Page 205 of Wicked Proposal
Kallie stays in surgery for two hours.
It’s not long by any standard. I’ve once seen a surgery run fourteen hours straight. No breaks, no pauses.
But those two hours feel like infinity to me.
I spend them in the waiting room with Maksim. He’s still shaken up, speechless, eyes fixed on nothing. Taking care of him is the only thing that keeps me sane.
Because, if I’m not doing that, then I have to think.
And I really don’t want to be thinking right now.
Yulian. The shooting. The confession.
The lies.
Lies, lies, lies—all of them lies.
Finally, at two minutes to midnight, the doors open back up.
I spring to my feet. “How is she?”
Of all people, it’s Dr. Adams who is on call tonight. I never imagined our first interaction after my suspension would be like this. That I’d be begging him for anything.
But for Kallie, I’d beg the devil himself.
He walks up to me. He’s still wearing his surgical mask, making his expression even more unreadable than usual. When he puts a hand on my shoulder, I nearly burst out crying.
But then he rips off his mask—andsmiles. “The surgery went well. She’s okay.”
Tears fill my eyes. “She—she’ll be fine?”
“Good as new. Soon as the anesthetic wears off, you can go see her.”
“Thank you.” More words I never thought I’d say. “I—Thank you,Dr. Adams. I know we haven’t seen eye to eye lately, but?—”
“Don’t mention it,” he says. “This is medicine. We will always agree on medicine.” Then, with one last squeeze of my shoulder, he heads off.
Maksim appears at my side. “Did I hear right?” he rasps. “She pulled through?”
“Damn right she did.” I quickly wipe my eyes. “Kallie’s a fighter. It takes more than one bullet to take her out.”
But it almost did.
I ignore that thought. Right now, I don’t want to process what could have been.
I just want to see my friend.
A coworker smuggles me into her room. Under the circumstances, it would be a “family only” situation, but Kallie has none. All she has is me.
And now, Maksim.
He sits on her left. I take the chair to her right. Kallie is deathly still in her bed, an oxygen mask secured to her face, IVs everywhere. I’m used to seeing people like this, but never her. In my mind, Kalinda Kathri is invincible.
“I thought I’d lost her.” It’s my thoughts, but not my voice. Instead, it’s Maksim’s. “I never even kissed her.”
“Yeah. She was pretty pissed off about that.” I force a small smile. “So make it up to her.”
“If it’s the last thing I do, I will.”
