“Do you all run helter-skelter from him?” I inquired, chuckling. “What a job environment.”
“Notrunningexactly,” he pointed out. “Let’s just say Sir Konstantin isn’t fond of talking, and I’d rather have scars from external combat than from him. It’s normal in any hierarchy. Do you always cross paths with your matrons or medical directors or whatever?”
“There are no matrons, so to speak, at the clinic where I work. At most clinics, actually. But I understand what you’re saying.”
“See?” He took a seat on the stool as I dropped the book and pulled the covers closer to my body.
“At the clinic, there are people my colleagues and I avoid that are not even superiors. When they show up on the left, I go right,” I reveal, a short laugh leaving my lips. “There was this time when they transferred a new senior nurse to our unit. Healways had something to complain about, really stupid things. One day, a patient reported having really bad cramps during his ward rounds. He had started ranting, yelling at me and a colleague about how we didn’t give her the prescribed amount of painkillers. My colleague had said, ‘We did just as we were instructed, sir. It was the 5 mg.’”
I chuckled as I continued. “Then I looked over to the patient, and noticed she was grabbing her stomach. It was a golden find!”
“Okay…” he remarked tentatively.
“I said, ‘Sir, her cramps have nothing to do with her treatment. She’s having menstrual cramps!’ He was so embarrassed.”
“Ohhh,” he uttered, joining in on my laughter.
“I should have stopped there, right? But I didn’t,” I went on giggling.
“His cup was full.”
“Yes!” I agreed. “I told him, ‘We love the patients as much as other professionals. We’re always here with them. And we sure don’t make assumptions about our fellow professionals not doing their jobs right.’”
“Whoo! You said that? And no one pinched you to stop talking?”
“None that I noticed,” I answered, chuckling. “He walked out of the ward, and we all started laughing—including the patient. I was scared of receiving a query or something. But it never came. He clearly didn’t report me.”
“If something like that had happened here, we’d be lucky if we lived to tell the story,” he remarked, shaking his head. “Just imagining it feels wrong.”
“Not to placate your ego or anything, but your bossisscary. I can understand men quaking in their boots, and I’m sure I’ve not seen his really angry side.”
“It doesn’t take many encounters to get that feeling.”
“I didn’t say I was scared of him,” I pointed out. “He is scary. Not to me. There are other negative emotions I feel in his presence, there’s just no space for fear.”
“Allnegative?”
“All negative,” I insisted, half-rolling my eyes.
“Speaking of Sir Konstantin, are you ready for New York?”
“It’ll sure be more bearable than being here. So, yes. He mentioned that we’ll be traveling soon.”
“You’ll be going tomorrow,” he said, nodding.
“Tomorrow?” I asked, my eyes enlarging. “Wow.”
“Yeah, the situation is now more urgent,” he remarked. “Boss Sergei is working on arranging things as we speak.”
I sighed.
“That’s mainly why I’m here,” he confessed. “I’m staying back with the others.”
“Oh.”
A pang of sadness hit me at the thought of remaining in Konstantin’s confinement without Ruslan.
“But you’ll be seeing me at the manor in a few weeks,” he said, sporting a small smile.
