Chapter 2 - The Command to the City
I turned toward the hallway, the grief inside me instantly hardening into lethal, unstoppable purpose.
"Matteo," I barked.
My chief lieutenant stepped through the doorway in half a second, his posture locked at attention.
"Yes, Boss?"
"Shut down the floor," I ordered, my voice vibrating with the cold authority of a king going to war. "Post two men at the elevators, two at the stairwells, and have Dante bring our private surgical transport detail from Queens."
Matteo nodded once. "Consider it done."
I turned back to Dr. Ortiz, who was standing frozen in the doorway, staring at the raw display of power with wide, terrified eyes.
"Who is the chief of cardiothoracic surgery at this facility?" I asked, my voice dangerously calm.
"Dr. Marcus Vance," the doctor stammered. "He’s in surgery on the third floor right now."
"Pull him out," I said.
"Mr. Reign, you can't just interrupt a sterile surgical procedure—"
"Pull him out," I repeated, stepping closer until our noses were inches apart. "Tell him Nicholas Reign has bought this hospital's entire research endowment. If he isn't in this room in four minutes, I will buy the medical board that licenses his practice and have his career incinerated by lunch."
Dr. Ortiz spun around and sprinted down the corridor without another word.
I knelt beside Lily, whose small hands were resting on Emily's blanket.
"Lily, sweetheart," I said, my voice softer than I had ever spoken to another human being in my entire adult life. "Do you know who I am?"
Lily tilted her head, her gray-green eyes searching mine with innocent curiosity.
"You're the man in Mommy's locket."
"I am," I whispered, feeling a burning tear slide down my cheek. "I’m your father, Lily."
She didn't scream, and she didn't cry.
Instead, her little lips parted, and she reached out, pressing her small palm flat against the stubble on my jawline.
"Mommy said you were an important king in a big city," she whispered, her voice cracking slightly. "She said you were too busy protecting everyone to come find us."
The shame that crashed over me was heavier than lead.
Emily had never poisoned our child’s mind against me.
She had lived in poverty, scrubbing floors and patching shoes with duct tape, dying of heart failure in a municipal hospital ward, while telling our daughter that her father was a noble protector.
"I wasn't busy, Lily," I confessed, my voice breaking. "I was a fool. But I am here now. And no one is going to take your mother away from us."
The door flew open with a violent swing.
A tall man in blue surgical scrubs and a yellow paper mask strode into the room, peeling off latex gloves with sharp, angry jerks.
"Who in the hell do you think you are, pulling me out of a coronary bypass?" Dr. Marcus Vance demanded, his face red with outrage.
Then his eyes landed on my face.
His anger evaporated into instant, suffocating dread.
Marcus Vance had served on the medical oversight board for three of my private recovery clinics in Brooklyn; he knew exactly whose name was signed on his department's research grants.
"Mr. Reign," Vance stammered, pulling off his mask, sweat glistening along his receding hairline.
"Dr. Vance," I said, rising to my full height and towering over him. "Look at that bed."
Vance turned toward Emily, checking the telemetry monitors with rapid, nervous glances.
"Her ejection fraction is under twelve percent," Vance murmured, his medical training taking over. "Her cardiac enzymes are off the charts. She doesn't have forty-eight hours."
"Find a donor heart," I commanded.
"Mr. Reign, the national UNOS organ matching registry cannot be bypassed," Vance protested, raising his hands. "It's regulated by federal statute! Organs are allocated by compatibility, geographic proximity, and waiting time. I can't just conjure a compatible pediatric or adult heart out of thin air!"
"I don't care about the national registry," I snarled, stepping into his chest. "Call every private transplant center from Boston to Miami. Call our private clinics in Montreal and London. Charter three Learjets. If there is a compatible heart on this continent, I will pay fifty million dollars in cash to secure it."
Vance looked at me, realizing with chilling clarity that I wasn't making a request.
I was giving an order backed by an empire with unlimited resources and zero regard for institutional bureaucracy.
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"Her blood type is O-negative," Vance whispered, pulling a pen from his pocket. "It's universal donor, but recipient matches are extremely difficult due to antibodies."
"Then start calling," I said. "Every minute you stand here, you're wasting her life."
