“What about the baby?”
She lifted the ballpoint higher. “I’ll make sure she finds a good home.”
Christ. This was it. The end. His marriage an epic failure, and the daughter he’d always wantedgoing to a good home. Not his home. But a good one. Full of strangers. People who’d care for her, raise her right, and love her wholeheartedly…or maybe not.
Who the fuck knew what the future held? Eve Langley’s parents certainly hadn’t when they’d died and left her to the loving embrace of a family of serial killers. Jesus. The nightmare they’d put her through before the JTT’s leader Adam Grayson had found her and saved her life.
He didn’t want that for Ko’s baby. He didn’t want that for any baby. But Jamie wasn’t the father. He had no rights. With no moves left to make, he resigned himself to the reality of his situation and reached for the pen. His fingers brushing against Ko’s, he felt nothing. No spark. No—
The door burst open. “Ko! Multiple GSWs enroute. Chief wants you in the garage.”
“How many?” she asked, already rushing toward the woman, everything else, including him, forgotten in her haste.
“Don’t know. Shooting at the Mayor’s tree lighting ceremony. It’s bad.”
Jamie tossed the pen onto the papers and followed them out. The organized bedlam of an emergency room on high alert was a familiar sight. Orderlies rushed about, moving patients and prepping equipment while the nurses geared up for the bloody battle ahead.
In front of a flat-screen TV, the ER doctors stood around, shaking their heads in disbelief at the carnage being broadcast live from Boston Common Park.
“Okay, people. Let’s get our shit together.” The man speaking held out a black puff jacket to Ko, who put it on but didn’t zipper it while the staff gathered around. “We have a mass casualty event happening right outside our doors. You know what to do. McAneny, Crosswell, Yoon, you’re on triage. Follow the protocols. Focus on the reds. Get them inside as fast as possible. We’ll take as many yellows as we can, when we hit capacity, reroute to BMC or Tufts. Greens are being sent directly to Beth Israel and Brigham. Don’t waste your time on the borderline blacks. We won’t be able to save them all, so let’s focus on those we can. Charlotte?”
Behind the counter, the nurse communicating with emergency dispatch lifted her gaze from her computer screen. “First bus pulling in, three more two minutes out, multiple casualties onboard.”
“Alright. Things are about to get messy, folks. Keep your eyes sharp, your heads on straight, and watch your backs. I don’t want any careless injuries. Questions?” Heads shook, the energy and excitement flowing among the group on par with Jamie’s experience in the military.
They lived for this shit. He did too. Except as a special forces medical sergeant, he’d been a one-man first response team who carried an automatic rifle and two hundred pounds of equipment. On his back. Through the desert. At high noon.
“Then let’s get to it.” Dismissed by the man in charge, the staff scattered.
“Ko.” Jamie reached for her arm to slow her departure and remind her of his presence.
“Who’re you?” her boss asked.
“Oh shit.” She stopped and turned. “Eric. Jamie.” Hand flapping back and forth between them, she made the quick introduction. “Jamie. Eric.”
“Eric Altman. Chief of Emergency Medicine.” He held out his palm, and they shook.
“Jamie Snow. I’m—”
“I know who you are.” Altman dropped his hand, his gaze turning critical. “You’re Samuel Snow’s kid.”
“I was about to say, pleased to meet you.” At thirty-four, Jamie wasn’t a kid, and he despised being referred to as his father’s son. The Surgeon-in-Chief at Gen Mass, dear old daddy had a reputation for being a tyrant. Known for making surgical residents cry in the operating theatre, he’d crushed more souls than the devil.
And this guy—Eric Altman, Chief of Emergency Medicine—could fuck the hell off with his condescending tone and holier-than-thou expression. He wasn’t much older than Jamie, and going by the look that passed between him and Ko, the two of them had shared more than coffee in the breakroom.
Yeah. Unless he’d misread the non-verbal cues, he stood nose-to-nose with his wife’s extra-marital-curricular activity. “So, Eric, tell me, how long have you been fucking my wife?”
“Jamie!” Ko grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and tugged as heads popped up over counters, and knowing eyes went wide. No such thing as a secret affair in a hospital unit, and nothing like a little drama to perk people up in the middle of a crisis. “Sorry, Eric. Myexwas just leaving.”
Jamie hitched his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the room they’d vacated as the first trauma patient wheeled past surrounded by four…nope, make that five, emergency room personnel. “The papers—”
“Print another copy, sign where indicated, and FedEx them to me. I’ll take care of the rest.” With a familiar look of determination stamped on her face, she yanked on him again, and he followed her down the corridor and outside to the ambulance bay.
The cold December air greeted him with a slap to the face, and the overcast sky promised a dump of wet snow to make the job of saving lives that much harder. “Over here.” She pulled him away from the automatic doors as another shooting victim passed through on a blood-spattered stretcher.
Meanwhile, two more buses pulled into the garage. And fuck, her day was about to go from bad to worse as the bodies started to pile up. The last thing she needed was anex-husband getting in her way.
First and foremost, Kosamina was a trauma doctor.
