gut. I can’t forget he’s not my friend, and I can’t let my guard down ever again.
***
The buzz of a cellphone brings me out of a nightmare. I’m still half in Michael’s clutches as I blink and try to focus on the text that just came in.
It says: Warehouse. ASAP
Shit.
Tossing off the sheets, I pull on a pair of yoga pants and T-shirt that are laying on top my laundry pile, grab my go-bag, a rolling suitcase of medical supplies I keep packed for these situations, and check the time as I rush down to my car. A little after 2 AM.
Navigating Tampa roads looks much different in the early morning hours.
There’s very little traffic, so it only takes me nine minutes to reach the warehouse.
Three blacked out Range Rovers sit menacingly in the parking lot.
I breathe the damp night air deep into my lungs, blow it out slowly, and roll my bag up to the door, knocking my knuckles against the steel.
I’ve been here twice before. I know what I’m going to see.
I just don’t know if I’ll be able to unsee it.
An Italian soldier opens the door, his right hand clutching a Glock. He waves me inside with it.
The warehouse is stuffy. The tangy mix of gasoline, body odor and blood hangs in the air.
There’s a wall of stacked boxes a few feet in front of me.
The soldier leads me around them, and I immediately spot the man hanging by his arms deeper in the warehouse.
He’s naked, his face is swollen and streaked with dried blood.
By the way his chin is tucked into his chest, I know he’s unconscious.
Three more Italian soldiers mill around him, sweaty and pissed off.
Rocco is making his way down the stairs from the second-floor office and lifts a hand in greeting. We reach the unconscious man at the same time. Rocco’s expression is grave as he rests his hands on his hips, gray eyes dark with intent as they hold mine. “I need this guy to stay alive, Doc.”
I clutch the handle of my roller bag harder. I know what that means. It doesn’t mean stay alive until they set him free. It means stay alive until they get whatever information they need from him.
This is the part of this job that I struggle with as someone who took an oath to do no harm.
Patching someone up to stay alive long enough to be tortured more isn’t why I spent eight years in medical school.
But I don’t exactly have a choice here. If I refuse to do what they ask of me, I’m of no use to them and will be kicked to the curb.
So, I have to look at it like I’m saving my little girl’s life.
I nod. “Understood.” With a sigh, I pull gloves from my roller bag and sweep an assessing gaze over the man’s form as I pull them on. His upper body has obvious signs of trauma, but his thighs and calves are swollen and purple. I pull out a blood pressure cuff and pulse oximeter and approach him.
As I’m wrapping the cuff around his bicep, he stirs. His head trembles on his neck as he fights to lift it. His eyes meet mine, the right one is filled with blood from a broken vessel. “Help me,” he whispers. Then he vomits.
“Jesus fuck,” one of the soldiers barks, hopping back out of the splash zone.
I grit my teeth and concentrate on getting through this. “His blood pressure and pulse are elevated.” Which isn’t surprising at all.
His head is jerking, agitated and delirious. “Somethings kicking… my guts,” he mumbles. “Just… kill me.”
“Just tell us the name of the shooter, Joey,” Rocco growls. “Then your pain will end. I promise you.”
I glance up at Rocco. This guy knows the name of the shooter? Then he may be the answer to whether Michael has found me or not. Yeah, I’ve got to keep him alive.
The man’s head wobbles as he struggles to look at Rocco. His mouth opens. Then his head falls as he passes out. Again.
“Huh, I think he was actually going to give up his buddy that time,” one of the soldiers says.
Rocco runs a hand through his thick, dark waves, damp with sweat as his pissed off gaze swings to me. “Bring him back.”
Panic flutters in my chest. I know if this man dies right now, not only won’t I find out if I was the target, but I also could lose this job. Rocco has a temper and doesn’t waste time with people who can’t do what needs to be done.
I take stock of the man’s condition. He’s obviously been beaten severely. With his comment about the internal pain, he could have an injured spleen, liver… kidney. The red bucket next to his feet catches my eye, and I walk around to glance into it. There are a few ounces of dark brown liquid.
I wipe sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm and point to the bucket. “Is this his urine output? How long has he been held?”
“That’s his piss, yeah.” Rocco glances at the steel Panerai Luminor on his wrist, wipes off some blood splatter. “About ten hours.”
Shit. I return to my roller bag and dig through for the tubing, needle and fluid bag.
“His muscle cells have broken down from the beating, releasing toxins into his bloodstream. If I don’t get his kidneys flushed immediately, he doesn’t have much time left.
” I’m talking out loud mostly to keep focused on the task at hand.
Nothing else matters right now except making sure this man keeps breathing.
I wave off the soldiers. “Step back, please.” He's obviously dehydrated. I check the crease in his elbow first, tapping and pressing there to try to get a vein to rise. They’re all collapsed.
My training is kicking in, and I’m moving on autopilot.
I grab his hand. It’s swollen, all the fingers are bruised, two are unnatural angles.
Don’t think. Don’t think. Just work.
I move to the other hand. Slapping his forearm, I eye a puffy blue vein above his knuckle. It looks good.
I don’t bother cleaning the area, and I’m not sure what it says about me that my hands are steady as I thread an 18-gauge IV catheter into the vein and tape it down. I hold up the IV bag full of saline solution. “I need something to hang this on.”
Rocco snaps his fingers at one of the soldiers. He rushes to the other side of the warehouse and rolls over a clothing rack. I hook the bag on it.
Removing my gloves, I toss them in the large trash bin against the wall, then walk back to Rocco, who’s standing with his arms crossed watching me carefully.
“He’s going to need three to six liters over the next few hours.
I’ll leave three bags. You need to change them out and leave him alone for at least six hours, or you’ll need a body bag, not a doctor. ”
With a ghost of a smirk, he motions one of the soldiers over. “All right, Doc. Show Carl here how to change it.” Then he turns to one of the other soldiers, who looks about eighteen with his lanky joints and acne. “Sal, you take the next shift.”
I show Carl and Sal how to close the roller clamp, insert the spike in the new IV bag’s port, pushing and twisting it firmly until it’s seated, and then open the roller clamp until fluid starts dripping through the drip chamber.
I squeeze the drip chamber slightly to fill it halfway as I say, “Just watch for air bubbles.” Then flick the line with two fingers to show them how to clear the bubbles. “Any questions?”
Sal shakes his head but there’s no confidence there. Carl shrugs, taking his new role in stride. “Seems easy enough.”
“Right. It is. Just keep it high, keep it flowing.” I let my gaze rest on the broken man.
It’s the least I can do… bear witness to his pain, see him as a human being.
Maybe I can also grant him a little bit of comfort.
I turn to Rocco. “It would help if you let him lay flat while he’s getting fluids. Keep him warm.”
Rocco doesn’t question my authority, which I appreciate. He just nods to his men, and they begin to pull him down from his restraints.
They lay him on the cold cement floor, which I guess is an improvement. Sal grabs a furniture cover from somewhere in the warehouse and drapes it over him.
Satisfied, I meet Rocco’s gaze. I’ve seen his gray eyes sparkling with humor before but right now they’re flat and cold. The hair stands up on the back of my neck, and my fight or flight kicks in. Time to go. “Call me if he gets worse. I’ll be back in the morning to check on him.”
Standing under a hot shower at home, I finally break down, collapsing under the emotional weight of seeing a human being in unbearable pain and not being able to help him.
My sobs come from deep in my soul and echo off the tile until the water grows cold. Exhausted and empty, I wrap myself up in a robe and set my alarm for four hours from now so I can return to the warehouse.
I’m torn between hoping the man will be alive so I can finally know if I was the target, or hoping he’s dead so his suffering is over. How did this become my life?
Sleep won’t come. Instead of drifting off, my mind drags me down the rabbit hole of what ifs. What if I had never met Michael? I’d be a surgeon in a hospital somewhere, living my dream, instead of being complicit in criminal activity while I hide from a psychopath.
But I also wouldn’t have Rona. I can’t imagine her not existing. He raped me, impregnated me to control me. But the irony is, he gave me the one thing I would fight to the death for. The one thing that gave me the courage to run.
The thing about running though, is you can never stop, can never stop looking over your shoulder.
Can never relax and just be. Warm tears escape as I let myself imagine a life where I could take Rona to the park, or out for ice cream, or just be able to tuck her in every night.
I’m missing so much. She’s missing so much. What kind of life is this?
***
I’m exhausted and numb by the time I return to the warehouse in the morning. Joey’s broken body is gone. Sal’s been left there to clean up. He doesn’t know if they got the name of the shooter before Joey died. Or he just doesn’t want to tell me.
I can’t decide if I’m being paranoid or if it’s really possible I was the shooter’s target.
Michael wouldn’t want me dead. That would be too easy.
And if he found me, why hasn’t he come for me?
That’s easy enough to answer. Because he wants Rona, too.
And Celia. There’s no way he’s letting her betrayal go unpunished.
When I arrive at Sandro’s house to check on Mac, Lennon is just leaving for work. She’s a counselor helping women who’ve experienced trauma. I really admire her and wish I could stick around and get to know her better.
“Good morning, Sam.” She’s dressed in a pair of beige slacks and a white button down, her hair in a bun, except for the layers framing her face.
She’s smiling but also distracted. “I left Mac in the kitchen eating breakfast.” Her smile falters as she studies my face, apparently already in work mode. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I wave away her concern. “Just didn’t sleep well.”
She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “Okay, but you know you can always talk to me, right? I’m a pretty good listener.”
She’s persistent, I’ll give her that. Her kindness unravels something inside me, and I can’t stop the tears that rush up and sting my tired eyes. “Sorry,” I say, blinking hard and blowing out a breath. “I appreciate that. I just… wouldn’t know where to start.”
She purses her lips and nods to herself. “My friend Sloane and I are meeting at the Salt Line Tavern for a girl’s night out tonight. Come with us.”
“Oh.” I shouldn’t. But I’ve never met girlfriends at a bar before.
It was something I never had time for… friends or downtime having drinks.
It’s something I was always envious of. Before I can think too much about it, I hear myself saying, “Okay.” Because I really like Lennon, enjoy spending time with her, and it would be nice to have a friend. If only for a little while.
Her smile is immediate and genuine. “Great. Just meet me back here at eight, we’ll ride together.”
“Hey, Doc,” Mac greets me when I find him in the kitchen. “Tell me you’ve brought coffee. My daughter gave me this dandelion muck. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I’ve tasted rainwater with more flavor.” He’s scowling into a cup.
I chuckle. “How about a field trip on the golf cart to Island Brew?” I’m feeling lighter with the prospect of joining a girl’s night.
But then guilt dampens my mood. Should I really be having fun when my daughter is in danger?
When I should be spending every second figuring out how to get us far away from here?
Mac grabs his cane, interrupting my guilt trip. “I knew you were a smart lass.”
If I was smart, I would listen to my intuition and run.