Claimed by El Diablo

Chapter 7

The metallic scent of fresh blood hit the back of my throat, sharp and copper-heavy, instantly cutting through the lingering smell of rain and gasoline.

I didn't look at Javier. If I looked into those pitch-black, consuming eyes for a second longer, I would freeze. Instead, I forced my mind to compartmentalize, locking the terrified girl in a box and bringing the almost-graduated trauma nurse to the forefront.

"Get him flat!" Doc barked, snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves.

Mateo and another massive biker hoisted Dallas onto the steel examination table. Dallas let out a guttural, agonizing roar, his right hand gripping his leather cut. The left side of his chest and shoulder was a horrific, soaked mess of dark crimson.

I stepped up to the opposite side of the table, directly across from Doc.

"Where's the entry?" I demanded, my voice remarkably steady.

Doc ripped Dallas’s ruined shirt open. "High shoulder, just below the clavicle. It’s bleeding too fast. If it nicked the subclavian artery, he’s going to bleed out on this table in three minutes."

"I need sterile gauze. A lot of it. And hand me a hemostat," I ordered, not even realizing I was giving commands to a hardened criminal.

Mateo blinked in shock, but he didn't argue. He shoved a thick stack of sterile pads into my hands.

I leaned over Dallas. His skin was already turning a dangerous, ashen gray. Hypovolemic shock was setting in. "Dallas, look at me," I said loudly, pressing the thick wad of gauze directly into the bullet hole and throwing my entire upper body weight onto it.

Dallas gasped, his eyes rolling back in his head as his hips arched off the table in pain. He thrashed violently, his heavy boots kicking the metal cart and sending a tray of instruments crashing to the floor.

"Hold him down!" Doc yelled over the chaos. "I can't probe for the bullet if he's bucking!"

Suddenly, a massive, soot-stained hand clamped down on Dallas’s uninjured shoulder, pinning the biker flat against the steel with terrifying, effortless strength.

I snapped my head up. Javier was standing right beside me. The heat radiating off his large frame was a physical force. His jaw was clenched tight, a muscle feathering furiously in his cheek, but his hands were absolute stone.

"Hold still, brother," Javier rumbled, his voice a low, commanding vibration that cut right through the panic in the room. "Let her work."

Dallas groaned, but the thrashing stopped. He squeezed his eyes shut, trusting his President.

"I'm going to lift the pressure so you can look, Doc," I said, my hands slick with hot blood. "Ready? One, two, three."

I pulled the soaked gauze back. Blood immediately welled up, but it was a steady, dark flow not the bright red, pulsating spray of an arterial strike.

"It missed the artery," I breathed, a massive wave of relief crashing over me. "It's venous. We have time."

"Good eye, kid," Doc grunted, grabbing a pair of long surgical forceps. "It didn't exit. The slug is lodged against the scapula. I need to dig it out. Keep the pressure on the edges, keep the field clear."

For the next ten minutes, the room existed in a suspended, breathless vacuum. There was only the harsh glare of the fluorescent lights, the shallow, ragged sound of Dallas’s breathing, and the clinking of metal tools.

I worked seamlessly with Doc, anticipating his needs. I suctioned the blood, applied counter-pressure, and handed him tools before he even had to ask. My hands brushed against Javier’s thick, tattooed forearms as we both leaned over the table. Every point of contact sent a sharp jolt of electricity straight to my core, a stark reminder of the lethal, beautiful monster standing shoulder-to-shoulder with me in the trenches.

Finally, a sharp clink echoed through the room.

Doc dropped a mangled, bloody piece of lead into a metal kidney basin. "Got the bastard."

The collective exhale from the men in the room sounded like a hurricane passing.

"I'm starting a wide-bore IV," I told Doc, already pivoting toward the medical cabinets. "He needs fluids immediately to replace the volume loss. Two bags of saline, wide open. I’ll pack the wound with hemostatic gauze and prep it for you to suture."

I moved with clinical precision, finding a vein in Dallas’s uninjured arm on the first try and taping down the IV line. I packed the bullet track, applied a tight pressure dressing, and checked his pupils. They were sluggish but responsive. The ashen color was slowly starting to recede from his face.

He was going to live.

I stepped back from the steel table, the adrenaline suddenly abandoning my bloodstream all at once. My knees wobbled, threatening to buckle.

"I'll be damned," Mateo murmured from the corner of the room. He was staring at me, his sharp, calculating eyes wide with genuine awe. "You weren't kidding about nursing school."

Doc stripped off his bloody gloves, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. He looked from Dallas to me, then over to Javier.

"Where did you say you found her, Prez?" Doc asked, a rough, appreciative chuckle leaving his lips. "She's got ice in her veins. Half the prospects pass out the first time they see a bullet wound. She just ran my trauma table better than a third-year resident."

Javier didn't laugh. He didn't even look at Doc.

His dark, fathomless eyes were entirely fixated on me.

"Clear the room," Javier ordered. The command was soft, but it carried the absolute, unquestionable weight of a king.

Mateo gave me a deep, respectful nod a silent acknowledgment that I was no longer just the President's fake liability; I had earned my keep. He clapped Doc on the shoulder, and together with Jax, they wheeled Dallas’s table through a set of double doors into a quiet recovery bay, pulling the heavy curtains shut behind them.

The main med room was suddenly empty. Just me, the metallic smell of blood, and El Diablo.

I turned slowly toward the sink, my hands trembling so violently I could barely turn the stainless-steel faucet on. The warm water cascaded over my fingers, turning the basin a horrific, swirling pink.

Now that the crisis was over, the reality of the last three hours crashed down on me. The cartel threat. The explosive retaliation. The blood on my hands. I squeezed my eyes shut, letting out a fractured, exhausted breath as I scrubbed the iodine and blood from my skin.

I didn't hear him move, but suddenly, the overwhelming scent of cedar, motor oil, and gunpowder enveloped me.

Javier stepped up right behind me. He was so close his broad chest brushed the back of my shoulders. The sheer heat of his body was intoxicating, entirely chasing away the cold, sterile chill of the room.

He reached around me, his massive hands moving into the sink. He took the bar of soap from my shaking fingers.

I gasped softly at the contact, freezing in place.

Slowly, methodically, Javier began to wash my hands. His rough, calloused thumbs rubbed over my knuckles, working the stubborn, dried blood out from under my fingernails. The gesture was incredibly intimate, stripping away the hardened, violent exterior he wore for the world.

"You didn't have to do that," Javier murmured, his deep voice vibrating against my spine. "You could have stayed upstairs. Where it was safe."

"He was dying," I whispered, staring down at our intertwined hands under the running water. His skin was dark and heavily inked; mine was pale and trembling. "I couldn't just sit in that expensive cage and do nothing while your men bled for me."

Javier turned the water off. He reached for a clean white towel, gently drying my hands.

"My men bled for the club," he corrected softly. He dropped the towel on the counter and placed his hands on my hips, slowly turning me around to face him.

Up close, the soot and violence painted across his features made him look impossibly rugged. But his eyes... the pitch-black depths were swirling with a fierce, possessive reverence that made my heart hammer wildly against my ribs.

"And you," Javier said, his voice dropping to a gravelly, hypnotic rasp, "just proved exactly why you belong at the head of my table."

He reached up, his knuckles grazing the soft curve of my cheek. I leaned into the touch instinctively, a desperate sigh slipping from my lips. I was exhausted, terrified, and so deeply intertwined with this man that the lines between fake and real had entirely burned away.

"Valentina," he breathed, his gaze dropping to my mouth.

I didn't wait for him to finish. I reached up, tangling my fingers into his dark, damp hair, and pulled his face down to mine.

When our lips collided, it was an explosion. There was nothing gentle about it. It was a collision of pure adrenaline, desperate relief, and the blistering heat that had been building between us since the second he pulled me away from the cartel. Javier groaned, a deep, animalistic sound, his massive arms wrapping around my waist and lifting me clean off the floor, pressing my back against the cold medical cabinets.

He kissed me like he was drowning, and I was the only oxygen left in his brutal, violent world.