Chapter 5 - An Unexpected Ally
"We leave right now," Salvatore commanded, turning toward the doorway. He paused, looking back at me amidst the ruins of my father's reception office. "You cannot stay here, Lena. If Carmine escapes, his loyalists will burn this building to the ground with you inside it."
"Then I'm coming with you," I said firmly, grabbing my emergency medical bag and slinging the strap over my shoulder.
Salvatore frowned, his brow furrowing. "This is not a dental procedure, Doctor. Men will die tonight."
"Your jaw was drilled out four hours ago, Mr. Lombardi," I retorted, stepping right up to his chest. "The epinephrine in your local anesthetic is going to wear off completely in twenty minutes, your wound will start throbbing, and if your blood pressure spikes during a gunfight, you will suffer a massive secondary hemorrhage right into your airway. You need a medic who knows how to keep your sutures intact, and you need someone who can testify that this fragment came from your jaw."
Salvatore held my gaze for several long seconds, as if searching for any sign of hesitation. Finding none, a faint smirk touched the corner of his lips. "Get in the car."
We rode through the pouring rain toward the industrial docklands in a convoy of three armored black SUVs. Inside the backseat, I unpacked a sterile syringe of long-acting non-narcotic analgesic and prepped his shoulder.
"Hold still," I murmured, pressing the needle into his deltoid muscle.
Salvatore didn't flinch. Instead, his eyes stayed locked on my face. "Your father, Dr. Russo. Was he the same Russo who ran the free community clinic in Little Italy back in the nineties?"
"He was," I answered, disposing of the needle cap. "He treated everyone. Longshoremen, teachers, shopkeepers. And men in black suits who bled silently in the back room."
"He treated my father once," Salvatore said softly. "Refused to take a single dollar for sewing up three stab wounds. He told my father that taking dirty money made a doctor an accomplice, but treating a dying man made him a human. You have his hands, Lena. But you have far more fire."
Before I could process the sudden intimacy of his words, Marco killed the headlights. The SUV coasted to a halt behind a towering row of stacked shipping containers.
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Through the rain-streaked windshield, the sprawling corrugated iron silhouette of Warehouse 14 loomed ahead. Guard posts surrounded the perimeter, armed with automatic carbines. Down at the adjacent pier, the massive diesel engines of an unmarked cargo freighter were already rumbling to life, spewing thick black exhaust into the stormy night sky.
"Marco," Salvatore said, his tone instantly shifting back to the commanding sovereign of the city. "Cut the power to the dock grid. Seal the perimeter gates. Nobody boards that ship alive."
