Chapter 3 - Blood Under the Bandages
The automatic sliding doors hissed open, admitting a gust of freezing air alongside Luca, Nina, and Dino. The quiet warmth of the hospital lobby was instantly shattered by their entrance. The two night-shift security guards who had been dozing behind the high reception desk sat bolt upright, their eyes widening in sheer terror as they recognized Luca Marchetti’s imposing presence.
“Nobody calls upstairs,” Dino growled, planting his massive frame across the security desk, his hand casually resting inside the lapel of his tailored wool overcoat. “Cameras stay on loop for the fourth floor. Do your jobs, or you won't have jobs to come back to tomorrow.”
Neither guard dared to reach for the telephone.
Luca escorted Nina directly toward the private executive elevators reserved for hospital donors and surgical chiefs. Nina swiped her master access keycard, punching the button for Floor 4—Pediatric Intensive Care.
“What is the plan once we step off?” Nina asked, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. “If Uncle Silvio is upstairs with Dr. Vance, they’ll have armed men in the waiting room.”
“Let them,” Luca said grimly. “Silvio thinks I’m outside in the courtyard mourning my nephew’s inevitable demise. He doesn’t know I found the ledger. He doesn’t know Julian left behind the weapon that will hang him.”
When the elevator doors dinged open on the fourth floor, the sterile smell of antiseptic and ozone hung heavy in the dimly lit corridor. At the far end of the hallway, outside Room 408, two men in dark suits sat pretending to read magazines. At the sight of Luca, both men scrambled to their feet, their hands instinctively moving toward their waistbands.
“Stand down,” Luca commanded, stepping into the hallway with the authority of an emperor inspecting his soldiers. “Where is my uncle?”
“Mr. Marchetti,” one of the guards stammered, his eyes darting nervously toward Nina’s scrubs and the heavy blue binder she held. “Don Silvio is inside with Dr. Vance. They said Tommy was slipping into another arrhythmia. The doctor said family shouldn’t watch.”
Nina didn’t wait for Luca to give the order. Recognizing the classic signs of medical foul play, she dashed past the guards and kicked open the door to Room 408.
The sight inside made her blood run cold.
Nine-year-old Tommy lay pale and unconscious beneath a tangled nest of clear plastic monitor leads, his tiny chest barely rising against the rhythm of the mechanical ventilator. Standing over his intravenous mainline was Dr. Arthur Vance, holding a pre-filled 10cc syringe tipped with a long stainless-steel needle, poised right above the secondary medication port. Standing near the window, sipping dark espresso from a paper cup, was Silvio Marchetti—an elderly, silver-haired man with cold, calculating eyes.
“What is the meaning of this interruption?” Silvio snapped, turning abruptly. “Nina? You were discharged three hours ago! Vance, finish the injection!”
“Stop!” Nina yelled, launching herself forward. She grabbed Vance’s wrist with both hands, twisting with all the leverage she had learned from restraining delirious trauma patients. The syringe slipped from Vance’s fingers, clattering violently across the linoleum floor before rolling under the bedside table.
“Are you insane, girl?” Dr. Vance hissed, raising his hand to strike her.
Before the doctor’s hand could descend, Luca’s hand clamped around Vance’s throat like a hydraulic vise. Luca lifted the physician completely off his feet, slamming him hard against the wall mounted with oxygen regulators and suction valves.
“Touch her,” Luca whispered, his voice dangerously low, “and I will dismantle you bone by bone in this very room.”
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Silvio backed against the window, his facade of elder statesman crumbling instantly. “Luca! What are you doing? The boy is having a seizure! Arthur was administering an anticonvulsant!”
Nina dropped to her knees, retrieved the fallen syringe, and smelled the needle tip. She looked up at Luca, her eyes blazing with fury. “It’s potassium chloride and succinylcholine. Exactly like Julian’s file. Ten seconds more, and Tommy’s heart would have flatlined permanently. They were finishing the job.”
