Nothing quite makes you feel alive like a fresh bullet wound.

Pain lacing through your nerves, warm red liquid sliding through your skin, heart beating frantically with adrenaline to keep up with impossible new demands... I would almost take up being shot at as a hobby if it didn't turn out to be so tedious afterwards. This wasn't the first time I was shot, and I doubted it would be my last.

I never quite liked how the blood stained my perfectly pressed down button shirts or rendered them useless with holes going through them. Waste of fucking money if I ever seen one. There went another perfectly good white dress shirt. If that fact alone wasn't enough to tamper with my good mood, me being forced into a hospital was.

Breaking free from Valdos' and Anthony's grips, I quickly reared back my arm and before he could react, punched Val square in the jaw. His face snapped to the side, but he did nothing to retaliate. I felt the need to keen over from the bullet currently wedged into the left side of my abdomen but held upright. I would not kneel from a bullet; not now, not ever.

Val grasped his chin as he ground his teeth, rolling his jaw, assessing if I had dislocated it. I should have for what he's done but held back. His dark eyes connected with mine and he seemed to know that fact too. Anthony stood still at my back, still not sure how to proceed and not wanting to get in between us.

"Ilya you were bleeding, we had to-" I punched him again, this time a sickening crunch was heard from his nose and when he stood straight back up again, his clean shaven head glinting under the too bright fluorescent lights of the hospital, his broken nose had blood dripping down it. I was too livid to care and was sure my eyes were portraying it.

"We pull back," I gritted out from between clenched teeth, "When I say we pull back." I brought his face closer to mine with a hand on his nape. "Did I say we can pull back?" Silent fury laced my words.

He shook his head and grunted out a "No." As his broken nose kept dripping between us on to the distasteful gray laminated floors of the hospital. I felt pride in the fact that he didn't show any inkling of pain at his nose, he was a tough man, one of the many reasons he was my second in command. This was the first time I doubted his judgment as it brought us standing one feet into the waiting room of an emergency room.

I pushed him back with a shove, releasing my hold at the back of his nape. Looking around, I saw the half empty waiting room with dull colours of white gray and occasional blue paired with that revolting disinfectant smell that probably came with all hospitals. I wouldn't know, I had made it a habit of not stepping in them as soon as I could walk. Until now.

My lip pulled back in disdain as I turned back to Anthony who obediently averted his eyes down. He probably didn't want to open his mouth and be on the receiving end of my anger. Good call, I was one wrong breath away from pulling my gun from my waistband and shooting someone. First the Moretti's ambushing our arms deal at the docks getting me shot and now this.

Turning my face back to Val, I heaved in a sigh to somewhat calm myself down. The fact that finding men you could trust and do a decent job was a rare combination that had me reluctant to go for the gun at my back. Had lost a few men today at the ambush, didn't need to further diminish those numbers by killing some with my own hands. It was tempting, but the headache afterward would be worse.

"It still doesn't explain the fact that I'm currently standing in a fucking hospital." I said, to no one in particular. Val was still not doing anything to cover his nose, just standing with his hands at his sides and standing straight like he had a rod up his ass as always.

Anthony cleared his throat when he realised Val wasn't going to speak up so he took the cue because he knew silence would stoke my anger far worse. "Sir you'd been shot and needed medical attention-" he was about to go on but I cut him off with a snarl.

"So take me to fucking Beaumont. We have a doctor specifically for this." I said as I vaguely gestured for the situation we were in, blood was oozing out of my abdomen and pooling at the ground underneath my black shoes next to Valdos' blood. I couldn't care less about the blood I was continually losing as I stood here talking. Sometime during tonight, I had lost control of the situation I was in and I wasn't about to let it go before I got to the bottom of it.

Val ran a hand through his crimson tie like it was the only thing out of place in this scenario. The trail of blood from his nostrils, going down his lips and chin told a different story. "Leopold is too old. He can't even properly read his newspaper without putting on binoculars, let alone stitch you up. You needed proper care so I made the call to bring you here."

I almost punched him again. Almost. The only fact that stopped me was Leopold's hands had been shaking like two terrified chihuahuas for the last year. Bleeding out before Leopold even found skin with the needle was a real possibility. It still didn't excuse Val ordering my men and bringing me here without my permission. I would deal with his subordination later. First, I needed this pesky bleeding hole in my abdomen closed.

Turning around from the sliding doors of the hospital, I walked further in to the waiting room, Anthony and Val following me closely behind before stopping in front of a desk which housed a middle aged woman with yellow rimmed glasses on the tip of her nose. Her slightly greying brown hair was in a neat bun with a light pink lipstick lathered onto her thin lips. Her name tag read Dorothy. She was busy reading a magazine and didn't even lift her eyes from the glossy pages as she picked up a clipboard with a paper already on it and slid it to me across the desk. "Fill out the form and we'll be with you as soon as possible." She said in a monotone voice.

Picking up the blue pen tied to its holder with a rope, I dutifully started filling out the form.

Name: John Smith,
Age: 31
Allergies: candles and bees.
Insurance: I scoffed checking the tiny box, yeah like I'd pay for that.
Substance use: tobacco check, alcohol check, drugs check.
Family history: complicated.
Reason for admission: stubbed my toe.

Scribbling on some more nonsense for the rest of the form, I gently placed the now red tinted pen back in its holder and held out the clipboard to the very uninterested Dorothy. As she took the clipboard from me, blood that had soaked through my shirt and onto the paper dripped down onto her magazine's flashy headlines. She looked down at the splatter of colour for a minute like she couldn't quite understand what it was.

"I apologise for making a mess Dorothy. It's getting a bit hard, keeping all my blood inside with the hole on my side." I said, flashing a charming smile down at the stunned woman's face. That seemed to startle the woman out of her stupor and really look at my bloodied, disheveled state and scramble for the stationary phone at her side. She's was rushing out words to the person at the end of the line, something along the lines of 'imminent code blue' and how she needed a gurney upfront.

Not ten seconds later, double doors to the right of the desk opened with a bang and one male and one female health care worker dressed in scrubs came out pushing a gurney between them. They rushed over to me and told me to lie down but I just waved them off and strolled past them through the double doors. There were a lot of single beds lining the walls with white curtains separating one from the other. Two of them seemed to be occupied with the curtains pulled and shielding the patients from view. I go in the opposite direction and get settled into one of the empty beds on the right wall.

The woman and the male follow me with hurried movements, the male pulling a crash cart beside the bed I now occupy and the female bringing over a tray filled with needles and bags of fluids from behind a central desk. Val and Anthony stand a few steps back to watch them work around me like two silent statues clad in suits. The nurses' incessant buzzing around me starts to get annoying until my attention gets pulled to the door opening on the far end of the room, a different one than the double doors I have just coasted through.

Even though my heart is working overtime and can't afford to miss a beat, it fucking does because the most beautiful woman that I have ever laid eyes on walks in. She is clad in navy blue scrubs with a white lab coat and a stethoscope around her neck but the layers do nothing to hide her tall lean figure, she has legs that go on for miles. She would still fall a few inches short if I stood in front of her but god wouldn't it be just easy to tilt my head down and devour her lips.

Her long wavy brown hair is pulled back in a ponytail that I want to wrap around my fist to pull back her head so her neck would be bare for me to sink my teeth in. And her face... Fuck, her face looks like an angel. All soft pink lips and big hazel eyes with a silky white skin and nothing to mark it. Her face is so unlike anything I've ever seen before, the long lashes framing her big eyes and her cheeks that seem to always have a slight colour to them. The last pint of blood left in my body is rushing to my pants instead of my vital organs and I can't seem to muster up enough care to give a fuck.

Her delicate brows are pulled together in concentration as she makes her way to me and the male nurse steps aside to give her room. My eyes refuse to stray from her face as she makes a quick assessment of my body, lingering in the part of my shirt that is mostly covered in blood. The female nurse hands over a clipboard to her and I see the red handprint on the back of it, marking it as the form that I had just filled in.

"My name is Doctor Whitaker and I'll be taking care of you." She looks at the form before looking back at my face. "Mr. Smith" her questioning gaze tells me she knows that's not my real name but decides not to say anything before listing off orders to the two nurses by her. "Open an IV and send in a blood type test before starting on saline." She looks over my blood drenched clothes again. Her plump lips forms a line as she seems to change her mind.

"On second thought just bring in 0 Rh negative bags and start right away." The female nurse rushes to comply. The doctor takes off her stethoscope from around her neck as the female nurse winds a rope around my left arm to find a vein to open a pathway. The male nurse is attaching cords to my chest and index finger that makes the machines start beeping to my heartbeat in the next second.

Dr. Whitaker presses the stethoscope to my chest, listening to my breathing, changing the placement of the circular end every other second to listen to another part. It takes her all of five seconds before she discards the stethoscope to the side, and then grabs a scissor to my shirt.

Before I could even utter anything, my white dress shirt is cut and opened to the sides, my chest bare. Laying my head back I watch her honey coloured eyes shift to assess my wound. So meticulous in her movements, such intelligence behind her gaze. I can hear her mind working, those gears turning like a well oiled machine. "I figured you'd be the type to get consent before undressing a man." I say a smirk pulling at my lips as she puts on gloves the male nurse hands her. She shoots me a look with one of her brows raised, like she can't quite believe I said that.

"When there is bleeding involved, I take liberties." She just says and it's such a straightforward answer delivered with the most serious face that I can't stop the laugh rising out of me. The sound makes her gaze rise back to my face again and this time, it stays there for a couple seconds, travelling across my features. Like it's the first time she's properly seeing me. Like she's remembering that she's dealing with a person and not an inanimate object.

She gives a little shake of her head before pouring some liquid at my open wound, which makes me grit my teeth as it burns. Then she's leaning in across my body to get a closer look at the wound. Her hand circles back against my side feeling my back. Her gaze snaps up to the female nurse across from her and says, "There is no exit wound, call the doctor on call for general surgery and get the OR ready."

I have to rack my brain a little because the blood loss is finally getting to me but the words slowly seem to reach my ears, like a string being pulled through sticky mud. OR... it means operation room. That snaps me up. I grab Dr. Whitaker's wrist in my hand in a flash pulling her closer to me. The female nurse seems startled by the sudden movement and gasps but the beauty I hold in my grasp doesn't even flinch at the action. Makes me wonder what she's been through to not have a healthy reaction to someone forcefully grabbing her.

"I don't want an operation." I say between clenched teeth. She just stares down at me with a calm face and those hypnotising honey coloured eyes that have tiny flecks of green in them up close. My hand absentmindedly strokes a thumb across her inner wrist to feel her smooth skin. Her thin delicate wrist feels so easily breakable that I have to remind myself to ease my grip a little to not bruise her skin.

"Mr. Smith you need to get that bullet taken out." She says and I wish that I had written down my real name just so I could hear my name coming through those lips in her low seductive voice. "The bullet doesn't seem to have hit anything vital but we need to take it out before sealing the wound."

"Then take it out." I simply say, watching a single stray strand of hair fall on the side of her face and it takes everything in me to not reach up and tuck it behind her ear.

Her eyes seem to solidify with frustration but her voice comes out calm and controlled as ever. Making me want to shatter that cold exterior so I can see what lies beneath for myself. "The bullet needs to be taken out in sterile conditions, the wound is already very close to your intestines and your abdominal wall is perforated. Taking it out here would only risk more infection."

"All that sounds very nice and dandy but what I don't hear is your solution for it. Because I'm not going anywhere." My words seem to spur Val and Anthony in to action as they both pull out their guns, Val pointing it to the doctor and Anthony to the side of the nurses. The female nurse whimpers and starts shaking under the barrel. I keep my eyes on the doctor to see her expression shift similarly but nothing happens.

She just pulls her wrist from my grip and I let it go, my hand curling into a fist at the loss of contact. Dr. Whitaker looks at Val and the gun he's pointing at her and mutters something under her breath like, 'it's too early in the shift for this.' And then circles around the foot of the bed I'm lying in to come stand on my left side. She picks up a gauze pack from the tray and tosses it to Val without sparing him a glance, who catches it with his empty hand against his chest. "Cover your nose and tilt your head down. I'll set it once I'm done here." Then she pulls a rolling stool underneath her and snaps at the nurses.

"Open up a glove number seven, bring out sterile bedding and clamps." She starts listing and the two nurses seem to stop their aversion under her commands to go in different directions to get her what she needs. I watch her concentrated face with intrigue. She doesn't even seem to want to call hospital security. Not that it would help her anyway but her obvious lack of terror almost pulls a smile from my lips.

Not a minute later, my abdomen is covered with bright green sterile cloth with Dr. Whitaker sitting beside my bed and applying local anaesthetic around my wound after I had again threatened her when she tried to completely knock me out with general anaesthesia.

I know Val's not going to shoot her without my command but seeing the end of the pistol pointed at the side of her head as she works to fish out the bullet from my side, brings out this foreign possessiveness from deep inside my chest. I lock my jaw to stop myself from ordering Val to lower the gun.

Dr. Whitaker makes quick work of my innards as she pulls out the metal bullet from the wound after a couple minutes and lets it go from her clamp into a metal tray with a clank. Her white latex gloves are covered in red and for some reason I love how the shade of my blood against her skin is complementing her complexion. The monitor starts beeping more frequently to signal my raised heartbeat at the thought and her eyes pull up to watch the numbers on the screen before coming back to mine. I don't know what she sees in my face or those vitals but suddenly I feel exposed under her beautiful gaze.

Too soon her gaze returns back to my wound and she starts stitching my wound up. When she's finished, she cleans the area and closes the wound with gauze and bandage. Then she turns around saying something I can't hear to the female nurse before walking over to Valdos. I want to get up to stop her as she gets closer to the gun pointed directly at her but my limbs start to feel heavy and my brain feels fuzzy.

I look to my side and see the female nurse with a needle in her hand close to the IV bag going into my arm. My nostrils flare as it dawns on me that Dr. Whitaker has drugged me. But my mouth refuses to obey me and I can't open it to spit out the string of angry curses lined up.

I watch through heavy lidded eyes as she delicately pushes the gun Val has pointed to her head to the side before she puts a hand on his forearm, making him lower the hand he was holding the white gauze to his bleeding nose. The last thing I see before everything goes black is her putting both of her elegant hands on the side of Val's nose, and with a crunch setting the bones back in place.

So a new story! Let me know if you like it or if you think I should just stop while I'm not in that deep :p

Thank you for reading! Leave a comment for ideas of where you want to see this story go!

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