Page 1 of Ruthless

Chapter 1

Sara

“Trauma incoming!”

“Clear the hall! We need a doctor. He’s agonal!”

I snap the privacy curtains shut around my current patient’s bed as shouts echo down the corridor. My legs move instinctively, and in seconds, I slap an ABD gauze pad from the triage desk onto a man’s bare abdomen as blood soaks through at an alarming rate. He only just made it through the ER’s sliding glass doors before collapsing on the weathered vinyl composite tile, naked as the day he was born.

An orderly tosses some blue-and-white pads onto the floor and thrusts more gauze at me. I switch out the crimson pad with a fresh one, briefly revealing the mangled flesh above his navel.

Mid-fifties male. Gunshot to the abdomen. Breathing shallow. Looks like the bullet went through-and-through, but with this much blood, it may have nicked the midline aorta.

“Sir, can you hear me? What’s your name? Sir?”

No response as his eyes roll back into his skull.

“It’s a Level One. He needs the trauma bay. Now!” My confidence masks the nerves that always attack in these situations. That initial stomach swoop as adrenaline floods my system.

I may not be a doctor, but people’s lives still depend on me.

“Code Transfusion, Trauma One. Code Transfusion, Trauma One.”

The calm, automated voice crackles over the speakers, contradicting the chaos unfolding around us.

I apply pressure on the man’s wound for what feels like hours. In reality, only a few seconds pass before the surgeon shoulders me aside and his team rushes the patient away. A dark red smear trails them across the floor.

Oh boy. Environmental Services will just love that.

A short while later, I trudge to one of the industrial-sized stainless steel sinks. Located at the edge of the Upper West Side in Manhattan, Mount Dinaric West is one of the premier hospitals in the tristate area, if not the entire East Coast. A far cry from the hole-in-the-wall medical center I worked at in Ohio.

Now that my brother and I have returned to New York and I’ve spent the past year at this hospital, I’ve come to appreciate the little things, like the unlimited supply of chloroxylenol soap and the fancy espresso machine in the break room.

After scrubbing my hands and forearms raw with antiseptic to extinguish the metallic odor, I pad down the hallway to swap out my scrubs. As I enter the locker room, I wrinkle my nose at the blood droplets sprinkled all over my top.

Great. Leave it to me to cover my brand-new scrubs in biohazard before my first coffee break.

I’m spinning my combination lock when the door to the locker room swings open, so I pause to peer over my shoulder. “Angela?”

My friend startles, obviously surprised to find me here. “Oh. Hey, Sara.”

Cell phone in hand, Angela brushes past me to her locker, twisting the knob until the door pops open. She tosses the device onto one of the shelves before slamming her locker shut.

I raise an eyebrow as I grab my drab gray backup scrubs. “Could have used your help a minute ago.” I peel off my scrubs, the stiff cotton snagging on my full bust and forcing me to wriggle to extract myself.

“Oh, were you on that? I heard the callout over the speakers.” Her sun-kissed maple brown hair swings as she inclines her head toward her locker. “I was on break outside. Had to take a phone call.”

I slip on the fresh top and press my lips together. “Raoul, again? I thought you were done with him.”

She sinks onto the wooden bench with a loud snort. “Can you blame me? I know he’s kind of toxic, but his dick… It’s…” She touches her lips in a chef’s kiss motion, and I bark out a laugh.

Angela Maldonado has been my best friend since we first met at nursing school as fresh-faced optimists. Five years ago, when I packed up my then seventeen-year-old brother and relocated us to Toledo last minute, I worried she’d never forgive me. I wouldn’t have blamed her. Abandoning her without so much as a word was a shitty thing to do.

At the time, I felt like I had no choice if I wanted to keep Jeremy safe.

Angela welcomed me back with open arms, though. Heck, she’s even the one who contacted me with the job opening for an ER nurse. We picked up where we left off, as if the half-decade separation never happened. So while I can’t account for her truly horrendous taste in men, I can’t judge either.

Not when some of my past choices make hers look like the height of intelligence and responsibility.