"Your secrets are safe. For now," he said.
Their eyes clashed in a charged moment before the door behind him opened.
“Junayd, what is the....“ Tarek’s voice faded on a hiss when he saw Midnight.
“Harry is on his way up,” Idella said.
“I'm only marginally slower than these two,” Harry grumbled a moment later. “Hey, Midnight. How bad is it this time?”
Midnight’s head dropped back to the cushion. “On a scale of one to ten, I’d give it a six. The bullet is still in me,” she choked out.
She covered her eyes with her arm. Junayd’s heart twisted when he noticed a tear sliding from the corner of her eye to disappear into her hair.
“Oh, Midnight,” Idella murmured, running her hand over Midnight’s hair. “Let’s get her to the operating room.”
Junayd’s head wasn’t the only one that snapped up at the mention of an operating room. Tarek was surprised too.
“I’ll carry her,” he quietly replied.
Midnight groaned when he gently picked her up. “All I need is a pair of tweezers, superglue, and some painkillers,” she complained.
Junayd cursed under his breath. “How are you even still alive?” he muttered.
He followed Idella down the staircase, into a corridor, and was surprised when she stopped to unlock a door labeled Mechanical Room. The door opened into another corridor.
Three minutes later, he was laying Midnight on a pristine white medical bed. Harry was already placing an array of sterilized instruments on a portable tray. The bright lights caused Midnight to startle back to consciousness with a groan and shield her face with her arm.
“I need to return to the floor," Idella said. "Harry, if you need anything, let me know.”
“We’ve got this,” Harry replied as he set up an IV drip in her arm.
Junayd picked up a pair of scissors to cut the blood-soaked fabric away, but stopped when Midnight touched his wrist.
“This is... my favorite... sweater.”
Harry chuckled and took the scissors away from Junayd. “Don’t you worry, Midnight,” the old doctor reassured her. “We’ve got this, don’t we, your Highness?”
Harry hummed under his breath as he rolled up her loose-fitting trousers to reveal the wound on her calf. Junayd looked into her brown eyes shimmering with pain and a hint of amusement as he folded back the fabric from her gunshot wound. The move caused more blood to spread over the sweater that she apparently planned to keep.
Junayd's mystery lady was lying bleeding on a secret operating table within an assassin’s nightclub in the middle of Harlem. He almost pinched himself to see if he was awake or lost in some bizarre dream world.
“Do you want to remove the bullet or should I?” Harry asked.
Junayd blinked. “I’ll do it. I need to scrub up.” His voice was tight with emotion.
They walked into a separate room, and when Junayd came back, his dress coat was replaced with a paper surgical gown, the sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up to his elbows, his hands and forearms were clean, and his face was masked. He pulled on surgical gloves. Harry did the same, and they returned to Midnight’s side.
Harry unfastened the button on her jeans, pulling the zipper down and folding the material back to give Junayd better access to the gunshot wound in her side. Harry handed him a swab.
“Tell me about her,” he quietly requested as he worked.
“What’s to tell? The girl is lucky to still be alive. Hell, most of the people working in the shadows, including Idella, are lucky. The streets offer no easy life, and neither did Harlem.”
Junayd frowned as he worked on removing the bullet and made sure that no vital organs were damaged. He cleansed the wound, wiping away the fresh blood, noting the color, and removing any foreign material that could cause infection. Once he was satisfied, he closed the wound with small stitches, trying to reduce the amount of scarring. His hands and mind were steady as a rock as he worked.
“Who is Harlem?” he asked.
Harry shook his head. “Nobody who's still kicking. That story is not mine to tell. You’ll have to ask Midnight or Idella. The only thing I can tell you is I patched up both ladies way too often over the years,” he replied in a gruff tone.