Chapter 7 - The Reckoning
""I told you to stay in the car!"" I shouted at Clara, though my voice sounded hollow and distant even to my own ears.
The adrenaline that had kept my shattered body upright was burning out like a dying flare. The world began to spin in sickening circles of gray and black. My knees buckled beneath me, and my heavy pistol slipped from my numb fingers, splashing into the puddle at my feet.
Before I hit the cold concrete, Clara’s arms were around me.
She caught my dead weight against her chest, sliding to her knees in the filthy water and gravel, pulling my head onto her lap. ""You idiot,"" she sobbed, tears cutting clean paths through the grime on her cheeks. ""You absolute, arrogant idiot!""
""Arthur..."" I coughed, tasting copper. ""Is he...""
""He's safe, Bucky,"" an old, raspy voice answered.
Arthur Vance stood over us, leaning on Vincent’s shoulder. His face was weathered, his white hair plastered against his forehead by the rain, but his blue eyes were as sharp and compassionate as they had been on the night he found a starving boy shivering in his barn.
""You've grown into quite a handful, son,"" Arthur said softly, his rough, calloused hand coming down to rest gently on my soaked shoulder. ""Fifteen years, and you're still making my granddaughter cry.""
A faint, bloodied smile touched my lips. ""I kept my promise, Arthur. I brought her back.""
""Dante, shut up and stop moving!"" Clara ordered, her hands working furiously as she ripped open my vest and shirt. The sight underneath was gruesome—the bullet graze on my shoulder was bleeding heavily, but worse, the high-velocity round had sheared open the lower abdominal incision, exposing torn muscle and deep tissue.
She jammed sterile gauze directly into the wound with both hands, using her entire body weight to apply pressure. The pain was so agonizing that my vision flashed pure white, a choked scream dying in my throat as my back arched off the ground.
""Hold him!"" she yelled at Vincent. ""We need to intubate and get him to a hospital now! He's going into profound hemorrhagic shock!""
""No public hospital,"" Vincent said grimly, holding my shoulders down. ""Falcone has dirty cops on every precinct payroll. If Dante enters an ER registry, a SWAT tactical unit will raid the ward before you can finish surgery.""
Clara looked around the dark, wet ruins of the foundry. Her eyes fell upon Carmine Falcone, who was still slumped against the furnace wall, groaning in terror as Marcus held a gun to his temple.
She stood up, her scrubs drenched in my blood, her eyes blazing with an unholy fury that shocked even my hardened mercenaries. She marched directly over to Carmine Falcone, snatched the ivory cane from the ground, and snapped it over her knee with a crack that sounded like a gunshot.
""You listen to me, you miserable old ghoul,"" Clara snarled, leaning down until her face was inches from the mafia don's nose. ""Your dirty doctors tried to ruin my life, your hitmen tried to murder my grandfather, and you just put a bullet in the only man who ever fought to protect this city from scum like you. If he dies, I personally promise you that I will testify before every federal grand jury in the state of New York. I will hand over Sterling's encrypted drug logs, his offshore accounts, and every single vial of fentanyl you trafficked through St. Jude's.""
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Falcone trembled, his arrogant sneer completely broken by the sheer ferocity of the young woman standing over him.
""Vincent!"" Clara commanded, turning back toward my team with absolute authority. ""Load him into the SUV. We aren't going to St. Jude's. We're going to my grandfather's clinic upstate. I have a fully stocked rural trauma suite in the basement. Move, now!""
