Chapter 5 - The Race Against the Clock
"You are out of your mind!" I screamed, grabbing a roll of sterile gauze to press against the bleeding hole in Dante’s hand as he swung his legs over the side of the bed. "You have a chest tube! You have open wounds! If you stand up, you'll collapse your lung!"
"Then patch me up on the way, Claire!" Dante growled, gritting his teeth as a wave of dizziness forced him to catch himself against the mattress. He looked at Victor. "Bring the wheelchair. We aren't waiting for an ambulance."
I grabbed my medical bag, throwing extra IV bags, trauma dressings, and syringes inside with shaking hands. Every second felt like an eternity. The clock on the wall read 3:42 AM.
As we rushed out of the ICU, past the paralyzed nurses and terrified residents, Dante’s enforcers formed a tight, protective wedge around us. We barrelled down the service elevator straight to the underground ambulance bay.
A black armored SUV sat idling by the exit, its headlights off.
Victor threw open the back door, and Dante practically collapsed into the leather seat, his face pale as paper, sweat beading across his forehead. I jumped in right behind him, slapping a blood-pressure cuff onto his arm while Victor slammed the door shut and took off the handbrake.
The SUV peeled out of the bay, racing into the rainy Seattle night.
"Faster, Victor!" Dante ordered, clutching his side as the vehicle fishtailed slightly on the wet asphalt.
"I'm going as fast as I can without flipping us, boss," Victor replied, his eyes glued to the rearview mirror. "We've got a tail. Two black sedans about three blocks back."
"Shoot out their tires," Dante snarled.
"We're in the middle of Bellevue, Dante, I'm not starting a drive-by on the freeway!"
I ignored their bickering. I tore open a packet of antiseptic wipes, cleaned Dante’s bleeding hand, and secured a fresh bandage over the wound. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely tape it down.
"Dante," I whispered, my voice breaking. "If anything happens to Mia... if those men touch her... I will never, ever forgive you."
Dante turned his head, his dark eyes meeting mine. There was no arrogance left in them. No cool, untouchable mafia boss facade. Just raw, agonizing regret and a desperate, burning promise.
"They won't touch her," Dante said, his voice hard as tempered steel. "They'd have to go through my corpse first. And I died once six years ago, Claire. I'm not dying again until I've spent the rest of my life making this right."
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The SUV took a violent, sharp turn off the highway, speeding toward the residential streets of Mercer Island where the rain fell thick and heavy over a quiet neighborhood of sleeping houses.
And toward a little pink bedroom where a six-year-old girl was dreaming about a racehorse named Moonlight, completely unaware that the father she had never known was racing through the dark to save her life.
