My Commander Ex Divorced Me Then I Became Out of His League Chapter 07

My Commander Ex Divorced Me Then I Became Out of His League Chapter 07

I didn’t waste another word. I turned and walked into the OR.

Scrubbed in. Gowned up. Gloves on.

From abdominal incision to locating the bleed source: four minutes.

Splenic artery ligation. Splenectomy. Abdominal lavage. Layer-by-layer closure.

Total surgery time: one hour, eight minutes.

When we wheeled the patient out, his BP was back up to 110/70.

In the hallway, the patient’s family dropped to their knees.

“Doctor-thank you-thank you for saving his life—”

I pulled off my mask. My hands were still trembling slightly.

Not from fear.

Just the normal crash after the adrenaline burned off.

By the next day, the story had spread through every department at Crestwood General.

Chief Hayes came to find me personally.

“Sloane Ashford.”

“Chief Hayes.”

He studied me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

“You know, I’ve been a surgeon for thirty years. The first time I took lead on a solo surgery, my

hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped a hemostat into the patient’s abdominal cavity.”

He paused.

“You’re better than I was.”

Those words, coming from a grizzled, hot-tempered old surgeon, carried real weight.

I didn’t deflect.

Because I knew I’d earned them.

And now, I suppose, I should talk about Gavin Whitmore. Thousands of miles away.

In my last life, after he left, he practically forgot I existed.

This life was no different. Or rather, he’d never cared about the marriage to begin with.

The day I signed, he was up at the northwest border. Helen had the signed decree delivered to the

base.

I heard that when Gavin received it, he glanced at it once, then slipped it into a drawer.

No reaction at all.

He didn’t even call me.

And that’s the truth. In his world, I was never important.

I was just the decent, respectable girl someone introduced him to when he was twenty-three. He got married because it was time to get married. Staying single made the other officers talk.

As for love-

It was probably a question he’d never asked himself.

But Nova had asked it.

She’d thought about it for a long time.

She was five years younger than me. More beautiful. Better connected.

Her father, Victor, was Gavin’s old commanding officer. The same man who’d just retired.

So in her plan, Sloane Ashford getting a divorce was only step one.

Step two was her sliding into place.

That military wife-she ended up being Nova.

She just had to make it look clean. Respectable.

I only caught fragments of all this right before I died in my previous life.

This life, I couldn’t care less.

If she wanted Gavin, she could have him.

I didn’t want him anymore.

But fate has a twisted sense of humor.

Eight months into my job at Crestwood General, everything exploded.

It was a Saturday. I’d just come out of a surgery and was eating a boxed lunch in the on-call room.

Nurse Sun burst through the door, her face sheet-white.

“Dr. Ashford-emergency just brought in a high-ranking officer. Condition’s critical. Gunshot

wound to the abdomen. Through-and-through. Hemorrhagic shock.”

I set down my chopsticks and stood.

“Where is he?”

“They’ve already taken him to the OR, but-” Nurse Sun’s voice was shaking. “Chief Hayes is at a

conference in D.C. Dr. Wang is away on a training rotation. You’re the only one in the department cleared for surgery today.”

“I got it.”

I moved fast toward the OR, walking and talking. “Patient info?”

Nurse Sun handed me a slip.

I scanned it.

Then my stride hitched.

Patient Name: Victor Pierce.

Sex: Male.

| Age: 62.

Status: Retired Senior Officer.

Notes: Accidental firearm discharge.

Victor.

Nova’s father.

Gavin’s old commanding officer.

Fate. Absolutely twisted.