Page 3 of Devilish Prince

I cough and clear my throat, trying to take a breath to speak. “I’m in a lot of pain, doc.”

We have a doctor who works with our team most of the time, and I’m not sure why he is not the man standing over me right now, but I’m not disappointed by this pleasant surprise. It isn’t every day a man gets shot in the chest and lives to tell about it. I trust my family to do what’s right for me when I am unable to make those decisions.

“I can up the morphine for today, but we can’t leave it at a high dose for long. You need to transition to oxy or Percocet and then wean off the opioids or you’ll get addicted.” She presses buttons on the machines and then reaches into her pocket and produces some sort of contraption which she presses on my forehead and swipes across it—a thermometer. She’s probably checking for fever. Then she slides it into her pocket again and uses the stethoscope from around her neck to listen to my chest. I try sitting up but she lightly touches my shoulder and I relax.

My eyes flick to Norm in the corner of the room. He stands with his gun in hand and a menacing look on his face. It’s normal for him. Though my other guys stand next to him chatting so he’s probably irritated that they’re not taking the job seriously. I notice the doctor's hands shaking lightly; she’s terrified and for good reason. A man like me gets a lot of bad press but I’m not everything they say I am—frankly, I’m worse.

“You can leave…” I say the words loud enough for Norm and the others to hear. I hear a grunt of disapproval but they do as I say. The plastic hung around me shifts and they vanish. I wait until I hear their footsteps fading and then I look back up at the doctor. “I apologize that my men feel the need to intimidate you when you are clearly a professional and know what you’re doing, Doctor…?” I leave the end hanging like a question. I need to put a name to this face.

“Sofia Carter, trauma surgeon at Bellevue.”

I recognize that name. She’s the fancy surgeon who has been making waves the past nine months at Bellevue. Graduated high school with her two-year degree. Finished med school in under four years. Went on to residency with outstanding marks and is now considered one of the leading surgeons in the country all at the age of twenty-nine. And hot as hell I might add. I must have been in bad shape for the guys to swipe this poor lady off the street and operate on me instead of calling my normal man in. No doubt she was swiped; she’s too scared to have come willingly.

I take her wrist in my hand and she jumps, but I don’t squeeze it tightly. “Thank you for coming to care for me. I’m certain Norman and the others haven’t made it easy for you.”

She looks away and blinks rapidly. “True they didn’t give me a choice, but for your sake I’m glad I was here. You would have died within minutes if I hadn’t operated.” The look on her face tells me she knows who I am. It’s no secret. The whole city knows.

“They did well in selecting you to do the surgery. How bad was it.” I wince and squirm. Just talking hurts right now but thanksto the beautiful Sofia Carter I will heal up and have a story to tell the next asshole who tries to gun me down. I’m invincible.

“You had bullet fragments in your lung and chest cavity.” She pulls her hand away slowly and then checks the dressing on my wound. “Your vitals were tanking and I knew any second your heart would arrest. I did what I had to do as a medical professional.”

The shaking in her hands has stopped and the fear in her eyes is now veiled through a haze of anger. I study her, because that’s what I do—study people. I learn their strengths and weaknesses and how to exploit them. And by the looks of it, Sofia is frightened of me—her weakness—and very skilled as a doctor. Both things I can exploit.

“Thank you for saving my life, Ms. Carter.”

“That’s Doctor Carter to you, thank you. And there is literally no reason to thank me.” She scowls. “Your people stole me out of my parking garage and shoved me in the back of a van with a bag on my head. You could have just asked. For that matter, the hospital has a trauma unit and with a case like this, I’d have been called in anyway.”

Feisty… I like it. Sofia has an edge to her that normal women don’t have. The bite in her tone, the darkness in her eye. She’ll fit in around her nicely. I need people in my life who keep me sharp and on my toes, ones who aren’t afraid to speak their mind and challenge me at times. It helps me stay objective and aware.

Sofia walks to the table set up at the foot of my bed where various medical supplies scavenged from local pharmacies have been organized. There are bandages and gauze, some bottles of pills and even a myriad of liquid medications, syringes andgloves. They guys got whatever they could find. None of them are medically trained, so they just took everything.

“Where did you get this stuff?” Sofia holds up a clear bottle with liquid in it and shakes her head. “This is a controlled substance.” Her tone thickens with frustration and she glares at me.

“I think you know as well as I do that I’ve been a bit out of commission. You’ll have to ask Norm where they got that stuff.”

“Is this why I saw all the cops outside the pharmacy?” Sofia sets the bottle down and rolls her head around on her neck before pressing her eyes shut. She’s trying to remain calm, likely only because she expects me to stay calm. Probably something to do with my blood pressure or stress level and how it would affect my healing. She doesn’t know me. I don’t need my surroundings to be calm in order to stay in control of my emotions and bodily reactions. I’ve looked down the barrel of a gun many times.

“Ms. Carter—” I take a breath and correct myself. “I apologize, Dr. Carter. My men did only what they needed to do to keep me alive.”

I cough and a jolt of pain shoots into my chest and gut. It’s bad. I’m weak. If one of my enemies came in here I’d have zero chance of defending myself. I don’t even know how long it will be until I can sit up on my own. My guess is that if I were in the hospital, I’d be there under the watchful eye of nurses and doctors round the clock for a week or more. Except, if I went to a hospital the only way I would leave would be in the back of a police cruiser. They’ve been trying to get their hands on me for years; they just can’t make anything stick.

“Mr. Gatti?—”

“Please, call me Lorenzo.” I wheeze the words out, my voice low and gravelly. I don’t want to trigger another coughing fit.

“Lorenzo, you need medical care that I cannot provide here. You are at high risk of infection or blood clots. You need a team dedicated to watching you round the clock. You’re in critical condition and?—”

“I have you. That’s enough.”

She stops talking and stares at me in shock. Someone within the warehouse opens or shuts a door somewhere, causing the air pressure to shift and the plastic sheeting surrounding us to shake. She glances around at it and then looks back at me.

“What do you mean, you have me?” Her arms fold over her chest and she shifts from foot to foot.

“I mean, you are my medical care. And I will pay you a nice sum to come check on me. You can show my men what must be done or checked when you’re not around. Say you come three times a day and?—”

“No.” Her interruption is blunt and comes with a firm head shake. “I am not your personal physician.” Sofia walks over the machines I’m hooked to and presses buttons, moving the tubes running from them to my arms and chest. “And I can’t be a part of anything illegal. You’ve ripped off a pharmacy for thousands of dollars of unneeded medications.”

I try to chuckle but it causes a coughing fit. My body heaves and I roll to my side as I cough up blood. Sofia rushes to me with a white towel and holds it under my face, her forehead furrowed. With one hand she cradles my head, with the other she puts on her stethoscope and listens to my chest through my back. Thecoughing is excruciating; I feel like I’m drowning. But nothing is as bad as the searing pain at the gunshot site.

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