I thrust Dr. Jae’s identification card under the guard’s nose when he attempts to stop my entrance into Dimitri’s room. “This patient’s file shows he had an integral dissection of the bowel during surgery. If we don’t immediately operate, he will die.”
I have no idea what I just said, and neither do the guards.
Although they’re confused, they stand their ground. “We’ve been instructed not to let the patient out of our sight.”
“Who said he was leaving your sight?” I immediately fire back. “You’re going to help me get him to theater.”
“Don’t you have orderlies for that?”
Ignoring nincompoop number one’s question, I step between the men whose shoulders sit higher than my head before pushing through Dimitri’s door.
I don’t know whether I should laugh or cheer for joy when Dimitri’s heavily accented voice booms into my ears a nanosecond later. “If you’re here to offer me another sponge bath, I’m going to tell you what I told the nurse before you. I’m. Not. Fucking. Interested.”
He’s such a surly bastard. I love that about him.
“Perhaps you should tell them what your wife will do to them if they’re caught even suggesting such atrocious things.”
Since I’m still in role, I almost burn at the stake when Dimitri’s eyes lift from his handcuffed hand to my face. He looks set to siphon the blood from my veins. He isn’t angry about my suggestion. It’s acknowledging that he has a wife that sees his anger boiling over.
His eyes don’t even make it to my face before it dawns on him who I am. He knows my body as intimately as I do his. He’d never mistake it.
After darting his eyes left to right, he barks out, “What do you want?”
“They’re here to assist in your transfer to surgery,” I answer on behalf of the agents flanking me. “It’s a matter of utmost importance. Dr Fien and Matteo are waiting.”
While acting as if my last sentence didn’t well my eyes with tears, I snatch up the wheelchair at the side of Dimitri’s room before nudging my head to the guards. “Quickly. Do you have any idea how much surgical residence make per year? Your delay is bleeding this operation of money. Pens will be scratched to paper when the board members are advised of your tardiness. I don’t think the director of the Bureau will appreciate being nagged during election month.”
Like two kids being promised a treat for cleaning their room, the agents jump into action. While one moves to unlock Dimitri’s handcuffs so we can transfer him from his bed to the wheelchair, the other agents takes command of Dimitri’s mode of transport.
He’s the one I jab in the leg with a tranquilizer I hid in the pocket of my white doctor’s coat. The other is taken care of by Dimitri. He doesn’t kill him. He just chokes him until he passes out like Rocco has been teaching Matteo the past four months.
“We need to move now,” I say to Dimitri when the removal of his second cuff sees his hands moving to my face instead of the doorknob. “Henry has men waiting in the service elevator.”
With nothing but admiration in his eyes, the last thing I anticipate for Dimitri to say is, “I should kill Rocco for letting you do this.”
“You should, but you won’t.” I arch my brow at him. “You handed the reins to me. This ruse was my idea, so if you’re going to punish anyone for insolence it will be me.”
“Spoken like a true monarch.” His last word comes out in a half moan half groan when I shove him into the wheelchair. It’s clear he’s in pain, but just like Rocco would never give up the chance to rile him, he’d never let a day go by without assuring me he is the alpha macho male I crave. “I can walk.”
“No, you can’t. You were shot three times.”
“In my stomach,” Dimitri argues back. “My legs are fucking fine.”
This is so very much like us.
We can argue about anything.
It’s our thing.
“If your backside so much as moves an inch out of that wheelchair, mister, I’m going to tell Fien what really happened to her goldfish.”
Dimitri scoffs. “I overfed it. That isn’t criminal.”
“It could be in the eyes of our daughter who adored it.”
“You don’t play fucking fair,” Dimitri grumbles under his breath.
I get up in his face before whispering, “Because I was taught by the best.” After kissing the tip of his nose, lessening the redness on his face by a couple of shades, I say, “Put these on.” I hand him a pair of gloves and a hoodie. Although it’s summer, his tattoos are as recognizable as his eyes. I’ll never get him down this corridor unnoticed if I don’t hide him.
While he does as asked—for once—I do a quick scan of the corridor. It isn’t as empty as I would like, but as Dimitri likes to say, everything seems empty when your eyes are only seeking one person.
After taking back up my station behind his wheelchair, I ask, “Ready?”
My mouth mimics the movements his does when he answers, “I was born ready.”
With the timer on my watch beeping in warning that I’m cutting it close to Henry’s deadline, I wheel Dimitri through the door of his room before jackknifing to the right.
“Close the door.” When I peer down at Dimitri, lost as to why he’s impeding our escape, he mutters, “Do you really think we’ll make it two feet away from here with two corpses splayed on the floor?”
“They’re not dead. We just stunned them a little. Right?” My stomach gurgles during my last word. There’s a gleam in his eyes I know all too well. It’s only ever there when his itch to kill has been scratched.
While closing his door with more force than needed, I grumble under my breath how I’m going to shove my boot up Rocco’s ass. He told me the syringe was filled with a sedative. I would have never jabbed the agent in the leg if I had known it was going to kill him… My inner monologue drowns out when the voice inside my head screams louder than my lie. I would have gassed the entire hospital if it was the only viable option to free Dimitri.
“There she is,” Dimitri growls in a gravelly tone. “My mama bear has her claws at the ready.”
Needing to continue with our ploy before I kiss the smugness off his face, I return to his side before wheeling him toward the service elevator. Just as predicted, his large burly frame gains many eyes, but for the most part, they’re happy to admire him from a distance. Only the occasional nincompoop has the audacity to wiggle their fingers at him as if he’s a celebrity.
I mentally jot down their names for future reference. No one is aware Dimitri has a wife and family, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let their stupidity slide. The tension between Dimitri and me even while bickering if enough to light the entire east coast, so they can’t act like he’s single and ready to mingle.
“You scared me,” I say partway down, incapable of ignoring the real reason my stomach is a twisted mess of confusion. “I thought I had lost you.”
“I know.” He doesn’t peer at me. He keeps his head low and his eyes at his feet. “But you could never be so lucky to get rid of me that easy.” When he lifts his head, his infamous half-smirk has me forgetting I’m in the process of committing a felony. “And if you were, I would have taken you to hell right along with me, because I’d rather save you from Satan’s urchins than never see you again.”