Arrival of the police

Helping Mr. Gang Leader

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Chapter 3:

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Rio shouted, “I’m talking to you!”

“Don’t snap at my sister like that!” Giovanni’s own voice rose.

And then the new comer, whoever he was, interjected, “Stop fighting, all of you!”

Gianna turned to Rio and looked him straight in the eyes. “Do you know why you have thirty seconds to get out of my operating room?”

“Go ahead and tell me.”

“Because,” Gianna said, muttering a thank you to Zeke when he deposited the tools at her side. “Because you’re the idiot who pointed a gun at me. You’re the idiot who, instead of asking nicely if I could save his friend’s life, demanded that I do so. Because I don’t like you. Because I don’t like violence. And because this is a clinic where I treat people and take care of them, and you are making it very difficult for me to want to do that. Now, your friend is laid out on my operating table, bleeding out from a gunshot wound. Do you want to stay here and be an ass, or do you want to leave now and let me work? Fifteen seconds for you to decide.”

Gianna turned fully away from him then, and instead concentrated on the wound.

It was only the shuffling of feet, and then the quiet shutting of a door that alerted Gianna that she was alone with the victim and Nurse Zeke.

She was able to work in relative silence for a few minutes before Zeke asked, “Is he … do you think he’s going to be okay?”

The trepidation in Zeke’s voice was almost endearing in its uncertainty. Gianna was used to reassuring people and comforting family members, so it was easy for her to say, “Your friend has a lot going for him. He’s young, fit, appears to be in good health, and if one is going to be shot in the abdomen, this is a good place for it to happen.”

The victim had passed out moments ago, and Gianna knew that was a godsend.

She didn’t have an anesthesiologist on hand, couldn’t possibly call for one, and more basic pain medication was something that would have to wait until Gianna could get a better sense of the patient’s vitals.

“Also,” Gianna said, this time giving Zeke a reassuring smile, “the bullet went through and through. In and then out. And it did so in a clean trajectory. If that hadn’t happened, your friend probably would have bled to death before you even got him to me.”

Zeke frowned. “How come?”

The subject was so close to home, but Gianna refused to be anything but professional. “When a bullet goes through and through, in one side and out the other, it makes it much easier for a doctor to not only assess the damage, but also repair it. When someone is unlucky, and depending up on the circumstances around the shooting, the bullet can do one of two things. Either it can remain whole in the person and bounce around, damaging organs and various other things, or it can break apart as shrapnel and lodge everywhere.”

“And Cypher he didn’t … that didn’t happen to him?”

“No,” Gianna said confidently. Then her mouth turned down and she asked, “That isn’t really his name, is it?”

Zeke looked panicked.

“That’s his thug name?”

When he remained staunchly quiet, Gianna shrugged and said, “I think you should know that my surgical skills are going to save this man’s life tonight. But for me as a doctor, what I do is more than simply or clinically treating someone. I bond with my patients. I comfort them and make them feel like they’ve got a lifelong friend looking out for them. For the moments they’re with me, and maybe after, they are my friends. And do you know how that starts? It starts with a name.”

Zeke shook his head. “You shouldn’t--”

“You broke into my clinic at one in the morning,” Gianna said, eyes narrowing. “You set off my alarm, no doubt broke something, dragged your bleeding friend all over the place, you’ve forced me to contaminate an area that another doctor planned to use to help someone else, and you can’t tell me a name that I can use to comfort my patient with?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Zeke said, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth, “Giovanni always says what an amazing doctor and brother you are, but--”

Wheezing a bit, and startling them all, the patient on the table rumbled out, “Ferrari… Dan … te.”

“Ah,” Gianna said, peering up at her patient. “So he has a name. Dante.”

Ferrari Dante was an odd-looking man, not overly handsome like Gianna had seen before, but there was certainly something appealing about him.

He was the kind of person who looked like he had a magnetic personality, and looked a force to be reckoned with.

He looked to be the kind of person Gianna liked best, which was interesting, and she was now even more determined to see him to recovery.

“Dante,” She spoke once more, “I don’t know if you heard me earlier, but I’m your doctor. I’m taking care of you. I’ve inspected your wound, and while you most certainly need a blood transfusion, of which I do not have at this clinic, I think you’re going to make a full recovery with enough time. You are going to be okay.”

“Blood?” Zeke asked quickly. “He needs blood?”

“Most certainly,” Gianna said. Then she was surprised by how hard Dante grabbed her hand and squeezed.

She turned to Zeke and wondered, “I don’t suppose either of you know what blood type he is?”

Without saying a word Zeke jogged quickly to the door. He popped it open to speak to someone on the other side.

Trying to keep her face as easy and friendly as possible, Gianna leaned closer to Dante. “I don’t know if I even want to ask how this happened.”

Dante hissed through his teeth in pain before saying, “Disagreement.”

Gianna gave a thin laugh. “A disagreement with guns?”

Dante winced, and for the next few minutes they worked in silence.

Zeke was back in the room by the time Gianna started on the stitches that would hold everything together.

“Just a little while longer,” Gianna promised as she threaded the needle through Dante’s skin. “I know this hurts, but honestly, I’ve seen grown men cry over things less than this. You’re doing well.”

A smile that was all teeth greeted Gianna as Dante said, “Gotta … impress …my hot doctor.”

“You’re so greasy,” Gianna teased him. “You’re lucky I like greasy. It’s one of my character flaws that I find greasy endearing.”

Dante said assuredly, “Best … doctor … ever.”

He was gasping for air, fighting through the pain, and Gianna was only more impressed by the fortitude being displayed.

For fifteen minutes Dante endured stitches being applied to his already inflamed skin without pain medication or a numbing agent.

Through it Gianna talked to him about the much worse gunshot wounds she’d seen, how much worse it could have been, and how she was confident that Dante was a very lucky person.

A quick check of Dante’s blood pressure satisfied Gianna enough to finally say, “Okay, now you get your reward.”

“Lollipop?” Dante asked, sweating profusely across this nearly naked body.

Gianna hadn’t allowed herself to look much before, but the muscle definition was impossible to miss now.

Dante, before his brush with death in the form of a bullet, was likely a perfect male specimen. Toned legs, developed arms, and a strong, wide chest, probably drove countless people crazy with want.

Gianna hadn’t had a date in five months.

She hadn’t had sex in almost a year. And Dante flirting with her, dangling about like a piece of meat, was not helping.

“This is a local,” Gianna said, producing a syringe, and filling it with a carefully measured dosage of liquid. “It’s not the strongest stuff I could give you, but something tells me you don’t want to be completely dead to the world, unable to defend yourself if trouble comes knocking.” Gianna paused, giving Dante a suspicious look. “I know you won’t be bringing any more trouble to my clinic, though, right?”

Dante cracked his eyes open and gave a weak shake of his head. “No, ma’am.”

“Then this,” Gianna told him, “will provide relief from what must be an excruciatingly painful throbbing in your side, and help you sleep. But you’ll still have your senses should you need them.”

Zeke tensed up, having been silence since he returned, and Dante caught Gianna’s wrist sharply before she could administer the syringe.

Gianna asked plainly, “You don’t want the pain relief?”

She could see the conflict on Dante’s face. Gianna could see the uncertainty and the panic and the hint of fear.

“I’m a doctor,” Gianna told him evenly, not pulling her wrist back in the least, despite the almost painful grip Dante had on it.

“That means, above all else, that I help and protect people. You are my responsibility as long as you’re under my care, and I won’t let anything happen to you. That is my promise to you, and you should be aware, I don’t make promises I can’t keep. I haven’t broken one yet, and I don’t expect to start with you.”

Slowly, almost excruciatingly so, Dante’s hand released on her wrist.

“You’ll feel better with this and a little rest,” Gianna promised, then slid the syringe tip into the crook of Dante’s elbow gracefully. “Trust me.”

Dante gave a small nod before his eyes closed and he was out.

Gently Gianna snapped her fingers, and when Dante didn’t react, she told Zeke, “He’s going to be fine.”

Zeke nodded and replied, “Blood is on the way.”

Eyes widening, Gianna asked, “And did you break into a different clinic to acquire it? Or the local blood bank? Because that is absolutely not something that--”

Before she could finish, the door burst in and Giovanni rushed out. “Gia! The police are here!”