Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
AURORA
I t feels like I’m in a dream as I cross the threshold of the hospital room. The fantasy where all my prayers have been answered and Enzo has been returned to me, but also a waking nightmare where I’m confronted with the horror of what he’s endured for me.
There’s a tangle of cables, wires, and tubes sprouting from any part of him not covered in surgical dressings. The only positive I can see is that, of all the machines surrounding him, not one is breathing for him. Right now it feels like I need something to breathe for me though. I feel like I could fall apart at the seams trying to contain the emotions I feel seeing his face. The love, the relief, the fear. I could drown in them, but they’re suddenly dwarfed by something that cannot be suppressed.
Rage.
It courses through me like an inferno, igniting me from the inside out .
“I don’t care what it takes. Max doesn’t just die for this. He suffers.” I turn and glance at each of my men. “Promise me, right now. Max De Luca dies in agony and at my command. No one else’s.”
They nod their agreement. Benedict’s face is ashen, Sinclair is clenching his jaw so tight I swear I can hear his molars grinding from here, and Nico looks like if I handed him a match, he would burn the world down just to make sure Max was no longer in it.
There’s a soft knock on the door and Doc Em enters looking at Enzo and then back at me. “I promise he looks worse than it is right now.”
“It looks pretty fucking bad, doc,” Benedict snaps. “You had him in surgery all fucking day. How is that not bad?”
“Yes, Benedict. It was pretty fucking bad. However, I’m pretty fucking good at my job.” She raises the mocking eyebrow we’re used to seeing and Benny’s shoulders drop in relief.
She cocks her head to the side, softening her eyes, and continues as only a good doctor can—ignoring the volatile reactions of scared family members and explaining the facts in a controlled yet reassuring way. We’ve seen her in sassy mob doctor mode, never as Doctor Katerina Mancini, general surgeon. It feels strange to witness this other side of her, but I’m glad it was her who operated. I wouldn’t have trusted any other doctor with Enzo’s life.
“He’s going to need time and physical therapy and at least one, if not more, surgeries on his arm. We were able to repair the damage to his liver during the initial keyhole surgery however, when the orthopaedic surgeon was stabilising the damage to his shoulder, his spleen ruptured and he went into cardiac arrest. Then we had to open him up. ”
“What does that mean?” I snap, unable to mask the tremble in my voice.
“We had to restart his heart and then remove his spleen to stabilise him. It shouldn’t affect his quality of life going forward, he just needs to be more careful of infections.”
“Max used to keep me dosed with antibiotics and anti-inflammatories to speed up recovery time. That’s something you probably need to know, right? He probably did that with Zo?” I tell her, my voice getting thinner with each word I utter. I hate that Zo knows even a fraction of the hell Max can inflict on a person.
Her eyes shift, flicking to Sinclair behind me, and his palm settles on the small of my back. The gesture is small but it means the world to me, reassuring me that he’s here for me.
“We ran a full panel and tox screen on his bloods in the ER. The only thing in his system was ketamine and benzodiazepine. There’s no way to know how consistently he was dosed, but there’s a chance he’ll suffer withdrawal while he’s recovering, which is why we’ve sedated him. It’ll give him a chance to recover before we bring him round again.”
“What the fuck do you mean again ?” I shout. “How long has he been out of surgery?”
“I’m sorry, Aurora. He came round in recovery, but he was disoriented. He was a risk to himself, so we had to medicate him. It was my call not to bring you up sooner.”
“I kind of want to punch you in the face right now, doc,” I snap. “I don’t think you understand the hell we’ve been going through, waiting down there.”
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t bring you up until he was stable. I couldn’t let you watch him die again, Aurora.”
Doc Em’s words cut deep, sending a sharp pain lancing through my chest, like a physical manifestation of the truth she speaks. A promise of a sorrow I’d struggle to bear. Biting back the emotion, I set my jaw firmly before adding, “I won’t be kept in the dark again. We’ll discuss this later.”
Doc Em looks around the room and her expression pales under Nico’s glare before grimacing when she sees the pain etched on Benedict’s face.
She nods.
“What’s next, doc?” I ask
“We wait.”