Page 46 of A Vow So Soulless

“Anyway, Darragh didn’t exactly want to negotiate on the matter much. So we made a bet. Had a little boxing match. I won.”

Morelli tsks.

“What, you won by protecting that pretty mug of yours by offering up your ribs and kidneys instead? What the hell were you thinking?”

“Rules were that the first one to draw blood from the other’s face won,” I explain. “I let him land a hell of a lot of punches. But I only needed one hit on him to win.”

“You could have dealt that blow a little earlier in the match instead taking such a beating first,” Morelli says, scowling at me. “I don’t think I’ve seen you take this many risks with your physical health since you were a bone-brained teenager.”

“Bone-brained? That’s a new one,” I say with a grin.

“So much skull there’s no room left for brains,” he clarifies. “Explains why you’re still functioning after all the hits to the head you’ve taken in your youth.”

“Didn’t take any hits to the head today, though, did I?” I say with mock sweetness. My grin fades. “Alright, Doc. What’s the damage?”

“Your left side is bruised, but it appears to be mostly superficial. There may be some inflammation of the ribs, but nothing seems like it’s cracked or broken. The kidney on that side should be alright, but I want to confirm via ultrasound. Your right side, however…” He removes his glasses and polishes them vigorously with a small cloth he pulls from his pocket. He puts them back on and gives me a hard-eyed look. “Your right side is a fucking mess. I think it’s likely you have an acute kidney injury. The fact that you’re upright and lucid is making me hopeful there’s not any detrimental internal bleeding. At this point, I am hopeful that you won’t need surgery and that the injury will heal with fluids and rest.”

“Good,” I reply. “I don’t have time for surgery. My wedding is in a month.”

Morelli makes a grimly amused noise at the back of this throat.

“I don’t think your kidney cares about that, Elio.”

“Whatever. You said my left one was fine. Pretty sure I only need one to keep on kicking.”

“Certainly, a human can survive with only one kidney. But that’s assuming the other one isn’t damaged, inflamed, or potentially causing complications like sepsis.”

“Those are some big, serious words, Doc.”

“Your condition is serious, Elio,” he shoots back instantly. I may not always like what he tells me, but he’s never been anything but brutally honest with me. “You’ve only just recovered from a gunshot wound. I hope for your sake that after your wedding things settle down for a while. At this rate that pretty little thing you’re so fixated on will be marrying someone more corpse than living man.”

I’ve never been particularly worried about my own mortality. But I am now. Not for my sake, but for the wife I’ll leave behind.

His words also remind me I need to draft a new will. I make a mental note to deal with that soon as I hold my hands out for his inspection.

“Superficial bruising,” he says crisply, running his competent gaze over my pummelled forearms. “Potentially a fracture of the fifth metacarpal.” He rolls his eyes at me. “Called a boxer’s fracture.”

“Like I told Deirdre, Mad Darragh’s got a hard fucking head.”

He sighs and sets down my hands on my thighs.

“She the one who started cleaning these contusions and lacerations?” he asks, noticing the bloody gauze and disinfectant on the desk beside us.

“Yup. But you frightened my little bird away with all that loud knocking.”

“If she’s frightened of something as simple as knocking,” he says dryly, “I’m not entirely sure how she’s going to survive being married to you.”

“She’ll be just fucking fine.”

“If you say so. You might not be, though. I want to take you downstairs to the med room. Get your urine sample analyzed and do the ultrasound.”

He’s giving me his best don’t-fuck-with-me look. He isn’t exactly used to me being the most compliant patient at the best of times. I almost always ignore his recommendations for pain management, and even with my recent bullet wound, I didn’t wear the sling he suggested.

But that’s not how it’s going down today.

“Alright, Doc. You don’t need to give me that look. I’ll do what you suggest. I don’t plan on dying before my wedding day.”

There’s been only silence from the bathroom this whole time, but what I just said seems to have caught Deirdre’s attention. Of course, she doesn’t speak Italian, so she hasn’t been able to understand all of Morelli’s dramatic warnings. She understands what I just said, though.

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