Page 47 of Lines Drawn
“Yeah, it’s effective, but dangerous if you want someone to stay alive.” I don’t recognize the person’s voice, but I let it roll over me as they use my body like a puppet, moving me whatever way they need. I hope they give me the good drugs soon…
“What the fuck happened, Luca?”
I struggle to answer, keeping it short, but hopefully, coherent. Fuck knows if I succeed. “Got text. Needed help. Came. Kidnapped. Airport.”
A crazy beeping noise and yelling fills the room. I groan against the noise invading my head. It fucking hurts.
“That’s it. I’m putting him under. If you have questions, you can ask them later. He needs to be examined further and put on fluids. He needs fucking nutrients. Not you guys crowded in here, demanding answers.”
I want to smile at Dr. Ranlen, but everything is going fuzzy, and while I swear I feel the poke of a needle, I can’t becompletely positive. Not with how everything aches. Soon, it doesn’t matter, and I’m embracing the darkness that rolls over me.
Fuck. People are going to be pissed if I don’t get home, but right now? The idea of losing conscious sounds fucking delightful…
Soren quickly sets up an IV for Luca while I prep the portable x-ray, and Sarah kicks Allesandro and Marcus out.
“Okay, he’s good to go with fluids.”
“Thank you. I’ll have you draw blood and send it off to Murry, so he can get some tests going—that way we know exactly what we’re treating aside from his injuries. Who knows how long he’s been held captive, but considering the shape he’s in…it’s been a while. Poor bastard’s probably deficient in quite a few things.”
Soren helps me position the portable x-ray machine over Luca’s prone body, and then steps back so I can capture the images. We have to reposition it a few times in order to make sure we get all angles.
Once done, Dr. Ranlen and I look over the images, and I breathe out a side of relief to see that, while a few of his ribs arecracked, there aren’t any shards floating around that could run the risk of puncturing his lung. I don’t want to go throughthatdrama with Sarah again.
“Let’s get an ultrasound. I am worried about internal bleeding with how bruised his abdomen is.”
I hum in agreement. Soren jumps into action, putting the x-ray machine away and setting the ultrasound machine up. I hate asking him to do this after what he just went through, but Kail and Rose were on shift with Roman and Ignacio all day, so they deserve rest, and I can’t pull Donovan away from his brothers right now.
I watch the screen carefully as Dr. Ranlen presses the wand onto Luca’s abdomen. The coloring of his bruises tells us he’s been beaten for days. Some are starting to turn a sickly yellow-green, but they’re overlapped by ugly purple and blue ones that can’t be more than a day or two old.
Dr. Ranlen lets out a shuddering breath when we see a small pool of blood around his stomach. It's not a lot, and is most likely from the last beating he took, but it's still not what we want to see.
“Fuck. Soren, get some treatment prepared.”
“On it, sir.”
Sarah does another pass with the ultrasound to make sure there’s no bleeding anywhere else. Thankfully, that’s all there seems to be. It'd be better if there wasn't any bleeding at all, but this is manageable without surgery—hopefully. There's always a chance things can take an unexpected turn, but that’ll be our last resort, especially with how beat up he already is.
Soren sets up another line with blood clotting meds, which will hopefully stop the bleeding quickly.
“You have his blood type on hand, Dr. Ranlen?” Soren asks, prepping a third line for a blood transfusion.
“Yes, but I'm going to have to figure out how to discreetly order more without raising suspicions.”
“Leave that to me. Murry is an asshole, but comes through when we need him to. Make me a list of what you're low on, and I'll put the order in when we send over Luca’s blood tests.”
“Thank you, Doc.”
I wrap an arm around her. “Don't thank me for doing my job. Not that I wanna be working on him, from all I've heard, but no one has ever died on my watch, and this bastard won't ruin that streak.”
She huffs a laugh and leans into my embrace for a moment before pulling away. “Right, okay, let's do x-rays of his limbs. I don't think any are fractured, except maybe a few toes and fingers from initial observations, but it's better to be safe than sorry.”
Soren finishes up with what he was doing and I bring the x-ray machine back over.
Something tells me it's going to be a long night putting this asshole back together, but that seems to be my fucking life right now. What's one more?
Ilet them push me out of the treatment room despite my misgivings. I caught the look Sarah gave me, and it better not mean she’s considering taking Emilio’s side. For now, I need to know how the fuck Luca got here. At least, I don’t have to worry about him having spilled anything. He’s too well trained for that, but whoever is pulling the strings knows too much if they dared target him. I may have given him permission to take his own territory, but he’s still mine. He always will be.
“I’m going to go get cleaned up, and catch a little more sleep before breakfast,” Emilio says to Antonio. “Thanks for leading tonight. You did a great job.”
