Chapter 2 - The Suit at the Curtain|
The curtain swung open before the resident could even take a step toward the hallway.
A man stood in the gap. He didn't wear scrubs, and he certainly wasn't an ER orderly. He wore a dark charcoal suit that screamed tailored Italian wool, but the right shoulder was damp with fresh rain and dark blood. His hands were tucked loosely into his pockets, but his eyes swept the trauma bay with the mechanical precision of a killer.
Behind him, two hospital security guards were standing indecisively in the corridor, looking like men who had just been told their pensions depended on turning around and walking away.
"Is he breathing?" the suit asked. His voice was low, devoid of panic, holding the kind of authority that made people move before they could think.
Naomi didn't back down. She stood over the unconscious man, her gloved hands resting firmly against the fresh pressure dressing on his side.
"This is Trauma Room Three," Naomi said, her tone sharp as a scalpel. "You need to wait behind the yellow line outside."
The suit didn't move an inch. "I asked if Raymond is breathing, nurse."
"He's breathing because I just closed his arterial bleed," Naomi retorted, meeting the man's ruthless gaze without flinching. "If you step into my sterile field again, he'll stop breathing because you brought a street infection into his chest cavity. Out."
For two seconds, the stranger stared at her. A faint, dangerous flicker of surprise passed over his features. Nobody spoke to Julian Vane’s men like that—especially not a tired ER nurse in stained blue scrubs.
"Marcus," a voice rasped from the gurney.
It was weak. It sounded like grinding stones, but it brought the entire room to a sudden, dead freeze.
Raymond Lockwood's eyes fluttered open.
The storm-gray irises were unfocused at first, clouded by blood loss and shock, but they drifted slowly upward, bypassing Marcus entirely, until they locked onto Naomi's pale face.
"Ray," Marcus stepped closer. "We have the private transport ready downstairs. We take you to the house—"
"No," Raymond growled softly, coughing as a spot of blood touched his lip. His heavy hand moved off the gurney sheet, his calloused fingers reaching out toward Naomi's sleeve.
Marcus frowned. "Boss, the feds are already logging the incident at the docks. We move now."
Raymond ignored his right-hand man completely. His fingers gripped the fabric of Naomi's scrub top, his knuckles turning white. He stared at her, his dark brows drawing together as a spark of ancient, buried recognition cut straight through the fog of pain.
May you like
He leaned up half an inch, his voice dropping into a raspy whisper that only she could hear over the hum of the heart monitor.
"Do you remember me?" Raymond asked.
