Lover Unbound (Black Dagger Brotherhood 5)

"A pair. Let's make this quick."

"Damn right."

The lessers came around the corner, took one look at Phury and Butch, and fell into the ready position. The alley right outside ZeroSum was not the best place for a fight, but luckily because the night was so cold, there weren't any humans around.

"I'm on cleanup," Butch said.

"Roger that."

The two of them lunged at their enemy.

Chapter Eight

Two hours later Jane pushed the door to the Surgical Intensive Care Unit wide. She was packed up and ready to go home, her leather bag on her shoulder, car keys in her hand, her windbreaker on. But she wasn't leaving without seeing her gunshot patient first.

As she walked over to the nursing station, the woman on the other side of the counter looked up. "Hey, Dr. Whitcomb. Come to check on your admit?"

"Yeah, Shalonda. You know me - can't leave 'em alone. What room did you give him?"

"Number six. Faye's in with him, now making sure he's comfortable."

"See why I love you guys? Best SICU staff in town. By the way, has anyone come to see him? We find a next of kin?"

"I called the number on his medical record. Guy who answered said he'd lived in the apartment for the last ten years and had never heard of a Michael Klosnick. So the addy was a false one."

As Shalonda rolled her eyes, the two of them said at the same time, "Drug-related."

Jane shook her head. "I'm not surprised."

"Neither am I. Those tats on his face don't exactly play him as an insurance adjuster."

"Not unless he's pushing paper for a bunch of pro wrestlers."

Shalonda was laughing as Jane waved and headed down the corridor. Number six was all the way down on the right, and as she went she looked in on two other patients she'd operated on, one who'd had a perforated bowel from liposuction gone wrong and another who'd been impaled on a fence rail in a motorcycle accident.

SICU rooms were twenty by twenty square feet of all business. Each one was glass-fronted, with a curtain that could be pulled for privacy, and they were not the kind of digs that had a window or a Monet poster or a TV with Regis and Kelly on it. If you were well enough to worry about what you were watching on the tube, you didn't belong here. The only screens and pictures were from the monitoring equipment orbiting the bed.

When Jane got to six, Faye Montgomery, a real veteran, looked up from checking the patient's IV. "Evenin', Dr. Whitcomb."

"Faye, how are you?" Jane put her bag down and reached for the medical record that was in a pocket holder by the door.

"I'm good, and before you ask, he's stable. Which is amazing."

Jane nipped through the most recent stats. "No kidding."

She was about to close up the medical record when she frowned at the number on the left-hand corner. The ten-digit patient ID was thousands and thousands of numbers away from the ones given to new admits, and she checked the date the file had first been opened: 1974. Flipping through, she found two admits to the ED: one for a knife wound, the other for a drug overdose; '71 and '73 were the dates.

Ah, hell, she'd seen this before. Zeros and sevens could look alike when you wrote them fast. The hospital hadn't made the move to computerized records until late in 2003, and before that everything had been handwritten. This record had clearly been transcribed by data processors who misread what was there: instead of '01 and '03, the person had transcribed the date back into the seventies.

Except... the DOB didn't make sense. With the one listed, the patient would have been thirty-seven three decades ago.

She closed the folder and rested her palm on it. "We have to get better precision from that transcription service."

"I know. I noticed the same thing. Listen, you want some time alone with him?"

"Yeah, that'd be great."

Faye paused by the door. "Heard you were pretty awesome in the OR tonight."

Jane smiled a little. "The team was awesome. I just did my part. Hey, I forgot to tell Shalonda I'm taking UK in Spring Madness. Would you - "

"Yup. And before you ask, yes, she's Duke again this year."

"Good, we can abuse each other for another six weeks."

"That's why she picked 'em. Public service so the rest of us can watch you guys go at it. You two are such givers."

After Faye left, Jane pulled the privacy curtain into place and went over to the bedside. The patient's respiration was machine-driven through his intubation, and his oxygen levels were acceptable. Blood pressure was steady, although low. Heart rate was sluggish, and it read funny on the monitor, but then again, he had six chambers beating.

Christ, that heart of his.

She leaned over him and studied his facial features. Caucasian in derivation, most likely middle European. A looker, not that that was relevant, although the handsome thing was thrown off a little by those tattoos on his temple. She moved in closer to study the ink in his skin. She had to admit it was beautifully done, the intricate designs like Chinese characters and hieroglyphics combined. She figured the symbols must be gang-related, although he didn't seem like a boy to play at warfare; he was more fierce, like a soldier. Maybe the tats were a martial-arts thing?

When she glanced at the tube inserted in his mouth, she noticed something odd. With her thumb she pushed his upper lip back. His canines were very pronounced. Shockingly sharp.

Cosmetic, no doubt. People were doing all kinds of freaky stuff to their appearances these days, and he'd already marked up his face.

She lifted up the thin blanket that covered him. The wound dressing on the chest was fine, so she worked her way down his body, pushing the covers out of her way while she went. She inspected the stab wound's dressing, then palpated his abdominal area. As she gently pushed to feel his internal organs, she looked at the tattoos above his pubic area, then focused on the scars around his groin.

He'd been partially castrated.

Given the messy scarring, it hadn't been a surgical removal, more likely the result of an accident. Or at least, she hoped it had been accidental, because the only other explanation would be torture.

She stared at his face as she covered him up. On impulse, she put her hand on his forearm and squeezed. "You've led a hard-core life, haven't you."

"Yeah, but it's done me good."

Jane wheeled around. "Jesus, Manello. You scared me."

"Sorry. Just wanted to check in." The chief went around to the other side of the bed, his eyes going over the patient. "You know, I don't think he wouldn't have lived under someone else's knife."

"Have you seen the pictures?"

"Of his heart? Yeah. I want to send them to the boys at Columbia for a little look-see. You can ask them what they think when you're there."

She gave that one a pass. "His blood wouldn't type."

"Really?"

"If we can get his consent, I think we should do a total workup on him down to the chromosomes."

"Ah, yes, your second love. Genes."

Funny that he remembered. She'd probably mentioned only once how she'd almost ended up in genetics research.

With a junkie's rush, Jane pictured the inside of the patient, saw his heart in her hand, felt the organ in her grip as she saved his life. "He could present a fascinating clinical opportunity. God, I would love to study him. Or at least participate in studying him."

The soft beeping of the monitoring equipment seemed to swell in the silence between them until moments later some kind of awareness tickled the back of her neck. She glanced up. Manello was staring at her, his face grave, his thick jaw set, his brows down low.

"Manello?" She frowned. "Are you okay?"

"Don't go."

To avoid his eyes she looked down at the bedsheet that was folded once and tucked under her patient's arm. Idly she smoothed the white expanse - until it reminded her of something her mother had always done.

She stilled her hand. "You can get another surg - "

"Fuck the department. I don't want you to go because..." Manello pushed a hand through his thick dark hair. "Christ, Jane. I don't want you to go because I'd miss you like hell, and because I... shit, I need you, okay? I need you here. With me."

Jane blinked like an idiot. In the last four years there'd never been any suggestion that the man was attracted to her. Sure, they were tight and all. And she was the only one who could calm him down when he lost his temper. And okay, yeah, they talked about the inner workings of the hospital all the time, even after hours. And they ate together every night when they were on duty and... he'd told her about his family and she'd told him about hers...