I pressed my palm against my arm. “I think it just nicked me.”
“Jesus Christ,” Bradley swore under his breath. “You’re going to the hospital to get that looked at.”
“I’m fine?—”
“You’re not fine, Wren.” His face darkened with something between frustration and barely restrained panic. “You just got stabbed with a knife. Get in the damn car, and I’ll take you to the ER.”
He half dragged me toward a sleek black sedan parked near the front of the building, pulled the passenger door open, and practically pushed me inside.
By the time he slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut, my arm throbbed even more. Maybe he had a point about me going to the hospital, but still, I whined. “We could just put a Band-Aid on it. The hospital is going to take forever.”
Bradley put the car in drive and peeled out of the lot like he hadn’t heard me. “My husband works there as a doctor. I’ll let him know I’m taking you in with me.”
“Do we really need to do all that?”
He placed a call to his husband and explained what had happened. After reassuring him he’ll keep a lookout for us, his husband ended the call.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Bradley cried, his voice a whip crack in the tight space of the car.
I leaned my head back against the seat, exhaling through my nose. The adrenaline started to wear off, leaving behind adull, persistent ache where the knife had grazed me. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Maxim Morozov has men who are paid—paid, Wren—to jump in front of a bullet for him. Do you have a death wish?”
“I just saw the knife and acted. I would have done it for anyone.”
Bradley let out an exasperated breath as he switched lanes. “You’re an intern, not a bodyguard. What you did was reckless. Did you see how they all went after him to check he was okay but no one gave a thought about you?”
Well, yeah, that sort of sucked. I hadn’t expected anything from him, but a “thank you” would have been nice. The more I knew about the man, the more I disliked him.
“Does that sort of thing happen a lot?” I asked. “I imagine because he’s wealthy, people always go after him.”
“You really don’t know much about Morozov, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head. “Nothing I can talk about.”
What did he mean by that? I was dying to know but figured we hardly knew each other well enough for him to share all our boss’s secrets.
The emergency room was organized chaos—nurses moving with tired efficiency, and scores of groaning people waiting for their turn. Bradley sat beside me in the waiting area, tapping his foot against the tile floor, arms crossed like he was holding himself back from strangling me.
I sighed, resting my head against the wall. I’d already signed the paperwork they’d given me on a clipboard. The adrenaline had well and truly faded now, leaving behind exhaustion and the steady, dull throbbing of my arm.
Bradley let out a sharp breath. “We’d be having lunch now if you hadn’t played superhero.”
I huffed out a laugh. “I’m not sexy enough to be a Clark Kent.”
“Brad!”
I looked up. A tall, handsome man with gray mixed in his dark curly hair strode toward us. His warm brown eyes softened when they landed on Bradley.
“Leo.” Bradley stood up, and not knowing what to do, I got up as well. They shared a quick kiss. Then the doctor stepped back.
“This is Wren?” he asked.
“Yes,” Bradley said. “Got knifed protecting Morozov.”
“Aren’t you a bit too puny to be a bodyguard?” Leo asked.