Manny forced his lids to open. His vision was wonky as hell, but it was amazing what you could pull out of your ass if you had to - and as the man in front of him came into focus, he found himself staring up at the goateed motherfucker who had ...
On a fresh wave of f**king-OW, his eyes rolled back and he nearly threw up.
"You've got to release the memories," he heard Jane say.
There was some conversating at that point, his former colleague's voice mixing with the deep tones of that man with the tattoos at his temple.
"It's killing him - "
"There's too much risk - "
"How the hell is he going to operate like this?"
There was a long silence. And then all of a sudden, the pain lifted as if it were a veil drawn back, all that pressure gone within the blink of an eye. In its place, memories flooded his mind.
Jane's patient. From back at St. Francis. The man with the goatee and ... the six-chambered heart. Who had shown up in Manny's office and taken the files on that cardiac anomaly of his.
Manny popped open his lids and lasered in on that nasty-looking face. "I know you."
"You get him out of the car," was the only response from Goatee. "I don't trust myself to touch him."
Hell of a welcome wagon.
And there was someone else behind the big bastard. A man Manny was one hundred percent sure he'd seen before ... Must have been only in passing, though, because he couldn't call up a name or remember where they'd met.
"Let's go," Jane said.
Yeah. Great idea. At this point, he needed something to focus on other than all this say-what?.
As Manny's brain struggled to process what was happening, at least his feet and legs got with the program. After Jane helped him out of the car and onto the vertical, he followed her and the Goateed Hater into a facility that was as nondescript and clean as any hospital: Corridors were uncluttered, fluorescent lights were in panels on the ceiling, everything smelled like Lysol.
And there were also the bubbled fixtures of security cameras at regular intervals, like the building was a monster with many eyes.
While they walked along, he knew better than to ask any questions. Well, that and his head was so scrambled, he was pretty f**king sure ambulation was the extent of his capabilities at this point. And then there was Goatee and his death stare - not exactly an opening for chitchat.
Doors. They passed many doors. All of which were closed and no doubt locked.
Happy little words like undisclosed location and national security hopscotched through his cranial park, and that helped a lot, making him think maybe he could forgive Jane for ghosting out on him - eventually.
When she stopped outside a pair of double flappers, her hands fidgeted with the lapels of her white coat and then the stethoscope in her pocket. And didn't that make him feel like he had a gun to his head: In the OR, in countless trauma messes, she'd always kept her cool. It was her trademark.
This was personal, though, he thought. Somehow, whatever was on the other side of these doors hit close to home for her.
"I've got good equipment here," she said, "but not everything. No MRI. Just CAT scans and X-rays. The OR should be adequate, however, and not only can I assist, but I've got an excellent nurse."
Manny took a breath and reached down deep, pulling himself together. By force of will, he shut off all the questions and the lingering ow-ow-ow in his head and the strangeness of this descent into 007-land.
First thing on his to-do list? Ditch the pissed-off peanut gallery.
He glanced over his shoulder at Goatee. "You need to back off, my man. I want you out in the hall."
The response he got in return was ... just fang-tastic: The bastard bared a pair of canines as long as his arm and growled, natch, like a dog.
"Fine," Jane said, getting in between them. "That's fine. Vishous will wait out here."
Vishous? Had he heard that right?
Then again, this boy's baby mama sure hit the nail on the head, considering that little dental show. But whatever. Manny had a job to do, and maybe the bastard could go chew on a rawhide or something.
Pushing into the examination room, he -
Oh ... dear God.
Oh ... Lord above.
The patient on the table was lying still as water and ... she was probably the most beautiful anything he'd ever seen: Hair was jetblack and braided into a thick rope that hung free next to her head. Skin was a golden brown, as if she were of Italian descent and had recently been in the sun. Eyes ... her eyes were like diamonds, both colorless and brilliant, with nothing but a dark rim around the iris.
"Manny?"
Jane's voice was right behind him, but he felt as if she were miles away. In fact, the whole world was somewhere else, nothing existing except for the stare of his patient as she looked up at him from out of her immobilized head.
It finally happened, he thought as he burrowed under his shirt and took hold of his heavy cross. All his life he'd wondered why he'd never fallen in love, and now he knew: He'd been waiting for this moment, this woman, this time.
The female is mine, he thought.
And even though that made no sense at all, the conviction was so strong, he couldn't question it.
"Are you the healer?" she said in a low voice that stopped his heart. "Are you ... here for me?"
Her words were heavily accented, gorgeously so, and also a little surprised.
"Yeah. I am." He wrenched off his suit's coat and threw it into a corner, not giving a shit where the thing landed. "I'm here for you."
As he approached, her stunning icy eyes slicked with tears. "My legs ... they feel as though they are moving, but I suspect they do not."
"Do they hurt?"
"Yes."
Phantom pain. Not a surprise.
Manny stopped by her side and glanced at her body, which was covered with a sheet. She was tall. Had to be at least six feet. And she was built with sleek power.
This was a soldier, he thought, measuring the strength in her bare upper arms. This was a fighter.
And, God, the loss of mobility in someone like her took his breath away. Even if you were a couch potato, life in a wheelchair was a bitch and a half, but to somebody like this, it would be a death sentence.
Manny reached out and gathered her hand into his own - and the instant he made contact, his whole body went wakey-wakey on him, as if she were the socket to his inner plug.
"I'm going to take care of you," he said as he looked her right in the eye. "I want you to trust me."
She swallowed hard as one crystal tear slipped out to trail down her temple. On instinct, he reached forward and caught it on his fingertip -
The growl that percolated up from the doorway was the countdown to an ass-kicking if he'd ever heard it. Except as he glanced over at Goatee, he felt like snarling right back at the son of a bitch. Which, yet again, made no sense.
Still holding his patient's hand, he barked at Jane, "Get that miserable bastard out of my operating room. And I want to see the goddamn scans and X-rays. Now."
He was going to save this woman even if it killed him.
And as Goatee's eyes flashed with pure hatred, Manny thought, Well, shit, it might just come down to that....
Chapter Six
Qhuinn was out alone in Caldwell.
For the first time in his frickin' life.
Which, when he thought about it, was nearly a statistical impossibility. He'd spent so many nights fighting and drinking and having sex in and around the clubs downtown that surely one or two had to have been solo flights. But nope. As he walked into the Iron Mask, he was without his two wingmen for the very first time.
Things were different now, however. Times had changed. People, too.
John Matthew was now happily mated, so when he had a shift off, like this evening, he was staying home with his shellan, Xhex, and giving their bed one hell of a workout. And yeah, sure, Qhuinn was the guy's ahstrux nohtrum and all, but Xhex was a symphath assassin more than capable of watching out for her male, and the Black Dagger
Brotherhood's compound was a fortress not even a SWAT team could break into. So he and John had come to an agreement - and kept it quiet.
And as for Blay ...
Qhuinn wasn't going to think about his best friend. Nope. Not at all.
Scanning the inside of the club, he put his f**k filter on and began weeding through the women and the men and the couples. There was one and only one reason he'd come here, and it was the same for the other Goths in the place.
This was not for a relationship. This was not even for companionship. This was all about the in and out, and when that was over, it would be a case of, Thank you, ma'am - or sir, depending on his mood - I'm ghost. Because he was going to need someone else. Or someones else.