surgical gown decorated with blood. My heart leaves my body. Flies away, like a little bird. The other’s crisp scrubs look brand new. The one in scrubs puts a big palm on the nurse’s shoulder. “Back to your desk.”
She goes, and the next second—furious typing.
“Ms. Morelli. I’m estimating we’re about halfway through the procedure to—”
I can’t hear what he says. Or I hear it, but I can’t understand it. The individual words, yes. But they’re too horrifying to string together. No exit wound and collapsed lung and blood transfusions and what they boil down to is that Leo put his body between me and a bullet and there’s no telling how much it hurt him.
Eva absorbs all this impassively. “Is he going to live?”
“The prognosis is good.”
The tension goes out of my spine and I become a stringless puppet sagging in my chair. No one would tell me anything.
They wouldn’t tell me if he was alive. Or if he was dead.
A crisp nod from Eva. “I’m locking down the floor. Move all your patients to other departments.”
The doctor barks a laugh. “That won’t be possible. The personnel involved—”
“Call in extra personnel. Do it now.”
“Ms. Morelli.” He’s condescending. Pretending to take her seriously. “We cannot move all the patients from this floor. We have nine requiring specialized post-surgery care—”
“I would hate for anything to happen.” Eva cuts smoothly into his explanation.
“To whom?”
“To your daughter at Northwestern.” She looks him in the eye. She does not flinch. “Madison. Or your other daughter, Christine, who’s in her last year at Brown.”
Now the quiet expands. The doctor’s eyes go from her face to the men flanking her. To the men at the corners of the waiting room. To three others, who have moved behind him to the doors leading into the wing.
His jaw tics. “We’ll have them transferred within the hour.”
“No one comes in or out unless my people approve it. One word to anyone about my brother, and I will personally see to it that—”
Both of the doctor’s hands come up. “Understood.”
Eva waits.
“Understood, Ms. Morelli.”
The doctor and the surgeon back away from her like they’re leaving a royal audience.
And then she turns her head.
Dark eyes that remind me forcefully of Leo scan the disaster I am at this moment. “Haley. Yes?”
I manage a nod and push myself upright in the chair. Eva lets out a breath. “Come with me.”
What else am I supposed to do? I get to my feet, my clothes stiff with the blood, and go to her side. Eva pushes through the swinging double doors that have kept me from the wing all these hours. They’re nothing to her.
On the other side of the doors is a sea of white, broken up by abstract art. They should put Daphne’s paintings in here instead. I’d rather look at the ocean. Every step we take makes my heart beat harder. The thing I’m imagining—it’s not going to happen. We’re not going to round a corner and find Leo bleeding out on the floor.
It’s not going to happen.
Eva goes to the end of the hall, looks both ways, and turns left. The hall dead-ends in a smaller waiting room with the same modern tones as the one I was sitting in, only this one has two soft couches and a table circled by four wooden chairs.
A family waiting room.
She stops inside the door. In a blink, I’m aware of them. The men who have surrounded us. Four of them, all in black suits. “Get Haley some clean clothes,” Eva says to the one in the lead. “Is everyone in position?”
“The advance team is still on the perimeter, but they’ll rotate in an hour. Snipers are on the roof.”
Eva dismisses him with a few more quiet instructions, and then we’re alone in the family waiting room. One of the men in suits walks ten paces down the hall and stands, his back to us.
“Okay.” Eva’s shoulders let down, and while she’s shrugging off her coat, she transforms into a flesh-and-blood human. She puts the wool coat over the back of one of the chairs and drops into the sofa. Eva leans her head back in a way that Leo couldn’t. She rubs a hand over her eyes. “Come sit, Haley. Daphne told me your name, but she didn’t tell me you were a Constantine, so that’s a bit of a surprise.”
My mouth goes dry. “I’m sorry.” Sorry I was born with this last name, sorrier than I’ve ever been. “I can leave, if—”
“You,” Eva