Page 30 of Careless Whisper

Elias

Ididn’t remember walking into the viewing room, which was being used as a security command room. I just knew I was suddenly there—standing behind the techs monitoring the live feed from OR Three, frozen, staring at the screen like it might start bleeding.

She was on camera in her scrubs with a fucking gun pressed to her head. There was blood on the floor, and Nina lay unmoving.

God! Please don’t let her be dead.

“Zoom in,” I snapped.

The security team was pulling different angles from overhead and corner cams, switching between infrared and standard as lockdown protocols scrambled half the system. The entire hospital was sealed, and no one could get in or out.

I could barely breathe.

“She’s talking to him,” Cindy said from behind me, shaky for the first time since I met her.

Reggie was trying to get the son of a bitch to lie back down. “She’s diagnosing him,” I deduced numbly. “His BP is tanking. He’s in cardiac tamponade. Maybe partial right ventricle involvement.”

“You can tell from here?” One of the tech people asked, bemused.

“Yes,” I breathed.

I watched Reggie, not able to look away from her. She could die right now.

My heart ached.

My stomach twisted.

Pain like I’d never known before flooded inside me.

We didn’t have audio from the room, so I had to guess what she was doing.

Was she trying to save a man who could kill her?

Fucking hell!

And that was when I knew that I was in love with Reggie Sanchez. I had been since that first time when I’d flirted with her at the hospital cafeteria, asking her if chocolate cake was an appropriate lunch since she only had a massive slice of it on her tray.

“Dr. Graham, I’m on my second shift from hell…chocolate is non-negotiable.”

Every time the man with the gun seemed to yell, my heart stopped. If anything happened to her, if that patient pulled that trigger; if she died in that room…

The admin team was already working on a plan.SPD was on the line, and crisis negotiators were on their way.

I didn’t have the luxury to fall apart. I was bombarded with questions about the inmate’s condition and Reggie’s demeanor. I was answering, like an automaton, the whole time, glued to the screen, watching her stay alive.

I’m a fucking fool.

I knew Reggie. I didn’t know what the hell happened in Boston, but Reggie would never do what she’d been accused of. Look at her now, trying to save the life of that cockroach who’d hurt her the first chance he got.

I’d been trying to ruin her career since the day I got here, and she was in there and could die, and she was still doing her job better than anyone else in this building.

The prisoner stumbled back. I saw him sway.

“What the fuck is going on?” I bellowed. “Someone get the fucking audio working in OR Three.”

Reggie moved to steady the man.

And then?—

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