Page 51 of Ellie 3

Two more went for her and she handled them just as fast.

But the next one pulled a gun and put it to her forehead. “Enough.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” she purred, still fucking smirking. “He won’t back you on this, fool. There’smediahere filming live. You think he’s going to say this was all him?” She snorted when he frowned. “Oh, you’re the patsy here, darling. You kill me and he gets his revenge, but you’realltraitors to supes because you came for a hospital.

“You cannot be this stupid and not see how he doesn’t keep his promises. You will be rogue. You will be the problem or have gone over the top to try for this all yourselves.” She looked pasthim. “Don’t be stupid! This won’t change what’s happening.” She focused on the guy holding a gun on her. “But if I die, you’re next. Are you really ready to die over this?”

“I’m the one holding the gun,” he hissed at her. “And you’re—”

“But you’re not theonly oneholding a gun,” she purred… As dozens of lights appeared on his chest. “Our security is top-notch. You even so much as twitch, you’re dead before you can pull the trigger. They’re just letting everyone see that you pulled a gun on an unarmed hospital administrator. One who protected herself. You pulled a gun on the head of ASH.Live.”

I fell to my knees when the guy held up his hand in surrender and let himself be disarmed by someone from the hospital’s security who appeared out of nowhere.

“You’re okay,” Sean whispered as he moved next to me, rubbing my shoulder.

“I’m really not,” I mumbled, seconds from a panic attack.

“Yeah, neither am I,” he admitted, his love for Ellie clear.

But Ellie was. She wascompletely fine, smiling evilly when portals started opening and North American military started pouring out to takeinvading troopsinto custody. It was beyond crazy and the ploy of a desperate man to hold onto power that should never have been his.

Yeah, great, it involved the woman I was in love with.

She cooed all over me when I was taken to the ED at her insistence. I thought that overkill, but when I saw where my blood pressure and vitals were… Yeah, I’d been about to pass out.

Awesome. And it would take a bit for my blood pressure to come back down no matter how great it normally was.

“No getting invaded right after your distance run, huh?” Ellie teased, immediately apologizing when she saw whatever was on my face or in my aura. She promised me it was never goingto get ugly, Alan even jumping in and joking about way worse situations they’d been in.

That wasn’t helping. Hearing how many times she’d come close to dying protecting ASH didnot fucking help. I finally grabbed her arm and made it clear that I wasn’t messing around. “There was a gun pointed at your head and he was ready to shoot. I had to watch that. Enough.”

“Sorry,” she whispered, moving onto the cot next to me. “Sorry, my Alpha. Yeah, this was scary when—it was scary.”

The joking didn’t help, but when she told me later that she saw in the guy’s aura that hewasn’tgoing to pull the trigger—yeah, that fucking helped. A lot. I lost my anger at her joking and… Everyone dealt with stress differently. I understood that. I really did.

But for fuck’s sake. Seriously.

She called it though. The South American President tried to deny everything. The bullshit that came out of his mouth was ridiculous, especially when someone in his cabinet had recorded the meeting where he ordered it. It was what the guy played to justify taking over the government.

But then someone took him over. It was a mess.

It was a mess that Ellie didn’t have to clean up, so she didn’t care much. She promised the other countries would put pressure on whoever won to have a real election in sixty days and would make sure it was a clean one just as they had before, Asia being the most recent example fifteen years ago.

She was right and I had been an adult for that. My mum’s family had said that while they hated outsiders sticking their noses in too much, that was the one time it was excused. When it kept peace, which was the whole point of sending the humans to Africa and streamlining supe governments. We needed peace and for things to be fair.

It always affected more than our own country.

That was maybe the only thing I could remember agreeing with Mum’s family about. I wouldn’t expect anything else anytime soon.

But miracles could happen.

Again, Ellie was right and things got better after that. A month after the crisis and things at ASH weren’t just back to normal butbetter. Plans were underway to build an extension onto ASH with my idea. It was so far beyond my original idea that it was amazing. There would be whole new types of specialties and doctors.

It was going to be a breakthrough in medicine. I was glad to have been a part of that.

My practice had expanded. One of the attendings in my department was part of the last coup that tried to get Ellie out. She talked to all of us and I was the one who could absorb that attending’s practice. I had the most experience with a larger practice and it made sense location-wise since it was next door to mine.

Plus, I had the resume to teach and take more residents under my wing. Renovations to make it work were underway and my contract was renegotiated with my mate’s help. I didn’t care about, nor want the bonus structure. I didn’t ever want patient care to become oil changes in a bad way where I made more money and looked at them that way.

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