Note: Hey readers, hope you are enjoying the ride. This is another banger. Have fun.
Book Title: My Debt To My Mafia Lord
AMELIA
I’m about to flick the lights out when the front door crashes open and in bursts an enormous man in a jet black suit. He’s carrying a bleeding dog
in his arms.
I make a quick diagnosis of the animal’s condition. German Shepherd. Adult. Male. Deep wound. Probably fatal. Lots of blood. Too much.
“Fix him,” the man snarls, lowering the dog onto the steel examining table. The man’s voice is a growl. His eyes are dark, staring at me without blinking. “Fix him now.” He’s got blood all over his hands.
“I’m not a vet,” I reply, looking from him to the dog and back again. The man’s as wild-looking as his pet, despite the sharp cut of his suit.
Dark eyes half-hidden behind soaking wet black hair that’s hanging down over his eyes. Neat stubble that covers the bottom half of his face.
More blood on his cheeks.
His black shirt is soaked. Blood or rain, I can’t tell.
I press a cloth to the wound on his dog’s side, pushing down hard. The animal is out cold. Unconscious, probably dying. “You need to get over to Moira’s on Sunside. She’s a twenty-four-hour veterinary surgeon-” He cuts me off with a roar so loud my ears ring. “No time. He’s dying. Fix him now!”
His voice should scare me. He’s towering over both me and the dog. As I try to form words, his fist slams into the metal table so hard it leaves a dent.
I can sense the fear behind his anger. He’s afraid. Afraid his dog will die. Afraid I can’t save him.
He’s probably right. I can’t save him. I can’t do anything. Already this evening I’ve watched six months of donations walk out the door in the arms of my boss, Cam Oakley.
He took all the money I’d raised and instead of thanking me, crammed it into a suitcase, and then walked out with it.
I tried asking where Cam was taking the money and he told me he had a dead cert. A rigged roulette table at the casino.
“It’s a dead cert,” Cam said. He looked at me and added, “I’ll double it in under a minute. Trust me.”
“Roulette isn’t a dead cert, Cam. It’s a game of chance.”
He laughed at me. “Not this time. Trust me, Amelia.” He put his shades on. “I got this.” He climbed into his car and I could only watch him go.
He revved the engine and raced off. Backward. He crunched the gears and then set off the right way.
I wanted to scream with frustration. All that work to get donations. The fairs, the phone calls, the charity dances, all of it to raise the money that just walked out the door.
Never trust men. It’s that simple. Sooner or later they all run off with whatever they can steal from you. They’re all crooks.
Look at Cam. My grandma gave him her animal shelter not long before she died. Never told me why. Now the place is falling apart, the pens are rusty, the food poor quality. I spent months raising enough to improve things, and he just walked out with the sum total of my efforts.
When the man burst in, I was in the middle of locking up, ready for pizza. Molly, my best friend, has it waiting for me at hers.
I’m not equipped to save a dying dog. He looks at me like he doesn’t want to hear that.
He glares down at me and repeats himself. “Fix him.”
“I can’t do it,” I whisper, looking around me while mentally working out what I need to do. Can’t be trusted, Cam said. Not good enough to become a vet. Not enough brains.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath as I inspect the dog’s wound under my hand. “What caused it?”
“Colt Mustang.”
“A mustang? No car does that kind of damage.”
“A gun,” he snaps, staring down at me with such intensity I almost fall back against the wall. “He got shot.”
“That’s a bullet wound? Right, get me that antiseptic. The orange bottle. No, that one.” The brute is crashing around the shelves, knocking bottles onto the floor. “Come and hold this. Keep the pressure there.”
“I know what to do with bullet wounds,” he replies as I shove his hands where mine were a second ago. “Hurry up.”
I gather up what I need, my mind scanning back over the books I’ve read about this. Simple steps when written down. Find out if there’s an exit wound. Stop the bleeding. Clean the wound. Remove any pieces of bullet.
What about the organs? If it’s pierced them, he’s dead already and there’s nothing I can do to save the poor thing. I try anyway.
The man sees me picking up tweezers and reads my mind. “It went straight through,” he says. “Clean exit. Risk of infection is minimal.” He knows about gunshot wounds. Who is this man?
The dog twitches. “Hold him still,” I say. “If he wakes up, we’ve no chance.” I pour antiseptic over the cloth before reaching for fresh gauze. “We haven’t anesthetic here. You really should get him over to Moira. It’s a two-minute drive.”
There’s a screech of a car skidding to a halt outside. The man turns toward the sound. “Fix my dog,” he says, moving my hand over to the cloth, pressing it down on the wound.
“Where are you going?” I ask as he heads over to the door.
He pulls it open, glances back at me, and then disappears outside without saying another word.
I’ve never fixed a bullet wound before, but I know what I’m supposed to do. I’ve read about it. I’ve read a lot about a lot of different animal wounds. I tune him out. I tune everything out.
I get to work, sweat pouring down my face as the dog lays unseeing in front of me. There’s so much blood.
Stop it, I tell myself. Just work. You can do it.
I stop the bleeding but I’ve no idea if I’m too late. There are noises outside, but I ignore them. I stitch up the wound, knowing he needs X-rays.
I don’t know if there’s bone or organ damage. This can only ever be a temporary measure until I can get the dog to Moira. She’s been a vet for twenty years. She knows how to deal with this kind of thing.
I’m an eighteen-year-old animal shelter employee who reads too much and is so far out of her depth she’s drowning. I’m not even sure I’m doing the stitches right. I can only hope they’ll hold long enough to get him across town. I don’t even have a car. I’ll have to run.
Get Moira to come here. That’s a better idea.
Once the stitches are in place, I wipe the worst of the blood from my hands, dig out my cellphone and cram it under my shoulder, listening as the line rings at the other end.
“Amelia?” Moira says when the line finally connects. “It’s late to be hearing from you. Everything all right down there?”
“No, listen,” I reply. “I’ve got a dog here with a bullet wound and Cam’s already left for the night.” I don’t say where he’s gone. I know how Moira feels about his gambling.
“I told him not to leave you alone at night. Could be anyone out there.”
“How fast can you get over here?”
“Leaving now. Apply pressure to the wound until I get there.”
“Way ahead of you. Please, hurry, Moira. I’m scared.”
More car doors are slamming out there. A moment later I get the shock of my life when I hear gunshots.
Gordon’s Cove is a quiet little seaside town. We don’t get shootings here. Occasional rifles in the hills during hunting season, but nothing down here in town.
The noise is so loud it sets all the dogs barking. The one on the tabletop stirs slightly. An eye opens, turns, and fixes on me, then closes again. I get one thump of the tail and then he’s still. At least he’s still alive. I pray he hasn’t lost too much blood.
I cross to the door and try to decide whether to look out. I get my phone out and call the sheriff’s office instead. It rings and rings, but no one answers.
Louie’s probably shooting pool across the road at Larry’s bar. Nothing much ever happens on a Wednesday night.
Now what? 911? Will that just end up on Louie’s answerphone too?
The door opens while I’m still trying to decide who else to call. It’s the dog’s owner standing there. This time he’s calm. All the emotion has gone from his face. It’s like I’m looking at a statue of a man. There’s nothing but ice behind his eyes.
He ducks his head to step through the door, picking up a cloth from the side, wiping blood from his hands.
“You fixed him,” he says, walking over and looking down at my stitching work.
He puts one hand on the dog’s chest and I think he might be about to smile, but before there’s even a flicker on his cheeks, he’s turning to face me, eyes still cold as ice. “We’re leaving.”
“No, you’re not,” I say, putting a hand on his arm as he reaches down to scoop the dog up. “He needs the vet to look at him properly.”
He looks down at his dog. “Excellent work.”
I don’t want to be impressed by his praise. It’s the way he says it, like he’s saying words that don’t come easy to him. Not words I’m used to hearing either. I don’t think Cam praised me once since he took over here.
He goes to pick up his dog. I get between them to stop him. “I don’t know if the bullet nicked any organs or bones. He’ll need drains set up for any leaking fluid in there. Sepsis is a real risk. There’s stuff I can’t do here.
“Not to mention you shouldn’t move him anywhere until he’s recovered properly. Moira’s bringing her things here for now. We haven’t got an X-ray machine. We haven’t got an anesthetic. We’re not set up for anything except pulling thorns out of paws.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because that stuff costs money. Look around you. This place isn’t made of it.”
“When will he be well enough to travel?”
“Wait until Moira’s done, and then we’ll see about whether you can take your dog anywhere. What’s his name, anyway?”
“Rex.” He looks down at the dog and then at me. “What’s yours?”
“Amelia Dooley.”
A man’s voice yells from the street, interrupting us. “Leo Rossi, come on out.”
“What the hell is going on out there?” I ask.
“Trouble,” he replies, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a casino chip. He examines it for a moment before pressing it into my hand. “Keep that safe,” he says, heading toward the door. “I’ll retrieve it and him soon.”
I look down at the chip. It’s black with a red edge. The number 10, 000 is written across it in neat white print on one side. In green on the other side is the single word, Belucci.
The man shouts in from outside again. “Give us the chip, Leo, or we burn the fucking place to the ground. Stop being such a pussy.”
“I’m coming out,” he yells back, his fist swallowing the door handle.
“Hope you’re ready.”
He glances at me. “Keep Rex at your place for now. I’ll be back for him.”
“How will you find me?” I ask as he pulls the door open. “You don’t even know where I live.”
He looks back at me with eyes that blaze fire. “I’ll find you,” he says. A moment later he’s gone.