Page 96 of Corrupted Seduction

He sighed, but rather than fight me like I’d expected, he pulled out his cell phone from his pocket as he opened my front door. He pressed a button on the phone as he held the door open for me, then put the phone to his ear as we left.

“… hospital… me there… Vito…” I tried to follow his lips, but I kept having to look away to keep from running into walls and tripping down stairs.

By the time we’d arrived outside, he’d pressed a button on the phone—presumably disconnecting the call—and pressed another, holding it up to his ear once again.

“I need… meet… of the hospital.” I caught pieces of the conversation as he opened his car’s passenger door for me, then circled around to the driver’s side.

My breath was coming faster. It was like I was back in the Onyx nightclub again, only this time, I wasn’t missing pieces of random conversations that had little to do with me; I was missing out on vital information that somehow pertained to my patient.

“Would you please tell me what the bloody hell is going on?” I demanded as Amadeo slid into the driver’s seat. He still had his phone to his ear, but his lips stopped moving.

“Grazie, cugina,” he said to whomever he was speaking to, then shoved the cell phone back into his jacket pocket as he started the car and pulled away from the curb.

“What floor and what room is the kid in, Heidi?” he asked without answering me.

“He’s on the fourth floor, but—”

“Is there security stationed on that floor?”

“No, none of the hospital’s security guards are ‘stationed’ there. Now, will you—”

“How many staff members are on the ward at night, do you know?”

Well, I’d certainly had enough of this. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do know. And I’ll tell you just as soon as you tell me what it is you’re planning to do,” I said, fed up with being interrupted.

He was silent for a moment, his gaze going back and forth between me and the late-night traffic. Finally, he shook his head and smiled. “Christ, I love it when you talk like that.”

“Like what?” I asked, genuinely baffled.

“Like you’ve spent the day with the queen of England and really need me to fuck all that fastidiousness out of you.”

I pressed my lips together but couldn’t stop the corners from quirking in a poorly-suppressed smile. It was short-lived, however.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I persisted.

“I plan to take the kid out of there, and I’m asking you all these questions because the less resistance I encounter, the better.”

I shook my head. “You can’t do that. He was shot, Amadeo. His lung was punctured and there were superficial wounds to his kidney.”

“He can’t stay there, Heidi. Whoever shot him could come back to finish the job at any time.”

My chest went cold; it felt like an Arctic wind blew right through it.Bloody hell.

“I think someone already did,” I said. I think my voice wasn’t much louder than a whisper.

He glanced at me, waiting for me to continue.

“I went to check on the boy at the end of my shift. There was already a man there in the room with him. He said he was a family friend.” I shook my head. “It didn’t feel right. I told him to leave. What if you’re right and he’s already come back? What if—” I slammed my mouth shut. Had I really stood in the room with a man whose only purpose there was to murder my patient? A fifteen-year-old boy?

I felt like I was going to be sick.

“It’s all right,perla.Raven’s checking with the hospital. If the kid was already dead, she would have let me know by now.”

“If you try to take him off the ward, the nurse will call security. You won’t make it out the door,” I said as I struggled to shove everything else into a box. This was no different than a medical emergency, I told myself. Identify the problem, then find a solution.

“I will if the nurse doesn’t see me take the kid off the ward.”

“And how do you intend to do that?” I asked.

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