Chapter 6 - The Private Suite|
By three in the morning, Raymond was lying in a massive king-sized bed in the third-floor master suite.
Dr. Vance—a sharp-eyed, gray-haired syndicate doctor who had spent twenty years patching up bullet wounds—had just finished re-stitching the edge of the tear that had opened during the escape.
Naomi stood near the fireplace, wearing a clean grey sweatshirt and trousers that one of the female staff members had brought her. Her hands were washed clean, but her pulse refused to settle.
"He's stable, Nurse Hail," Dr. Vance said, packing his surgical tools into a silver briefcase. "Your stitches saved his life in that ER. Another two minutes of internal bleeding and his heart would have stopped."
"He shouldn't be moving," Naomi said, her voice dropping into her professional tone as she walked to the side of the bed. "He needs absolute bed rest for seventy-two hours."
Dr. Vance let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Good luck convincing him of that, Nurse. He has a war to run."
The doctor bowed his head to Raymond and exited the room, shutting the heavy oak door behind him.
Silence descended over the massive suite, broken only by the crackle of the wood-burning hearth and the rain hammering against the high windows overlooking the lake.
Raymond lay against the dark silk pillows, his shirt off, his heavy chest wrapped in fresh white bandages. The scar on his cheekbone glowed pale under the yellow lamp light.
"Come here," Raymond said softly, gesturing to the edge of the bed.
Naomi hesitated, her boots sinking into the thick carpet, before walking over and sitting carefully on the mattress beside him.
"You should be sleeping, Raymond," she murmured.
Raymond didn't answer. He reached out, his fingers closing gently around her wrist, pulling her hand up until her palm rested flat against his warm, beating chest—right over his heart.
"Ten years, Naomi," Raymond whispered, his gray eyes locked onto hers with a fierce, suffocating intensity. "Ten years I kept that handkerchief you gave me in my desk drawer."
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Naomi’s breath hitched. "What?"
"I never forgot you," Raymond said, his voice dropping into a raspy, dark pitch that sent a shiver straight down her spine. "Not when my father was killed, not when I took over this city, and not when I was sitting in that ER tonight dying. You were the only good thing that ever happened to me in that hellhole of a school."
