Chapter Two

"Right." I turned to the supply cabinet and punched in the code—four, seven, two, nine, because I'd chosen numbers that meant something only to me, which was the kind of paranoid security measure you developed after a few interesting years in practice. "I'm going to give you something for the pain. It'll—"

"No."

I paused with my hand on the vial of ketamine. "No?"

"No medication." He said it the way people said things they'd said many times before, a rehearsed refusal that had become reflex. "I need to stay sharp."

"Mister Cagliari, you have a bullet in your shoulder. I'm going to need to dig it out. Without anesthesia, that's going to be—"

"I've had worse." His mouth curved, and I realized with a mixture of irritation and something I refused to name that it was an attractive mouth. Alluring, even, which was a word I hadn't used since my Victorian literature phase in undergrad. "We've done this before."

"We?" I glanced at Gino, who shrugged with one massive shoulder.

"Boss doesn't like hospitals," Gino said, as if that explained everything. In a certain light, it probably did.

"How did you find me? I'm fairly certain my website doesn't offer after-hours bullet removal."

"Boss suggested it," Gino answered. "You stitched up his sister's dog a while back. He said the work was clean."

"I can't argue with that. What would you have done if I said no?"

Neither of them answered me. I scoffed. "That's comforting." I fixed Antonio with a disapproving glare. "You sure about the anesthetic?"

"No drugs," he repeated.

"Fine." I set the ketamine back and pulled out sterile water, gauze, forceps, and a scalpel instead. My hands were steady. They'd been steady through worse, though I was hard-pressed to think of a specific example at the moment. At least he wasn't trying to bite me. "But I want it on record that this is against my professional recommendation, and when you pass out from the pain, that's between you and whatever god you pray to."

"Noted." He settled back further on the table, and I caught Gino moving to stand near his head—positioning himself to be available if his boss needed something to grip. Practice. They really had done this before.

I cleaned the wound area, and Antonio Cagliari didn't flinch. Not when the antiseptic hit raw tissue, not when I probed the entrance wound with a gloved finger to check the angle, not when I picked up the scalpel. His amber eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling, and his breathing remained controlled, measured, the kind of deliberate respiration that came from training rather than calm.

"You're a veterinarian," he said, and it wasn't a question.

"Observant. I like that in a patient." I made the first incision, widening the entrance wound enough to see what I was doing. Blood welled up, dark and steady. "Yes. I'm a veterinarian. You're on my table, which means right now, technically, you're my patient. The ethics get a bit murky after that."

"Your hands are steady."

"They'd better be. I've got student loans that require consistent employment." I reached for the forceps and began the careful work of locating the bullet. It had lodged against the scapula, which meant I'd have to navigate around muscle tissue that was already swelling and angry. "So if you die on my table, that's going to be a real inconvenience for me."

Gino made that sound again—the suppressed laugh, caught somewhere in his chest before it could escape. Antonio's eyes cut toward him, and the look carried enough weight to stop a charging bull. Gino's expression smoothed out into something approaching solemnity.

"You're funny," Antonio said, turning back to me.

"I'm honest. People confuse the two." I found the bullet. It was a 9mm, jacketed, sitting snug against the bone like it had decided to take up residence. "This is going to hurt. I'm telling you that as a courtesy, not as a warning, because warning implies you have the option to prepare."

"I understand."

I pulled.

The sound he made wasn't a scream. It was more of a controlled exhalation through clenched teeth, a hiss that carried the weight of genuine agony compressed into something socially acceptable. His hand found the edge of the table, and his knuckles went white. The tendons in his neck stood out like cables.

Gino's hand landed on his shoulder—steadying, grounding. The gesture was practiced, automatic. I filed that away too.

The bullet came out with a wet sound that I'd heard enough times to find almost mundane. I dropped it on the stainless steel tray, where it rolled in a small circle before settling. Then I pressed gauze against the wound and began the process of cleaning up.

"Got it," I said. "You're lucky. It didn't hit anything overly important. You're going to live, which I'm sure is a relief to everyone in this room and several people in the lobby who look like they'd kill for you without asking follow-up questions."

Antonio's breathing was still controlled, but something in his posture had shifted. The pain had cost him something, even if he wouldn't admit it. "You've done this before."

"On humans? No. On animals who got shot? Yes. The anatomy is surprisingly similar, once you account for the fact that most dogs don't try to negotiate with you while you're operating."

"Negotiate?" His amber eyes found mine again, and there was something different in them now. Warmer, maybe. Or maybe that was just the blood loss.

"You brought five armed men to a veterinary clinic at three in the morning. That's not a medical visit. That's a negotiation." I began suturing, and my hands moved with the automatic precision that came from hundreds of hours of wound closure. "You're negotiating for my discretion, my compliance, and probably my silence. I'm negotiating for the right to do my job without getting shot myself."

"And what are your terms?"

"I haven't decided yet. I'm still assessing the situation." I tied off the first suture. "But I should tell you that I don't take bribes. I've been offered, and I've declined. My silence isn't for sale."

"Everyone has a price."