Page 32 of Careless Whisper

He sliced it open with a gloved hand, bloodpouring out under pressure. “Right ventricle’s ruptured.”

“Suction,” I called.

A nurse handed it off. I took it and cleared the field while Elias applied pressure directly to the heart.

“Get me the epi,” he ordered.

I handed him the syringe. He injected it straight into the myocardium.

“Manual compressions,” he ordered, and I complied. “Right there. You’ve got it.”

I nodded, locking in. “Sinus rhythm returning on the monitor. Carotid’s back. Weak, but there.”

“Keep pressure on the ventricle,” he instructed.

We moved fluidly, synchronized, and as we did, there was no past, no Boston, and no betrayal—just the rhythm of a heart we refused to let stop.

An hour later, I sat on the edge of a gurney in the hallway, hands finally clean, adrenaline fading into a bone-deep ache. Cindy had forced me to take a break, and someone had shoved a cup of coffee and a chocolate bar into my hand that I didn’t remember asking for.

I was eating the chocolate without tasting it when Luther sat down beside me.

“You wanna bite?” I held the bar of Vosges up. Someone had given me the good stuff.

He dutifully broke a piece and stuffed it into his mouth. We ate quietly.

“You okay?” he finally asked.

I took a sip of coffee, which was lukewarm and tasted awful. “Yeah.”

“You scared the hell out of all of us, Reggie.”

“I scared me,” I admitted. My voice sounded hollow. My ears were still ringing from the gunshot.

He nudged me with his shoulder. “Elias got to you before security gave the all-clear. They tried to stop him. He pushed through. I think one of the guys he pushed was a cop.”

I looked over at him.

He grinned. “Full-on surgeon mode. Barking orders. Looked like he was going to throw a punch if anyone tried to slow him down.”

I pursed my lips.

“He was losing it in the control room. We all were,” Luther added. “Thought you were for sure dead.”

A strange tightness wrapped around my heart—not painful, just…intense. I didn’t know what to do with what Luther was telling me.

“Gigi, you’re bleeding.”

“The blood is not mine, Eli.”

I had felt his terror, and we’d been, for those few seconds, as intimate as we were when he was inside me.

Gigi and Eli.

“He saved the guy.” I bit into more chocolate; it felt good to get some sugar in my system.

“Yeah,” Luther agreed. “Buthe came for you.”

Yeah, he did. I’d seen it. I’d felt it. I knew it.

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