After my weekend with Marco, going back to work felt like shit. But here I was, walking into the ambulance bay with Mia, discussing our weekend. We still really didn’t fit in here, but the night crews that worked with us were a little more chatty than normal. They asked about our weekends and brought up the last call. They seemed pretty curious about what had gone on. Mia just sighed.
“Our last call on Friday coded and died. Probable gang violence.”
“Shit eh?” Someone said,
“Yeah. Seems pretty common.” I muttered.
“It definitely is becoming more common here. It never used to be as bad, but with the mafia—-” His partner elbowed him in the ribs and he shut his mouth.
“We are no stranger to the mafia. We are from Lake Haven.” Mia said, shrugging. The alarm sounded and Mia and I loaded up into the ambulance and headed to the call. It was a standard call, not mafia or gang related.
Mia and I loaded the patient into the back of the ambulance. I ran through the basics.
“Tell dispatch to alert the hospital. We have a heart attack patient coming in, complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath.” I said.
The ride was brief, and we took the patient inside the ER and passed him off. The doctors and nurses took him off our hands. We collected our things and headed back out to the ambulance.
“Do you ever just tire of this, Ambrose?”
“Of saving lives?” I asked.
“No, of the mafia, it seems like every guy or person in this city and ours is mafia related one way or another. I went for a coffee on the weekend and chatted up a really nice-looking guy, who didn’t look mafia, you know. No pressed suits, just dressed down and fine as hell. But he was definitely mafia too, I knew after just being around him.”
“I get it. Seems like they are everywhere, but I don’t think they are all bad, and there has to be someone who isn’t Mafia related.”
“I swear it’s just you and I anymore, Ambrose.” She said,
I pictured Marco and felt a little guilty.
“Yeah, haha. It seems like it’s just us, anymore.”
There was no way right now that I was going to open my mouth to her about Marco. Not when she thought we were the only ones left without personal Mafia ties.
“But hey, If you ever get a Mafia boyfriend, Mia, I hear they get paid pretty nice.” I said, laughing.
“One of these times, I might just say fuck it and try it.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, They seem nicer than normal men, and like you said, they get paid well. Just once I would like to sleep in, not just on the weekends, you know.”
“Oh, trust me, I get it. I spent the weekend with Marco—-”
“Who’s Marco? His name sounds Italian—Wait. Ambrose, are you dating a mafia guy?” She asked, about filling her face.
“We aren’t dating.”
“But you didn’t deny he wasn’t Mafia, Ambrose is he—-”
“Nope, we aren’t discussing him.”
We got another call. After responding, she turned back to me.
“We are not done with this conversation. I need to know more about the Mafia man you’re seeing, since you are even more picky about men and you don’t even like the mafia. You’ve never looked at a man a second longer if he states he’s mafia, and you’re staying at this man’s house.”
“It’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it.” I muttered.
The entire drive to the call, she didn’t stop talking. I got it, though. She wanted to know what was so different about Marco that I let my guard down when he was part of the Mafia. And not just a grunt, but an underboss. But she didn’t need to know that part.
Grabbing the bag and dropping it on the stretcher, Mia and I wheeled the stretcher up to the door, a woman opening the door for us.
“Oh, thank god you’re here, he’s in here.”
She showed us to a dining room, where a man was sitting on the chair, a fork sticking straight up in his hand. Mia gave a look, and I looked back at her.
“We’re going to need to get the police involved here.” I whispered to her.
“Hmm. Agreed.” she whispered back.
Looking back at the lady, I spoke, as I set the bag on the table.
“Alright, hi there. Can you tell me how this happened? And a bit about yourself. Are you on any kind of medication? Even regular over-the-counter ones?” I asked him, and he looked terrified, and I wondered if it was because of her.
I leaned down by his ear as Mia spoke to her and I spoke softly, “Blink twice if she did this and you need us to get you out of here.”
The man blinked twice, and I spoke.
“Mia, he’s going to shock. We need to get him loaded up and to the hospital as quickly as possible.”
The women looked at him and looked at us.
“I’ll get his meds. Can I ride in the back with him?”
Before I could tell her no, she was gone and Mia looked at me and the man, helping me load him up on the stretcher after prepping his hand for transport. She appeared again, a bag of medication and her jacket and purse. She walked out to the ambulance with us and when she tried to climb in after him; I spoke.
“Unfortunately, ma’am, you will have to meet us at the hospital. We don’t allow people to accompany patients in the back, as there isn’t enough room to accompany more than the patient and the attending paramedic. We encourage you to meet us at the local hospital, however.”
She looked pissed, but shoved his meds in my hands and stomped off back inside. I closed the door, and Mia got in and we drove off. The man finally spoke.
“God, thank you. You’re a bloody life saver, that women is fucking nuts.”
“Is she related to you?”
“She’s my wife! But she’s completely lost it. She stabbed me with a fucking fork.”
Mia called dispatch to have a pair of officers sent to the hospital and be waiting for the old lady to show up.
“She’s definitely something.” I muttered.
“The police are going to be there right! They are going to protect me from her!”
“They are being notified, yes, and they will handle the rest.” I said softly, checking the packing around the wound just before we pulled into the hospital. Getting out, Mia and I wheeled him inside, two uniformed cops waiting for us. They got him checked in, and Mia and I were just waiting for our stretcher back. We could hear the old women in the hallway fighting with the cops.
Getting our stretcher back, we were leaving. The old woman spotted us and Mia and I watched as she stabbed one cop with another fork.
“Holy shit, this town is fucked up.”
“You’re telling me.” I muttered, shoving the stretcher faster down the halls, not wanting to be any closer to that old woman.
Heading back to the bay, we cleaned up the stretcher and relaxed while we waited for another call to come in. My phone rang, and I didn’t check it the first time, but by the second call, back to back, I fished it out of my pocket and answered it.
“Hey Marco, what up? It must be—--”
“Are you working?”
“Yeah, I am. What’s up?” I asked, Mia’s full attention to me now.
“Fuck. Just my motherfucking luck.” He snapped.
“Marco, what do you need?” I asked.
“I had a run in with a knife, and I might need a hand.”
“Where are you? Can someone around you call emergency services?”
“I’ll try. Hold on.”
The line went dead, and I looked at Mia.
“Get the medical bag, now. We are about to get a call.”
Two minutes later, the bell rang, and Mia took the call, not even giving the others a chance to intercept it. Inside the ambulance, we raced towards downtown and cops had arrived in the area. I spotted Sasha getting out of a cop car as we stopped, and he spotted me. He pointed to the alley of a building, and Mia and I raced that way once we got the stretcher out of the back to get to Marco.
Marco was leaned up against a wall, his hand covering his wound. He was dressed in normal clothing and had a bag beside him. Grabbing the medical bag, I set to work, and Marco hissed.
“You took your sweet time.”
“What the hell happened and do you have a weapon on you?” I asked.
“No, I was getting shit for the baby, and it was fucking gang members. Fuck.” He snarled. I grabbed gauze and moved his hand once I had mine covered with gloves. Pressing the gauze to the wound, he howled and Sasha finally got into the alley.
“Are you armed?” He asked.
“No. If I had been, Ambrose would be playing CPR on a corpse, not this shit.” He snapped, clearly in pain.
Getting Marco onto the stretcher, he was very unhappy with me, more so when I applied pressure to his wound.
Mia barely said two words the whole time. It wasn’t until Marco was out of my hands and we were waiting for our stretcher that she said something.
“Ambrose, seriously, that man doesn’t seem safe. He—--”
“Don’t.” I hissed, not feeling like I could handle this from her right now.
“Ambrose, he is clearly an influential player in the Mafia here. What the hell are you—-”
“Lower your voice. You are being way too loud about this. As far as either of us is concerned, we don’t know a damn thing.”
“Ambrose, you’re trying to protect him!” She snapped.
“Wrong. I’m protecting you.”
“From who! What the hell did you get yourself into?”
“Look, I’ll tell you when we aren’t here, ok. But just trust me, what we just did, it didn’t happen. That’s just how the game is played.”
“Oh god, Ambrose, he is a big player. Isn’t he?”
Before I could answer her, I spotted Romeao, and he spotted me. He also spotted Mia. She spotted him and his fancy suit, and she gave me a look. She knew he was also part of the Mafia.
He stopped and spoke.
“Thank you for tending to him, both of you.”
“Please keep me updated, I beg—-” He cut me off.
“Of course. Once I know something, I’ll be in contact.”
He was barely a few feet away, and she spoke, something in her voice I had never heard before, fear.
“Ambrose, you fucked up. I don’t know what position he holds, but that was definitely his boss.”
“Marco is an underboss.” I whispered, watching her eyes widen. “We can have a full conversation about this another time. Right now is not the time.”
Truthfully, I didn’t want to talk about Marco until I knew he was going to be just fine.
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