The door rattles again as he slams his shoulder into it and with one more furious blow, the door buckles under the pressure and splinters into pieces. “NOOO,” Ashleigh cries out as her husband comes tearing into the room.
He shakes off the shock of getting through the door before righting himself and stepping toward us, the gun dangling dangerously by his side. His sour gaze sweeps over his battered wife before coming to me. “I told you to get away from my wife,” he spits, his tone full of spite. “She’s coming home with me.”
“Ashleigh is not going anywhere,” I say, discreetly stepping closer to her to block her husband’s view of Autumn. “Your baby’s life is at risk. I need to deliver her as soon as possible.”
The guy steps forward and raises his gun, pointing it directly at my chest. A sharp, fearful gasp comes tearing out of Autumn behind me but I don’t dare look at her as the bastard steps closer again. “I said get away from my wife.”
I clench my jaw, my hands raising so that he can see them clearly. “Okay, I’m stopping,” I say, turning to him. I step around Ashleigh, making a show of halting my work while putting myself directly in front of her and Autumn, keeping me his main focus. “Ashleigh is in dire need of medical attention. Your baby will not survive if I was to close up your wife and send her home. Do you understand that?”
He steps into me, the tip of his gun pressed against my chest. “The bitch is dead anyway. No one gets away with running from me. You hear me?”
I see fucking red. The whole point of what I do is to preserve and protect human life and this fucker has the nerve to walk into my fucking OR, force my hand, and threaten my patient.
No, not going to fucking happen. Not today and certainly not in my fucking OR.
I step closer, his gun pressing harder into my chest. “I kindly suggest that you step out of my OR and shut the fuck up. I have two patients on the table, both needing urgent medical attention which you are keeping them from. If either of them were to lose their lives, that would be on you, and I can guarantee that I will come after you with the full force of the law if anything were to happen to them. Now get out of my OR so I can get back to saving your wife and daughter.”
His eyes narrow as his hand balls into a fist by his side. His gun remains unwavering and filled with determination, and as his eyes tighten, I see his decision to finish me off and pull the trigger.
Not gonna happen, motherfucker.
My hand flies up with the scalpel still securely between my fingers, plunging it into the bastard’s neck. He screams out in agony, falling back as I leave the sharp tool protruding from his neck.
Autumn shrieks as Ashleigh gasps in horror while her husband grabs the scalpel and yanks it out from his neck.
Big. Fucking. Mistake.
Blood spurts from his wound, instantly drenching his shirt. He slams his hand down over it, smart enough to realize that I hit the artery, and he’s in an extremely bad position. Especially as the man he’s threatening with a gun is the one person in the room who could save his life.
It’ll only be seconds before he collapses to the ground.
His skin quickly fades to white and as he watches me with anger in his eyes, I know it’ll only be a moment before he’s gone. He drops to his knees, the blood spurting from between his fingers and pooling on the ground beneath him, but I don’t dare move.
It’s almost as though it happens in slow motion. His body rocks as his knees hit the ground. He falls forward, catching himself with his hand on the linoleum, the gun still curled tightly around his fingers.
His eyes meet mine as nothing but silence sounds around the room, the alarm like a distant memory. His body crashes to the ground with the pool of blood splashing up around him.
Then just when I think it’s all over, his gun raises from the ground, blood dripping from his fingers. With a weak arm, he aims, and with nothing left to lose, he pulls down on the trigger and shoots.
BANG!
CHAPTER 23
AUTUMN
Thorne’s body crashes to the ground, knocking over the tray filled with the surgical tools as a high-pitched scream is torn through the room. My throat instantly burns and it takes me a second to realize that I’m the one screaming.
I rush around to the other side of the surgical bed, but I’m stopped when the gun is pointed directly at my chest. “Don’t fucking move,” the bastard demands, blood pooling around him like some kind of horror movie, but I don’t stop. How can I? Not when Thorne is on the ground and I have absolutely no idea where he was shot.
The man has no energy as he struggles to hold onto life, so I use that to my advantage, darting toward him and slamming my foot down over his wrist, instantly breaking the bones and leaving him no control of his hand. Using my other foot, I kick out hard and send the gun flying across the room.
It clatters against the metal legs of Ashleigh’s bed, and she flinches as the heavy sobs break from her chest. Though, it’s impossible to tell if she’s crying out of sorrow or pure relief. I’m going to take a wild guess and go with option number two.
Thorne’s pained groans have me dropping to my knees at his side and scanning over him as the tears fill my eyes. Blood seeps from the bullet wound in his thigh as I watch in horror as it begins pooling beneath him.
“No, no, no, no,” I cry, pressing my hands down against the bullet wound, desperate to get control of the bleeding. “Please don’t die. I only just got you. I need you here.”
“I’m not dying,” Thorne groans, his eyes clenching as the pain rocks through him. “But I can’t say the same for this fucker.”
He glances back at Ashleigh’s husband lying helplessly on the ground, and I can’t help but follow his gaze. The man is just moments from passing out and while the medically trained part of me is screaming that I need to save his goddamn life, I can’t bring myself to move. “There’s a special place reserved in hell for him,” I grumble, clenching my jaw and refusing to feel guilt for talking shit about a dying man.
Thorne attempts to sit up, his face turning an awful shade of white as the blood drains from the wound in his thigh. He applies as much pressure as he can as his head rests back against the cupboards.
Ashleigh’s heart rate drops dangerously low and I fear for how much blood she’s losing too. My hands press down on Thorne’s thigh as I glance up at Ashleigh. “HELP,” I call over the sound of the alarm. “WE NEED HELP IN HERE.”
My stare slices to the broken door, my heart racing as I wait for someone to come running through it, ready to help me, but after too long, I realize that I’m on my own.
Thorne meets my eyes with a desperate panic reflected in his own and I shake my head, fearing that he’s about to send me away. “I need you to deliver the baby,” he tells me, meeting my stare straight on and not leaving any room for arguments. “You need to get the baby out and stabilize Ashleigh, otherwise we’re going to lose all three of them tonight, and I refuse to let that happen.”
“I … I can’t,” I tell him. “Your leg. If I let go ...”