He Ruined Me—Now He Crawls Back Begging novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Rehab

"You can't just pick a nurse," the resident said.

"I just did," said Santiago.

The charge nurse looked at me. I looked at the cane on Santiago's chest.

"I know him," I said.

"How?"

"His family kept me in a basement for seven months."

The resident's mouth fell open. The tech said, "Damn, boss," very softly.

The charge nurse didn't blink. "You want him or not?"

"I want him," I said. "Bay six."

It wasn't a re-fracture.

The X-ray showed the hardware sitting exactly where his surgeons in Miami had left it, seven screws and a plate.

What he'd done was land on the knee and bruise the bone so badly his whole shin had swelled up purple.

"What were you doing?" I said, wrapping it. "At one in the morning."

"Parallel bars."

"Alone?"

"My men don't know how to spot. They stand there looking nervous."

"You fell off the parallel bars."

"I was walking on the bars," he said. "Without the cane. The way you said."

"I said swap hands. I didn't say quit the cane. I didn't say do it at one in the morning with nobody to catch you."

"You said my rehab was a joke." He looked up at me from the pillow, sweaty and stubborn. "I wanted to see if you were right."

"Was I?"

"Yes," he said. "It's a joke. I'm a joke. My leg is a disgrace to my family. I'm paying you to fix it."

I stopped wrapping.

"I'm not for sale," I said.

"No. Your time is. You've got nights. You've got days off." He named a number. It was more than the hospital paid me in a month. "Three mornings a week. Your rules. You can shout."

"I'll shout a lot."

"I'm counting on it."

I thought about my frozen bank account and Peg's bowling money.

"Half that," I said. "And you pay my gas."

He smiled for the first time since I'd met him. It changed his whole face.

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