Chapter 3 - The Private Wing
By 6:00 a.m., the sun was beginning to break over the city, casting pale orange light through the heavy glass windows of the hospital's private eighth-floor wing.
This was the VIP pavilion, a place where wealthy politicians, celebrities, and, occasionally, men of Luca Vescari’s stature were brought when they needed discretion. The entire floor had been cleared. Dante’s men stood at every entrance, their suits immaculate, their hands resting comfortably near their left lapels.
Luca Vescari had survived a three-hour surgery. Dr. Chen had successfully repaired a ruptured splenic artery and stabilized his shattered ribs. He was now lying in a private, high-security ICU room, surrounded by state-of-the-art monitoring equipment and a constant stream of sterile air.
Elena sat in a leather chair in the corner of the room. She was exhausted. Her shift had ended three hours ago, but Dante had made it clear she was not to leave. He had personally requested—or rather, demanded—that she be assigned as Luca’s private, one-on-one nurse for the duration of his recovery.
"You look like you're about to fall over," a voice said from the doorway.
Elena jumped slightly. Dante was standing there, holding two cardboard cups of coffee. He had removed his jacket, revealing a tailored white shirt and a shoulder holster carrying a sleek, black semi-automatic pistol.
"I'm fine," Elena said, reaching for the coffee he offered. "Just... a long night."
"You saved his life," Dante said, sitting in the chair opposite her. He looked at his brother, who was still deeply sedated, a ventilator rising and falling in his chest. "Our father died when we were young. Luca raised me. He built the Vescari family from nothing. People think he’s a monster because of what we do, but he’s a fair man. He keeps the peace."
"I don't care what he does outside these walls, Mr. Vescari," Elena said, taking a warm sip of the coffee. "Here, he’s my patient."
"Dante," he corrected her. "Call me Dante. And you're going to need to be careful, Elena."
Elena’s hand paused over her cup. "What do you mean?"
"The hit on my brother wasn't an accident," Dante said, his voice dropping into a dangerous whisper. "Someone tipped off the Valenti family about his route last night. They ambushed his car. And the fact that Dr. Vane was so quick to declare him dead... it makes me wonder."
Elena felt a cold dread settle in her stomach. "You think Dr. Vane tried to let him die?"
"I think Vane is a man with a lot of gambling debts," Dante said, his eyes narrowing. "And I think the Valentis have a lot of money. If Luca died on the table, it’s just a tragedy. A tragic medical failure. No one gets blamed. But now... Luca is alive. And whoever wanted him dead knows he survived."
He looked at Elena, his gaze intense. "Which means they know about you. You're the one who stood in their way."
Elena swallowed hard. She had taken this job to help people, to pay off her student loans, and to live a quiet life in the suburbs. Now, she was sitting in a high-security wing, guarding a mafia boss, and realizing she had just put a target on her own back.
"I have guards outside," Dante said, seeing the fear in her eyes. "You’re safe here. But you stay in this room. You don't take anything to eat or drink unless it comes from my men. And you monitor every medication that goes into that IV."
Before Elena could answer, the heart rate monitor beside Luca’s bed began to beep rapidly.
She stood up instantly, her exhaustion vanishing as her professional instincts took over. She rushed to the bedside, her eyes scanning the monitor. Luca’s heart rate was climbing—110, 120, 135 beats per minute.
"His blood pressure is dropping," Elena said, her fingers flying over the IV pump. "He’s going into shock again. But he’s fully hydrated, and his surgical drains are clean. He shouldn't be bleeding."
She looked at the IV bag hanging from the metal pole. It was a bag of normal saline, but there was a secondary line running into it—a small, clear syringe pump that was slowly dripping a clear fluid into his port.
Elena leaned close, sniffing the tip of the syringe.
There was a faint, bitter smell of almonds.
"Sodium nitroprusside," Elena gasped. "It’s a powerful vasodilator. It’s used to lower blood pressure in emergencies, but in a patient who has already lost blood, it will cause his cardiovascular system to collapse. Someone is running it at ten times the maximum dose."
She immediately shut off the pump, ripping the secondary line out of the IV port.
May you like
"Who put this syringe here?" Dante roared, his hand instantly flying to his holster.
"I don't know," Elena said, her hands shaking as she flushed the line with clean saline. "It was set up while I was downstairs getting my bag. The chart says it was ordered by Dr. Vane."
