War’s voice was low and menacing, like nothing I’d heard from him before, but I could relate to it. I felt exactly the same way. We’d both killed before, it was a difficult part of our lives, one we struggled with when we were younger. A vivid image of War shooting that guy in the head in the Shed hit me. It was part of my role in the club working under the Enforcer, we didn’t do it often, in fact, it was pretty rare that we had to take things to that extreme. I couldn’t shy away from it when it was called for.
He was staring through the windshield, his eyes blazing with rage. As though he read my mind, he spoke again.
“I’m going to personally make Omen suffer before I end him. I’m going to make him beg for death. And that fucking lying bitch too. They’re gonna regret the day they walked into the Devil’s Chaos compound.”
When we arrived, we spent two hours in a hospital waiting room. Naomi, Dirt’s Old Lady came and sat with us a while, letting us know Connor had been on the table for close to nine hours. We’d told her to head back home as she’d been here all night. The doctors were reluctant to give any information to her because she wasn’t family.
War had spoken to the receptionist earlier and said he was his partner and that Connor had no other family. He’d used his usual charm to convince her, it always amazed me how he could turn it on, even in the direst of situations. She went to speak to a doctor to let them know Connor’s family was here. He’d made sure no one from the club was in earshot when he did it.
Eventually, a doctor came out and asked for us and we followed him to a small office that had a sofa pushed into the corner. I sat but War leaned against the wall, apprehension all over his face, his body so rigid he was like a mannequin.
He introduced himself as Dr Parker, the lead surgeon who operated on Connor. He seemed too young to be a qualified, experienced surgeon but this was a good hospital, with a renowned reputation for trauma surgery, so I doubted Connor was dumped with a new guy.
“You’re Mr Westlake’s partner?”
War’s nod was sharp, his face a mask. I was expecting him to look us up and down, judge us for being in our leather cuts, our status practically screaming out to him that we were criminals. Which meant his patient was too, but he didn’t do anything other than begin explaining what was going on.
“I won’t lie to you, he was in bad shape when he got here. He’s stable at the moment, but he is still classed as critical. He’s going to be monitored very closely for the next forty-eight hours minimum and there will always be experienced staff on standby at all times.”
“What was the damage?”
He looked at us both for a moment before talking frankly, focusing on War, keeping steady eye contact which I appreciated. He may have been talking matter of factly but he wasn’t being overly clinical. He figured he didn’t need to sugar coat anything with two guys who lookedlike us. Couldn’t be further from the truth, behind our façade, we were both dying a little bit hearing all of this.
“His abdominal area took most of the damage, with four deep and two shallow puncture wounds. We didn’t have time to perform any scans or x-rays prior to beginning surgery, as the injuries were life threatening, and he had been in the air for a while getting to us.
“A couple of his arteries were punctured, we clamped them off and they’ve been repaired during the surgery. He has had a large number of units of blood transfused throughout the last few hours. We had to remove his spleen and gallbladder as they’d both been irreparably lacerated, but the body is able to function well without either of those organs. There will be some residual effects and medical requirements to support his health going forward.
“Fortunately, we were able to save the liver and his aorta wasn’t damaged at all. At the moment, he is in recovery, he hasn’t regained consciousness yet, which is perfectly normal after being under anaesthesia for such a long period of time. His pain is being managed so, he hopefully won’t be in too much discomfort when he does wake. I am going to have to advise that he only has one visitor, because we need to be careful about infections and we need to be able to react quickly if anything is to happen.”
“So basically, be prepared?” War asked caustically.
“Not necessarily,” Dr Parker said, holding out a hand. “I’ve seen patients recover from worse attacks than this, but yes, we do need to be realistic about the potential outcomes, one of them being Mr Westlake succumbing to his injuries. We will do everything within our power to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
“We appreciate your honesty, doc,” I told him. “If he does get through the next forty eight hours, what are the next steps?”
“It varies from patient to patient, recovery could be a couple of weeks to a few months. He is going to need lifelong medication after the removal of his organs, but like I said, they’re, for lack of a better word,safeorgans the body can function without.
“I’m aware of his earlier diagnosis from the accident he was involved in a few months ago and I have spoken with his doctors in Sussex but right now, I’m not sure how much of an effect, if any, that will have onhis recovery. The brain isn’t my specialty but we do have people you could speak to in that regard if you wanted to.”
“He had CPR on the way to the hospital, will that have any affect?” I asked, thinking about lack of oxygen to his already damaged brain. How much that might make his recovery less likely.
“At the moment, I can’t say,” Parker looked over at me. “We will be running further tests, he will undergo an MRI so we can keep an eye on everything, ensuring the surgery was successful. Everything went according to plan, and everything we were able to do, was done.”
I dropped my head down and stared at the linoleum between my boots. He didn’t deserve this. Connor may have been part of a motorcycle club, but he was a good guy, he’d do anything for anyone, he cared about people, he was always the voice of reason, always the one to reign us in when we were getting out of hand, ever the peacemaker.
He hadn’t deserved what happened to him the first time, he really didn’t deserve this. And as horrible as I felt thinking it, part of me wondered if he would be better off. I slammed the door on those thoughts. Wishing him dead was one of the worst thoughts I’d had in a long time.
There wasn’t much more the doctor could tell us, he said we could call him if we had any questions, handing a card over to War and that the nurse would show him to Connor’s room.
He took it and stared at it as the doctor left the room. I have never been one for soothing words and sharing my feelings but War and I had been in this position before. We’d got through it then, we can get through it now. I just didn’t know how to convince him of that. He was still leaning against the wall, his gaze fixed on the corner of the room.
When I took a step toward him, he raised his head and cleared his throat a few times. “Do you want to stick around while I go in?”
“Where else would I go, man. Seriously.”
“I know,” he pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes closing. “It was…a lot.”
I agreed. It really was. I was still trying to wrap my head around all of it. We walked out and War went to the nurse who was waiting for him. I told him I’d get us some food. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday and my stomach was making that known.
