My angel saved my life.
The emergency entrance glows harsh and white against the rain.
By the time the car stops, I’m already tired of the smell of blood. The copper sting of it clings to the back of my throat and mixes badly with antiseptic and wet leather and the sharp, chemical bite of the dressing one of the men pressed to my side in the car.
The rear door opens, and cold air rushes in.
Then a familiar voice cuts through the rain. “For fuck’s sake.”
Dry. Annoyed.
I look up as he strides toward the car beneath the awning, coat unbuttoned, dark hair touched at the temples with silver of his own, his mouth already flattened in a line that promises judgment.
He’s tall. Broad. Expensively dressed in the kind of understated way that costs more than most men’s rent. Not one of mine, but no less dangerous for it. The oldest friend I have. The only manalive who can look at me bleeding in the back seat of an armored sedan and seem more inconvenienced than alarmed.
Some of the hospital staff at the sliding doors spot him and immediately find urgent reasons to be elsewhere. One nurse pivots so fast she nearly loses a clipboard. An orderly disappears down a side corridor. The young man at reception suddenly becomes fascinated by a printer.
My mouth twitches despite the pain.
He notices, of course. His gaze drops to the blood soaking through the towel at my side, then to the men around me, then back to my face. “What did you do now?”
“Good evening to you too.”
He leans down, one hand braced on the doorframe, eyes sharp and unimpressed. “If you’re lucid enough to be sarcastic, you’re lucid enough to answer the question.”
“I got shot.”
“Yes, I gathered that from the blood. I was hoping for something marginally more detailed.”
Behind him, a pair of nurses are whispering to each other in urgent little bursts while pretending not to stare. They’ve recognized him now, which means they’ve recognized me too, or at least recognized enough to know they want no part in whatever this is.
He straightens and glances toward the entrance where another staff member has just stepped out, seen us, and very visibly reconsidered his life choices.
Then he sighs. “You always terrify my staff.”
I ease myself out of the car with more grace than comfort, one hand pressed hard to my side. “That sounds like a failure in hiring.”
“It’s not a hiring problem,” he says, falling into step beside me as my men close ranks around us. “It’s a you problem.”
“Then it remains not my problem.”
That earns me the ghost of a smile. Barely there. Gone fast. It’s the closest thing to warmth he’s likely to offer while I’m bleeding on his entrance pavement.
He holds the door open anyway. “Room three,” he says to the nearest nurse without breaking stride.
She blinks. “Dr. Sava?—”
“Now.”
That’s all it takes. She vanishes.
He glances at me. “If you bleed on my floor, I’ll charge you for it.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“And yet you keep showing up shot.”
“I like your hospitality.”
