Lover Unleashed (Black Dagger Brotherhood #9)(23)

That female. Who had taken his father.

Where had all this tarrying gotten him, however?

The decision he had long toyed with crystallized in his mind once again, forming shape and structure, angles and arches. And whereas previously, the impetus had always faded, now, the nightmare gave it the kind of stay-power that turned mere idea into action.

“We shall go unto London,” he pronounced.

Throe’s fingers immediately stilled. “Thank you, my liege.”

Xcor inclined his head and smiled to himself, thinking Throe might get a chance to off that human man. Or . . . perhaps not.

Travel plans were indeed afoot, however.





NINE


ST. FRANCIS HOSPITAL CALDWELL, NEW YORK

Medical center complexes were like jigsaw puzzles. Except for the fact that their pieces didn’t fit together nearly as well.

But that was not a bad thing on a night like tonight, Manny thought as he scrubbed in.

On some level, he was amazed it had all gone so easily. The thugs who had driven him and his patient here had parked in one of the thousand dark corners of St. Francis’s outer edge, and then Manny had called the head of security himself, stating that he had a VIP patient coming in the back who required total discretion. Next ring-a-ding-ding had been to his nursing staff and the line was the same: Special patient coming in. Ready the third-floor OR on the far end and have the MRI techs ready for a quickie. Final dial had been to transport, and what do you know, they had shown up lickety-split with a gurney.

Within fifteen minutes of finishing the MRI, the patient was here in OR VII, getting prepped.

“So who is she?”

The question came from the nurse in charge, and he’d been waiting for it. “An Olympic equestrian. From Europe.”

“Well, that explains it. She was mumbling something and none of us could understand the language.” The woman flipped through some paperwork—which he was going to make sure he snagged after all this was through. “Why all the secrets?”

“She’s royalty.” And wasn’t that the truth. As he’d ridden along with her, he’d spent the entire trip staring at her regal features.

Sap. Stupid-ass sap.

His head nurse glanced out into the corridor, her eyes wary. “Explains the security detail—my God, you’d think we were bank robbers.”

Manny leaned back for a peek as he scrubbed under his nails with a stiff brush. The three who had come in with him stood in the hall about ten feet away, their huge bodies dressed in black with a lot of bulges.

Guns, no doubt. Maybe knives. Possibly a flamethrower or two, who the f*ck knew.

Kinda cured a guy of the whole government-is-just-full-of-paper-pushing-pencil-necks idea.

“Where’re her consent forms?” the nurse asked. “There’s nothing in the system.”

“I’ve got all those,” he lied. “You have the MRI for me?”

“Up on the screen—but the tech says that it’s with errors? He really wants to redo.”

“Let me look at it first.”

“Are you sure you want to be listed as the responsible party for all this? Doesn’t she have money?”

“She has to be anonymous, and they’ll reimburse me.” At least, he was assuming they would—not that he really cared.

Manny rinsed the brown blush of Betadine off his hands and forearms and shook them off. Keeping his arms up, he hit the swinging door with his back and entered the OR.

Two nurses and an anesthesiologist were in the room, the former double-checking the rolling trays of instruments set on blue surgical drapes, the latter calibrating the gases and equipment that would be used for keeping his patient asleep. The air was cool to discourage bleeding and smelled like astringent, and the computer equipment hummed quietly along with the ceiling lights and the operating chandelier.

Manny beelined for the monitors—and the instant he saw the MRI, his heart jumping-jacked on him. Going slowly, he reviewed the digital images carefully until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

Looking to the windows in the flap doors, he remeasured the three men standing right outside the room, their hard faces and cold eyes locked on him.

They were not human.

His stare slipped to his patient. And neither was she.

Manny went back to the MRI and leaned in closer to the screen, like that was somehow going to magically fix all the anomalies he was seeing.

Man, and he’d thought the Goateed Hater’s six-chambered heart was odd?

As the double doors opened and shut, Manny closed his lids and took a deep one. Then he turned around and confronted the second doctor who had come into the room.

Jane was scrubbed in so that all you could see was her forest green eyes from behind a plexi-surgical mask, and he’d covered her presence by telling the staff she was a private doctor for the patient—which was not a lie. The little ditty that she knew everyone here as well as he did he kept to himself. And so did she.

As her eyes shifted to his and locked on without apology, he wanted to scream, but he had a goddamn job to do. Refocusing, he pushed the things that weren’t immediately helpful out of his mind, and reviewed the damage to the vertebrae to plan his approach.

He could see the area that had fused following a fracture: Her spine was a lovely pattern of perfectly placed knots of bone interspersed between dark cushioning disks . . . except for the T6 and T7. Which explained the paralysis.