8. I Can't Feel My Leg
2058 Words
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Mateo gritted his teeth as Adam took another puff of his cigarette, watching his best friend and Capo with a smug look plastered on his face. If he could reach over, he would have wasted no second in wiping that look off his face but sadly Mateo couldn't move his leg and was too tired from the medication.
"I am sorry sir but could you not do that?" The nurse, Susan, asked him timidly.
"I will do as I please." He replied, his voice cold.
She nodded quickly and looked down.
Mateo raised an eyebrow at him. He winked taking another puff.
This was bloody torture!
"When is Dr. Johnson coming again?" He asked the nurse, who looked up, her eyes darting uncertainly between him and Adam before settling back on him.
"Probably tomorrow evening." She said in a low voice.
"Why?" Adam sat up, glaring at the woman. "Shouldn't he be checking in on his patients regularly?"
"She." Mateo corrected him. "Dr. Johnson's a woman."
"No wonder!" He scoffed.
"Dr. Johnson is a very busy surgeon." Mateo turned to the nurse, a slight smirk tugging at his lips at her sudden raise in voice. "The residents and interns will do the routine check-ups and rounds."
"Did I ask you?" Adam glared at her and she quickly looked down again, gulping visibly.
"That's enough Adam." Mateo gave his best friend a look.
"I am bored." He shrugged, taking another puff.
Mateo shook his head. Of all the men she could have asked to take care of him, his mom had to go and choose the most exasperating human to ever walk the earth.
Adam Smith was his best friend since he was in his teens and he trusted no one as much as he did him, but this moron was not the best to be around when you were bedridden.
"Go home." Mateo smirked, knowing very well what his response was going to be.
"And get ripped to pieces by the Boss wife? No thanks." He narrowed his eyes at Mateo while he laughed. p***y.
"But honestly you moron, are you alright?" He asked, crushing the cigarette and tossing it in the bin to the side. "It isn't one of the usual flesh wound we attain during a shootout. This one really caused some serious damage."
"It may look serious i***t but I was shot in the leg. I don't think I would have died from that." Mateo rolled his eyes. Adam really was a softie inside.
"Could he have died?" Adam turned to the nurse, sounding polite now.
She looked up and cleared her throat before she spoke. "If they had rushed and skipped the blood test, they would have administered the anesthetic and he definitely would have died."
Adam took a sharp intake of breath which made the nurse pause, her eyes showing fear.
"Continue." He said coldly.
"But he was luckily assessed by Dr. Erwin first. He is very calm and doesn't take any rash decision. So Dr. Johnson was shown the blood tests and she took measures accordingly." She finished.
Mateo turned to Adam. "Send another envelope to Dr. Erwin."
He nodded and quickly sent the accountant the message.
"I am glad he got to you." Adam chuckled as he sat down. "Just imagine how humiliating it would be if a Capo of the Sicilian Mafia died from a bullet on the leg!"
The duo realized his mistake a bit too late and looked up when they heard a visible gasp. Mateo mentally cursed Adam for saying that out loud.
Mateo dug his hand under the pillow and pulled out his silver gun. Her eyes widened as she stood there shocked, trembling with fear.
"You didn't hear what he just said." He said emotionlessly, c*****g the gun in her direction.
She nodded her head quickly, still trembling.
"I need another nurse." She nodded again.
"Leave." Adam growled. "And remember, not a word about this. To anyone."
She quickly gathered her stuff from the desk and hurried out, struggling to open the door with her shaking hands. As soon as she left the room, Mateo turned to his second in command,
"That was all your fault!"
He shrugged before smirking. "I don't care."
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It took Mateo all of his self-control to not put a bullet through the brunette who was desperately trying to get him to notice her cleavage.
Adam and Leonardo sat on the couch laughing while he just glared at the closed door.
His hands itched to pull out his gun and shoot his best friend in the crotch for the torture he was putting him through.
After Susan left, a male nurse had stayed in her station until his shift ended. The nurse doing night duty was a woman named Rachel. She was young, around the age of Dr. Johnson, and did her job without gawking at the Italian Capo too much. But the nurse who took over Rachel's shift today morning was a puttana who put on a show whenever possible. (puttana – w***e)
Leonardo had flown back to New York as soon as the meeting was over. He promised he would stay back with his cousin so that Katrina could go back to Italy with Alessio, Luigi, and Abrianna because Abrianna needed her there at her Sicily villa for a few days to prepare for a party she was holding and she had thought her party was more important than her own grandson's health.
She couldn't help it. She lacked feelings.
It was past three and Mateo had been visited by resident doctors twice, one of them took him to do some tests as well. He said it looked better now.
Good.
Mateo didn't want any more complications.
But he did want to see a certain curly-haired lioness.
"Would you like something to eat, Mr. Adesso?" The woman said in a squeaky voice which Mateo guessed she meant was to be sexy. Well, it wasn't.
"I thought I was on a liquid diet." He said coldly. He was not going to give her any reaction.
"But I could sneak something in if you want me to." She continued with her annoying squeaks.
"I will pass." He said and turned his head quickly when he heard the door creak open.
"Dr. Johnson is here." One of his men, Wells, said as he let her in.
"Dr. Johnson." Mateo nodded in response to her greeting smile. She was followed by a man twice her size.
"This is my intern, Dr. Eric Fentell." She smiled, pointing at the guy.
"Um... You are the doctor?" Adam asked out of nowhere. The man doesn't hesitate to flirt when he sees a decent woman. Emphasis on decent. That's why he didn't make a move on big-boobed brunette over there.
"Yes, I am an orthopedic surgeon." She smiled, holding her hand out to the brunette nurse.
She looked at her confused and took her hand which made the doctor roll her eyes while the intern let out a laugh before coughing to cover it up.
"The test results, Bianca. I had asked for a CT scan?"
Bianca nodded looking quite embarrassed.
Mateo was enjoying it. He liked to see Dr. River Johnson assert her authority, though he had seen it only twice before.
"How old are you?" Adam butted in again.
"I don't answer personal questions while at work." Before he could ask her any more questions, she turned to her patient. "How are you doing today?"
"I can't feel my leg." He told her truthfully, almost annoyed about it.
"Like literally?" She asked as she removed the comforter from Mateo's injured leg and ran her fingers along the sole, tickling it.
"Felt that?"
He nodded.
She took her stethoscope out from inside her coat and used the metallic part to knock on different parts of his leg, up to his injury.
She looked up and he nodded every time he felt it.
"Then it's all good. I know it's irritating to stay in bed all day but it's for your own good." She said as she took the report from the nurse who was glaring at her.
What's her problem? And why am I in the care of such an unprofessional woman? Mateo thought, annoyed at Adam even more because Susan was a perfectly decent nurse and he had f****d it up. She would have been extremely cautious if she had stayed and would make all of them uncomfortable and that was the reason he scared her off.
River was looking through the papers when the brunette spoke,
"When was the last time you washed your hair, Dr. Johnson? It smells like peanut butter mixed with poop."
Cringe! Oh my god, I am dying from secondhand embarrassment?? Like, what the hell?? River's insides were churning, asking her to beat this b***h up.
Bianca was a trust-fund baby. Her grandfather had left in his will that she had to do manual service to the community to be able to get her inheritance. She did not go to nursing school and only did monitoring and other non-interfering jobs because her uncle was a trustee of the world. It was bizarre but that was how rich people's world worked. But surprisingly, if you could just look past her shitty attitude, she was good at what she did. But it also meant Bianca could behave however she wanted with the faculty. She had no boss.
She had the attention of the entire room, repulsed and irritated by her sudden idiotic question. Except Dr. Johnson of course. She let her inner voice do the screaming and kept a poker face.
What does that even mean? Can we just punch her crooked nose into place, please??? It pleaded.
River didn't even look up from the report as she spoke,
"I guess how you know what that smells like, is a question for another time."
Bianca took seven whole seconds to interpret that before her face and neck turned red.
Dr. Johnson looked up and smiled at her, handing the clipboard back.
"And I don't answer personal questions while on duty." Her face hardened. "Neither should you ask them. Medical etiquette needs to be followed in a hospital no matter who your Dad or Uncle is."
"I am sorry Doctor." The woman mumbled before going back to her station.
"Everything looks good. I think we can remove the nurse in two days." She said, her smile never wavering. "And you can start taking solid food as well then. "
"Oh?" Leonardo spoke up, gaining her attention. "But Bianca here was offering to sneak anything he wanted in for him." He pointed at the nurse who looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
This was quite entertaining.
"Bianca, leave." Dr. Johnson's smile left her face.
"Doctor I-"
"No interference. It was an order from the top, wasn't it? I could have you removed from the hospital." Bianca knew exactly what that could mean so she kept quiet.
Dr. Johnson c****d her head at her and the woman finally left, for good.
"What did Susan do?" She asked, turning to Mateo.
"I didn't like her."
She nodded. "I will ask them to get you someone sensible."
"So you have senseless nurses working here?" He quirked an eyebrow, a smirk forming on his face.
"Mmm... More like nurses who lose their sense in front of hot Italian patients." She shrugged, putting her stethoscope back in her coat pocket.
Mateo felt his smirk widen while Adam gaped at the obvious yet subtle flirtation in front of him. He felt the sparks and he was sure so did the rest in the room. "So you admit that I am hot?"
"I was never one to disagree with facts." She gave him a smirk of her own.
"Is flirting allowed while on duty, doc?" Adam asked, killing the mood.
"I didn't know stating facts was called flirting." She turned to him and winked.
Mateo let out a laugh while Leonardo shook his head with a wide grin on his face.
Things were going to get interesting in these two months Mateo was in the hospital.
"Anyway, you are doing good. I will see you tomorrow." She breathed out.
With that, she and the intern boy walked out.
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- Writer
