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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

BONES

S hifting my bike down a gear, I leaned left and took the turning for the lane leading to the hotel. My back wheel spun slightly, and I corrected my speed to slow down as I pulled up outside the clubhouse.

I was off my bike in seconds, then turning toward the hotel, I removed my helmet, dropping it to the ground as I raced toward Diablo, who waited for me by the entrance.

“Status report,” I ordered, falling into step beside him as we hurried down the corridor toward the medical wing.

“Iceman’s in surgery now, Sophie’s operating.

Freya’s got Saint. Both have GSWs; Saint took one to the shoulder, and Iceman took two to the chest. Sophie thinks Sam shot Iceman in the back, and it ripped clean through him and into Saint.

Both are in a bad way, though Iceman’s worse.

He crashed as the guys took him down. She thinks the bullet hit his lung. ”

“Traumatic pneumothorax,” I muttered under my breath.

“Soph said the same thing,” he concurred.

“What about Saint?” I asked .

“Freya’s got her,” he confirmed. “No exit hole to be found, so the bullet’s still in there. Freya’s main worry is that Saint lost a lotta blood. We thought it was Iceman’s at first, the crazy bitch was all over him, screaming that she wouldn’t leave him alone, but then she passed out.”

“Adrenaline’s a powerful thing,” I pointed out. “Seen similar shit on the battlefield.”

He nodded, then for the first time ever, at least in my presence, he gave a small piece of himself away. “Same.”

Approaching a door to one of the theatre rooms, I pushed it ajar, stuck my head around it, and barked, “How you doin’ in here, Doctor Stone?”

“I’ve retrieved the bullet,” she informed me, her golden eyes never leaving the open wound she was working on. “The patient’s stable. She had a small internal bleed that I patched up. Her vitals are steady.”

My eyes flicked around the room, taking in Gambit, who stood opposite Freya in scrubs and a face mask, holding a Yankauer Suction Tube.

“You need me?” I asked.

“No,” she replied. “Iceman needs you more. Can you send Gopher in, though, please? I could use some help closing Saint up. Gambit’s done a great job, but I’d feel happier with a medic.”

Gambit looked up at Freya and said in his clipped English accent, “I don’t wanna leave her. Ice would want me to stay and make sure she’s okay.”

“You can stay, honey,” she assured him. “But you don’t have to help me operate.”

Gambit breathed an audible sigh of relief, and his shoulders slumped. The poor guy wasn’t into this at all, and I almost grinned at the green-tinged pallor of his face as he watched Freya’s fingers deftly move while she inserted the Blake Drain into Saint’s shoulder .

I couldn’t help the wave of pride that washed over me.

Freya Stone had come to me three years before as an intern with a lot of enthusiasm but not much knowledge. Over time, she’d blossomed into an excellent resident and a talented surgeon, who wasn’t scared to get stuck into all the serious stuff.

I was confident she had everything under control.

My chin dipped. “I’ll be next door if you need me.”

“Got it,” I heard her murmur in reply before I closed the door with a soft click .

My head whipped around as the door opposite flew open, and Gopher came racing out. He saw me, and the angry twist to his mouth slackened. “Thank God you’re here. We need blood. Now!”

Quickly, I ran through all the matches for Iceman in my head. My eyes fell on Diablo, who stood sentry at the mouth of the corridor with his arms crossed over his massive chest.

“Need to hook you up, D,” I told him, pulling my phone out to call Prez while my mind raced through all the names of the men in the club, along with their blood types—information I’d had memorized since the day I joined the Speed Demons.

He answered on the first ring. “What do you need?”

“You, Trick, Will, and Picasso,” I barked. “I need your blood. It’s gonna be vein to vein, so I want you all scrubbed in and clean as a whistle.”

“On it,” he muttered just before the line went dead.

I started for the bathroom, calling over my shoulder, “Get D cleaned up. Then I want you to go in and assist Freya.”

“Yes, Sir,” Gopher replied.

Within minutes, I was washed up, scrubbed in, and heading through the doors to the operating room.

It was fucking bedlam .

Sophie sat astride Iceman with her hand inside his chest, manually massaging his heart. There was blood everywhere, including on her, but the determined glint in her eye that I caught when her face whipped around to throw me a glare made me smile inwardly regardless.

“Where the fuck have you been?” she demanded.

Oh, and did I mention? Sophie Woods was one ballsy bitch.

“I literally got out of surgery forty minutes ago,” I told her, heading toward the table where Iceman lay. “In that forty minutes, I did a half-hour bike ride in half the time it should’ve taken me, checked on our other patient, organized a flow of blood for Ice, and scrubbed in.”

“Lazy fuck,” she muttered.

I barked a laugh. “Do you ever give it a rest?” I asked good-naturedly.

“No!” she clapped back. “I don’t. That’s why Iceman’s still alive, so stop your yapping and start stemming the internal bleed that I can’t patch up ‘cause I’m too busy performing open cardiac massage to keep my friend’s heart fucking beating in his goddamned chest.”

“Alright, alright.” I moved toward the bed, picking up the suction tube and using it to clear away the pool of blood in his chest so I could take a look.

“I’ve plugged the hole,” Sophie told me, “But he’s got a bleed that I didn’t have time to locate because he crashed. Plus, I’m running out of extra blood, fast.”

I jerked my chin in Diablo’s direction, who stood back watching the scene, his eyes glued to Iceman’s white face. “Come here, bro, and hold out your arm. Gonna do a vein-to-vein transfer. Do you know what that is?”

A small grin lit across his face. “Yeah, Doc. I’m familiar. ”

“You squeamish?” I asked.

“You seen my room?” he shot back, coming to stand beside me and holding his arm up.

I rolled my lips together to stop myself from laughing. Instead, I concentrated on making an incision in Diablo’s vein and slipping a tube through. Quickly, I set up the blood transfusion, and after a few minutes, watched as D’s life force flowed into Iceman.

Immediately, the angry beeping of the heart monitor began to slow, and I watched as Sophie carefully climbed off Iceman’s chest.

I cocked at eyebrow at the other doctor. “Did you teach Freya that move?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Not teach exactly, but she’s seen me do it.

I’m small in stature, Bones. I can get better leverage on a body by straddling it than leaning over it.

The first thing I learned in trauma surgery was to do whatever it took to gain the advantage.

” She picked up the suction tube and cleared away the new pool of blood that had appeared beside Iceman’s lung.

I reached up to the surgical light head and angled it slightly to the left of the organ. “Right there,” I murmured, pointing to a tiny tear on the side of the tissue. “There’s your bleed.”

Sophie’s fingers moved deftly as she worked. It took a few minutes to stem the blood flow, then she inserted a chest tube to remove any excess air before checking the site again.

“Looks clear,” she murmured. “Not gonna close him up though. Not until we’re certain that we don’t have to go back in.”

I nodded my approval before turning to Diablo, who remained standing beside Iceman while his blood dripped into the brother. “How you doing there?”

“Good,” he replied nonchalantly.

For a second time, I rolled my lips together .

This dude was a trip. Blood and innards everywhere, and he just stood around, taking it all in like he was watching a fucking Hallmark movie.

Goddamned lunatic.

My heart dropped as a loud beep sounded from the monitor. I looked up and cursed under my breath as the alarms began to screech a deafening wail.

“BP’s dropping,” I called out.

“On it!” Sophie muttered, lifting the sheet she’d just placed over Iceman so she could examine the gaping hole in his chest. “We’ve got another bleed.

” Her stare lifted to meet mine, and I watched her shoulders tense tightly.

“It’s like playing whack-a-mole. The minute we plug one, another appears. ”

My gaze held hers. My chin dipped, and I leveled her with a stare. “It’s gonna be a tricky motherfucker. This is Iceman, so you know the asshole’s gonna put us through the goddamned wringer. You ready for this?”

Sophie’s jaw clenched determinedly, and her lip curled while she jerked her head in a decisive nod.

Picking up the suction tube, I took a deep breath to calm my thudding heart before placing it inside my brother’s chest. “You better hold on, Stitch,” I bit out, focusing my mind on the vast job ahead. “It looks like we’re in for a fucking long night.”