“Bye, Dad.” I smiled.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I sent Landon a text message.
“I’m out of surgery, and I’m starving. Lunch in the cafeteria?”
He didn’t respond, which I thought was odd. Walking down to the ER, I stopped at the nurses’ station.
“Hey, Rhonda. Have you seen Dr. Piazza?”
“I believe he said he was going to take a nap in the on-call room. He’s pulling a double.”
“I know. Thanks.” I smiled.
I went down to the on-call room, opened the door, and froze when I saw him having sex with someone.
“Shit. Ella.” Landon jumped up and grabbed his pants. “I thought you were in surgery?”
“You two-timing piece of shit. How could you?” Tears filled my eyes. “And you, Penelope. What the fuck?”
I looked over and saw Landon’s phone sitting on the table. Walking over, I picked it up, threw it on the ground, and smashed it with my foot.
“What the hell, Ella?” he shouted. “I need that.”
“You can have him.” I shook my head at Penelope and ran out of the room.
“Paging, Dr. Ella Kind. Cardiac O.R. Three, STAT!” I heard over the hospital’s intercom.
I ran up the stairs in the stairwell to the fourth floor. When I got to the O.R., a scrub nurse was holding out a gown, gloves, and a surgical mask for me.
“What’s going on, Uncle Christian?”
“I wanted you to see this,” he spoke. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I swallowed hard.
“It’s something, or there wouldn’t be tears in your eyes.”
“I just caught Landon and that skank Penelope in the on-call room.” I looked at the surgical staff, who stared at me.
“Oh, boy.” He sighed. “We’ll talk about it after I show you this.” He pointed to an area of the heart he was working on.
“What the—I’ve never seen that before.” I looked up at him. “How are you going to get that out without killing the patient?”
“That’s why I called you in here. I need your help.”