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“You’re going the wrong way,” I said.
“There’s a clinic right there,” he said, pointing out of the windshield toward a building with a line of people out front.
“What if I need surgery?” I asked.
“You don’t. It’s not that bad,” he told me. “I don’t know why you’re bleeding so bad.”
“Blood thinners,” I heard myself murmur, watching the blood continue to trickle, not seeming to slow down much. “My migraine meds are blood thinners,” I told him.
“That makes sense,” he said, pulling the car into a spot half a block up before cutting the engine and rushing out and around to help me out.
Everything felt like it was happening in slow motion as he grabbed the elbow of my good arm and led me back toward the clinic, cutting in front of the people who had clearly been waiting around for a while, sweat stains darkening their armpits, collars, and chests.
“Hey, there’s a line,” a man with a clipboard said as he moved through the doors.
“Tell Dr. Conti that Elian Lombardi needs to see him,” he demanded, tone brooking no argument.
The man with the clipboard looked dubious, but he walked up to a woman who was standing behind a sheet of plexiglass, mumbling to her, then waiting for her to walk away. She came almost running back a moment later, unlocking the door.
“Let them back,” she demanded, tone almost frantic.
My brain wasn’t computing why that little interaction happened as I was led through a slightly rundown, but very neat clinic, and into a small exam room where the man, Elian, urged me up onto the vinyl exam table with the strip of paper that crinkled as I shifted my position.
I absentmindedly remembered then to finally reach up and remove my sunglasses.
I didn’t even get a chance to ask him anything before the door was flying open, and a young, handsome doctor came rushing inside, looking first at Elian before glancing at me.
“What happened here?” he asked, his calm tone belying the tension in his face.
“She was shot,” Elian said, making my gaze shoot over to him. “You’re okay,” he told me. “You’re in good hands. Right, Doc?”
“Of course,” Dr. Conti said as he slipped on a fresh set of gloves before coming over to gently touch my arm.
“She’s on migraine medicine,” Elian supplied, since I didn’t seem capable of advocating for myself right then.
Shock, I guess.
“Blood thinners?” Dr. Conti asked, looking at me, waiting until I gave him a slight nod. “Okay. Well, it looks worse than it is because of the blood loss,” he told me, grabbing some gauze, and pressing them against the wound, trying to stem the flow. “You are just going to need to get cleaned up and a few stitches. It just grazed you,” he told me.
A graze.
If this was what a graze felt like, I had a whole new level of empathy for people who got bullets lodged in them.
“Can you hold this here for me?” he asked, but I must not have registered that he was talking to me, because Elian moved over to press the gauze as the doctor moved away, removing his gloves. “I need to go grab a suture kit. I’ll be right back,” he said, waiting for Elian to nod at him before he left.
“What’s going on?” I asked, shaking my head. Nothing was making sense. I was just shot. I should have been in an emergency room. I should have been talking to the police. Not sitting in a clinic with a handsome stranger and getting treated by a man who seemed afraid of said stranger.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Elian asked.
“Elizabeth,” I supplied. “Riley.”
“Elizabeth,” he said, and I had just half a second to enjoy the way his voice curled around my name. Like something familiar. Like something intimate. “Do you want to tell me why a Russian enforcer wanted to shoot you?”
“Oh,” I said, feeling like the world had just fallen out from underneath me.
CHAPTER FOUR
Elian