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I turn to Scott. “Can you do some x-rays on her? I have a feeling she’s been abused.”
“Definitely. I’ll come find you when we’re done.”
“Thank you.” I say to him as I head to the surgical unit.
I say a silent prayer that my papa will be okay. I pull my phone out to call Christophe.
“Hey bro, you lonely.” He answers, chuckling.
“Christophe. You all need to get down to Lucciola now.”
“What’s going on?” He asks. I can hear him moving around and yelling for François and Renee.
“I’ll tell you when you get here. But please drive smart. I’ll be in surgery when you get here so wait in the surgical waiting area. I’ll come and find you.”
“Okay, we’re coming.” He says as he hangs up.
Christophe
The panic I heard in my brothers voice is one I don’t hear often. He’s always the calm one of us, so whatever’s happened, it’s bad.
“Come on! Let’s fucking go!” I yell at François and Renee.
“Why are you rushing us and yelling?” François snaps back at me.
“Jérôme called and said to get down to Lucciola. He wouldn’t tell me what happened. Only said to wait in the surgical waiting area.”
“Fuck. Do you think it’s Lorenzo or Giovanna? Rowan?” François sounds panicked now.
“I don’t know. But we need to get there now.”
We get into the car and it takes every ounce of restraint in me not to speed through Lake Renegade to get to the hospital. I park in the first stall I see, I don’t even care if it’s not a real parking space. Fuck it, they can tow my car.
We run inside and head up to the surgical waiting room. It feels like we’ve been waiting for hours, when in reality it’s only been fifteen minutes.
“I can’t stand this waiting. Fuck!” François slams his hand on the wall.
I go over and hug my brother. I feel the same way he does, but I’m trying to keep my shit together for everyone. Renee comes over and gets between us so she’s the middle of our hug. I can feel the tension from François start to come down as he hugs her too.
“Whoever it is on that surgery table will be okay.” Renee whispers to us.
“I just wish we knew who it was.” François says softly.
The next time I look at my watch, an hour has gone by. We finally see Jérôme coming out of the doors.
“Who’s dead?” François blurts out.
Jérôme frowns at François, “No one’s dead.”
“Then what the fuck’s going on?” I say to him.
“Papa was in a car accident with Tanya —” Jérôme puts his hand up as François opens his mouth. “He’s going to be okay. He had some internal bleeding but they got it stopped. He also had a bullet wound to his upper chest. It didn’t do too much damage. Tanya has airbag and seatbelt trauma and a bullet would to her arm. I talked to her and she said the person who shot them is her ex-husband. His name is Roger Pearson.”
“Roger Pearson is a dead man.” I say quietly.
“I think Tanya was being abused by her ex.” Jérôme tells us.
“I told you all I felt like something was wrong when she talked. She didn’t really want to say anything about her ex. And she did flinch sometimes at noises.” François says.
