Page 3 of The Chief's Captive

I just had the marble replaced two weeks ago, the hardwood floors restored last month. My kitchen is my oasis, and now it's turned into triage. I use my arm to swipe across the whole of the island, whisking away papers and a basket of fruit, mymail, a centerpiece given to me at my housewarming party, and my purse. They all scatter on the floor as I make room for the bleeding man.

"He needs an ambulance. We have to call 9-9-9." My immediate assessment is that this man will die. He's lost so much blood. The ambulance will take twenty minutes to get here and twenty more to get to the hospital. I'm too far away.

"You save him," one of the men says, and I see the end of his weapon still trained on me.

"You're insane. He needs blood. He's going to die!" I don't even have a scalpel or sutures. There's no way to sterilize my kitchen knives, if any of them are even sharp enough, and this looks like a direct lung hit.

"Do it," the man screams, and I wonder if my noisy neighbors hear him.

My hands shake as I take my kitchen scissors and cut up the front of his shirt. I don't even waste time on the buttons knowing this is an emergency and the shirt is ruined. I have no clue who this man is, but I know Dublin is famous for its crime syndicates. He's been shot at least twice based on the blood flow, and when I bare his chest, I see the three gaping wounds.

"Shit… I need to know if they're through and through." I pull my hands away, and they're covered in blood. His blood… I don't even know what diseases he may have, and I'm coated in it.

The man with the gun jerks his chin upward at the two others. They all look similar, even the man on my island. They have to be brothers, which makes this even more likely that it's something I want nothing to do with. But with a gun to my head, I have no choice.

The men help me roll him to his side so I can see his back. We take off his shirt and jacket, and even his back is soaked in blood. There are two exit wounds, slightly larger than the entrance wounds on his chest, which means he was shot from at least fifteen feet away. It looks like a smaller caliber weapon, probably nine millimeter. I hate that I know these things, but my experience in trauma in such a violent city comes with its baggage.

"One of the bullets is lodged in his body." I move on autopilot, barking out orders, which his men wisely heed. They want me to save his life, which is very unlikely, and I have no nursing staff to help, so they're it. "Get a towel wet now. Hot water. And get me a bottle of vodka from my liquor cabinet in the other room."

I move to my knife block with red-stained hands and pull them all out. I'm alone with the bleeding man who is now unconscious and the man whose gun is trained on me. I could lurch at him, stab him with one of these, but I'm a surgeon first, a woman second. I may have a gun to my head, but if there is a chance to save this man, I have to. I select the paring knife. It'll keep the hole as small as possible.

Turning back to the man on the island, I carry the knife and place it next to his body on the cool marble. He's on his side still, gurgling out breaths. If I had my stethoscope, I could listen to his breathing and gauge whether the bullet is in his lung or other soft tissue, but I have nothing at home. Doctors don't do house calls. All our tools are left at the hospital.

I push my finger into his wound as deep as I can, and he screams in pain that rouses him from his unconscious state.

"Whoa, lady," the man with the gun says, but his buddies rush back in with the supplies.

"Ro, I got this." One of them sets the bottle of vodka on the counter next to the knife, and I see he's found my aged Scotch. Dammit. "That's expensive, damn you."

"He needs it. Unless you got a shot of morphine or something."

I'm arguing with a neanderthal. "Fuck's sake. It'll thin his blood and make him bleed out." I reach for the bottle, and the man with the gun steps forward.

"It'll make him calm," he says, and I have to relent. I save him or they kill me. That was what he said.

Ignoring his idiocy, I turn back to my unwitting patient and take the rag from the third man's hands. I wipe his back down with the water to remove as much blood as possible. I don’t see the bullet hole in his back, so I push on him until he's lying supine. His shoulders fall limp, and he glugs down the Scotch. Then I reach for a clean towel from my drawer and soak it in vodka, making sure to douse my hands well.

"He's risking infection. You idiots will be the ones to kill him. He should be in A&E for this." My hands move with practiced ease. I've done this a dozen times since taking the job at St. James in the Accident and Emergency department. The streets are a scary place, and I'm used to trying to save people from their own anger and violence like this.

I wipe his chest clean with the vodka rag and then push my finger into the hole from the front side again. It's so deep it feels like this bullet may have fragmented or ended up in his lungs. I don't have a bone saw or a chest retractor, and there's no way that Scotch is going to sedate him to the point I could open him up, anyway.

"Get my sewing kit," I bark. "From my bedroom." I jerk my head and push my finger in deeper. At least the bleeding is stopped here. His other wounds aren't in vital locations, and though he's losing blood, it's just muscle damage. I can suture those up and he'll be good as new, but this bullet has to come out or he's going to die. I feel just the very tip of my finger brush across something hard and I know I've reached it.

"This would be much easier to concentrate on without that weapon in my face." I glare at the man pointing his gun at me, and he takes a step back, lowering his weapon, but he doesn't holster it.

I focus on the wound and sterilize the knife. It cuts through his flesh just deep enough that I can slide my finger and my thumb into the hole and pull the round out. It's not broken. That's good. I drop it onto the marble and turn toward my bedroom. When I take two steps in that direction, his man appears in the door with my sewing kit.

"Oh, God," I sigh, and I take it from him. My hands are calm and steady now, like a surgeon’s hands should be. I'm operating under duress but my training has kicked in.

I thread a needle and return to him. The vodka serves as a flush and a means to sterilize. I have no betadine and everything is covered in germs, but he won't bleed out, at least. In fewer than twenty minutes, I have him stitched up and all of the bullet entrance and exit wounds are closed.

The mess in my kitchen is nothing compared to the mess in my head as I lean on the counter and look down at him, unmoving and barely breathing. I hope he doesn't die. I hope someone at work realizes I’m not there, that someone, somewhere, calls for me.

The Celtic knot on his left pectoral muscle stares up at me, the one I had to cut through and then stitch through. His tattoo will be ruined by the ugly scar if he makes it, and now I know who he is. The instant my brain doesn't have to focus on saving his life, it registers.

Ronan O'Rourke—son of the Irish Don—is lying on my island, and I have become his captive.

3

---