“Is..did you get everything taken care of?” Paul asked, biting down on his lip as I helped him back up onto the gurney that the orderly gestured to.
“Everything is fine,” I said firmly, gently pressing him back until he was lying down. “But we need to get that bullet out of you.” When Paul started to sit back up, I narrowed my eyes until he gave a sigh and lowered his head to the pillow.
“Yes, Alpha,” he said with a sweet smile that had my heart fluttering.
“Good boy,” I said gruffly, dragging my fingertips down his cheek before stepping back so the orderly could take his position at the head of the gurney.
“Sir? You’re going to have to wait here,” a nurse gestured to a small curtained off cubicle off the main hallway. “Visitors aren’t allowed in the operating room.”
“Of course,” I huffed, bending down to brush Paul’s lips with mine. “Behave. I’ll be waiting.”
Paul reached up to pat my cheek. “You better be.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Paul
Once in the operating room, I was relieved to learn that my so-called operation wasn’t actually all that serious. Hell, they didn’t even knock me out. Instead, the orderly helped me into a chair sitting against the wall, an anesthesiologist shot me up with a numbing agent before the doctor that had initially examined me poked and prodded a bit. She dropped something into a stainless-steel bowl with athunk.
“Here it is,” she announced, setting the bowl in my lap.
“Really?” I studied the bloody bit of squashed metal in surprise. “That’s a bullet?”
She nodded and then reached for a bottle with a long nozzle to irrigate the wound. “I’m no expert, but since it lodged in soft tissue without hitting bone, I’m guessing that it must have deflected off something before it hit you. That’s why it is out of shape and didn’t go all the way through.”
“Huh.” I sat without moving as she stitched up the hole in my shoulder and covered it with a bandage.
She finished her work in silence, finishing off the neat little stitches by tying a knot and trimming the thread with a flourish. “There you are Mr. Rogers,” she said warmly. “A couple of weeks and you’ll be good as new.”
The orderly escorted me back to the emergency room cubicle that my exam had begun in to wait for my discharge orders where I found Sylas glaring at a uniformed police officer while the ever-calm director of Omega Destiny, International gave a statement regarding how I’d been injured.
“Mr. Rogers,” the officer interrupted as I walked through the curtain. “I need to take your statement.”
“Okay.” I hesitated between sitting on the edge of the hospital bed or taking the chair next to Sylas so he made the decision for me, wrapping one arm around my waist and gently easing me into his lap. “What do you need to know?”
“Do you know who shot you?”
“My father,” I said without hesitation. “Stuart Davis.”
The officer’s lack of reaction suggested that Sylas and Chuck had already told him that.
“That would beSenatorStuart Davis?” he confirmed with a frown.
I nodded.
“And according to your, um, husband,” he said slowly, glancing over at Sylas, “it was during a failed kidnapping attempt?”
“Not failed, exactly,” I tried to clarify. “My stepmother and half-brotherdidkidnap me,” I explained, “but my husband found us and rescued me.” I snuggled back against Sylas’s chest, his arms tightening around me. “But then my father showed up and shot me.”
“I see.” The officer finished scribbling in his notebook before reeling off Sylas’s address and phone number. “Is this contact information all good?”
I nodded again.
“I’m sure one of the detectives will be in touch to get more information, but for now I think that’s all I need.”
“Good, Sylas interjected, helping me to my feet and standing. “In that case, let’s get you home.”
The walk to the parking lot was enough to leave me exhausted.
