Page 64 of Goodnight, Sinners

“Your job is safe around me,” Shaun assured her. “Honestly, it’ll be a relief to not have the responsibility of an entire department on my head. A new position will give me more time for lab work and research.”

Elisa nodded, but didn’t comment. Until that moment, the natural competitive nature between surgeons had been pushed to the wayside as they forged their way through the planning of a difficult surgery. Now, they were hours away from conducting that surgery and their positions were shifting.

Shaun would take lead on the surgery, but Elisa was technically her boss while she worked at the Prague hospital.

Elisa pushed away from her desk and stood. “Let’s go see our patient.”

“I thought you would never ask.”

Shaun clipped her badge onto her shirt and followed Elisa from the room. She would finally find out who her mystery patient was. So far, all that had been disclosed to her was his age, medical history and current medical condition.

They ran into another issue when Cooper flat out refused to allow Shaun to enter the patient’s room without an escort. It was one thing to let Shaun speak with Elisa privately while he watched through a glass door, but quite another when she intended to walk solo into a room with people he hadn’t vetted or run by Jozef. He took his bodyguard duties extremely seriously.

They had to wait another ten minutes while Elisa called down to her office and asked for another non-disclosure agreement, which was promptly rushed to the patient’s room. Cooper held it against the wall and signed with a pen that Elisa handed him.

“Are we ready now?” Elisa asked, an edge of sarcasm in her voice.

The trio entered the room and Shaun looked to the man on the bed, clad in a hospital gown, his legs crossed in front of him, a stack of papers in his lap. She didn’t recognize him, but when her gaze strayed to the other men in the room, she immediately recognized one of them. He’d been in her home a few days earlier.

She stopped in her tracks and Cooper stepped in front of her, his hand going beneath his jacket. He recognized the man too. Alan Dietrick, personal bodyguard to the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Which meant the man on the bed must be…

“Dr. Shaun Patterson, this is Branislav Makovsky, our Prime Minister.”

Cooper recovered from his shock first. “Absolutely not. This is a setup.” He turned and grabbed Shaun by the arm. “We’re leaving now.”

Dietrick and the other two bodyguards stepped forward, but it was the Prime Minister who stopped them.

“Please.” His voice was firm, despite his fragile condition. “Let me speak with the doctor before you take her out of here.”

Shaun looked at the man, saw the sincerity in his eyes. In a low voice she said to Cooper, “He won’t hurt me in a hospital full of people.”

“You don’t know what this man is capable of,” Cooper countered, not lowering his voice. “Jozef wouldn’t approve.”

Shaun shook her head. “I am a doctor and this is my patient. Period. He is not the Prime Minister.”

“I don’t know about that,” the Prime Minister said drily.

Shaun narrowed her eyes at him. “I will leave and your odds of surviving this surgery will go down drastically.”

He took a sharp breath and stared at her, as if trying to see into her soul. She knew what he was looking for. Answers to his own mortality. He wanted to know if the fiancé of his rival could actually set aside any preconceived notions and work to give him a few more years of life.

“So I’ve been told,” he said quietly, his gaze switching to Elisa. “Dr. Cerný has indicated that this surgery cannot go forward without you. Please, I only have a few months left. I… I want more time with my grandson. He was born only a few months ago.”

Shaun heard the hesitation and the sincerity in his voice. He didn’t want to appear weak in front of his men, but he was willing to say whatever it took to get Shaun to agree to do the surgery.

She stepped away from Cooper, giving him a stern look as she approached the hospital bed.

“You know that your survival is uncertain, even with me conducting the surgery.”

“Yes, I’ve been informed.” Again, he glanced at Elisa. Shaun sensed he trusted the other woman, which made Shaun trust her a little less.

“You understand that this surgery is designed to extend your life, not save it?” Shaun was being far blunter that she might have been with other patients. As much as she wanted to be completely impartial to her patient, she couldn’t forget that he’d tried to blackmail Jozef into working for him. “The tumour has a high chance of coming back in three to five years, at which time you probably won’t survive another surgery.”

Branislav looked at her steadily. “Three years is better than the three months I’ve been given. Please, Dr. Patterson, I need you.”

She stared back at him and finally nodded. She looked at Elisa. “I think we’re ready.”

It turned out that Dietrick had been given the same permission as Cooper to stand outside the room while the surgery was being conducted. The rest of his men would have to remain off the surgical ward.

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