Chapter 4 - The Shadows at the Door
By six o’clock in the morning, the eighth floor of Mercy General had ceased to function as a typical hospital ward.
Dominic had relocated Fiona to the private VIP wing, commandeering the entire east corridor. Four armed men in dark suits stood at the main elevators, their hands tucked casually beneath their jackets. Two more flanked Room 812. The nurses moved about their duties with hushed voices and darting eyes, unnerved by the heavy silences and the unmistakable air of violence that had settled over the floor.
In the corner of Room 812, on a leather armchair Dominic had ordered brought up from the executive lounge, Leo sat with his legs dangling over the edge. He was eating a strawberry pastry from an silver tray Dominic’s driver had procured, his eyes never leaving the hospital bed where his mother lay.
Fiona was off the mechanical ventilator, breathing through an oxygen mask now, but she had not woken up. The bruising on her face had darkened into shades of plum and violet, but the monitor above her bed showed a steady, if fragile, sinus rhythm.
Dominic stood near the window, his coat draped over the back of a chair. His phone vibrated against his hip. He answered it on the first ring, keeping his voice to a low murmur.
"Report," he said.
"We found the car, boss," Dante’s voice came through the receiver, heavy with fatigue and something darker. "A silver sedan. Dumped in an industrial canal near the shipping yards. Plates were stripped, VIN was filed down."
"Amateurs?"
"No," Dante replied grimly. "Professionals. They torched the interior with an accelerant before rolling it into the water. Standard clean-up protocol. This wasn't a drunk driver hitting a curb, Dominic. This was a hit."
Dominic’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth ached. "Why her? Nobody in the city knew she was here. I didn't even know she was here."
"That’s the thing," Dante hesitated. "We ran facial recognition on the traffic cam at 12th Street, two blocks before she was struck. Fiona wasn't walking home from the bakery. She was running. And there was a black SUV trailing her two car lengths behind."
"Whose SUV?"
"Registered to an import company in Jersey. A front for Lorenzo Moretti’s logistics wing."
The air left Dominic’s lungs in a cold hiss.
*Moretti.*
Five years ago, Lorenzo Moretti had dropped Fiona’s name into a conversation over brandy at a private club, smiling with his gold-capped teeth. *Lovely girl, Dominic. Works at the patisserie downtown. It would be a terrible shame if she had an accident with an oven.*
That single sentence had been the death sentence of Dominic's happiness. He had believed that by severing ties immediately, by making it clear that Fiona was nothing to him, he had stripped Lorenzo of his leverage. A mafia boss didn't protect trash he threw away.
Or so Dominic had believed.
"Dominic," Dante continued, his tone warning. "Santino says Moretti called an emergency sit-down for noon at the St. Regis. He’s claiming we broke the truce by pulling our men from the north docks last night. He thinks we're preparing an ambush. If you don't show up, the five families will vote to back the Morettis against us. You have to leave the hospital."
"No," Dominic said without hesitation.
"Boss, be reasonable! If you lose the family, you can't protect anyone! You can't protect that girl, and you can't protect—"
"Do not tell me what I can protect, Dante," Dominic hissed, his voice dropping into a deadly register that caused the lieutenant on the other end to fall instantly silent. "Double the guard at the hospital entrances. Put snipers on the parking garage across the street. If Moretti sends so much as a courier to this building, kill him on the sidewalk."
"Dominic—"
Dominic hung up the phone.
He turned back to the room. Leo had set his pastry down. The boy was looking at him with wide, solemn eyes.
"Is the dragon coming?" Leo asked quietly.
Dominic walked across the room and knelt down beside the armchair. He reached out and gently smoothed the boy’s dark curls, feeling a strange, terrifying warmth bloom in his chest. "No, Leo. The dragon is already here. But he's on your side now."
A faint, raspy cough broke the silence from the bed.
Dominic turned his head instantly.
Fiona’s fingers were moving. They clawed weakly at the thin white hospital sheets. Her head rolled to one side, a low groan escaping from behind the clear plastic oxygen mask. Her eyelids fluttered, struggling against the heavy weight of the sedatives, until finally, they opened.
Her green eyes—the eyes that had haunted Dominic’s every sleepless night for five years—were cloudy with confusion. She blinked at the ceiling tiles, then down at the wires attached to her chest.
Then, she turned her head toward the armchair.
"Leo..." she breathed, the sound muffled by the mask.
"Mama!" The boy scrambled down from the leather chair, his small sneakers hitting the floor as he rushed toward the bed.
Dominic caught him lightly around the waist, lifting him so he could reach her hand without jarring the IV lines. "Gently, Leo. She’s hurt."
Fiona’s hand gripped her son’s small fingers with a strength that defied her broken body. Tears instantly spilled from the corners of her eyes, tracking through the purple bruises on her cheeks. "Leo... my baby... you're safe..."
"I'm here, Mama," Leo said, pressing his cheek against her arm. "The man brought me. He has my eyes."
Fiona’s breath hitched.
Slowly, painfully, she dragged her gaze up from her son’s face. She looked at the man holding him.
When her eyes met Dominic’s, the relief vanished from her face. It was replaced instantly by a terror so pure, so absolute, that the cardiac monitor beside her bed spiked into a frantic, alarm-triggering rhythm.
May you like
"No," Fiona gasped, thrashing weakly against the pillows, trying to pull Leo away from him. "No... not you. Oh God, not you. Take him away! Don't let him touch my baby!"
***
