Chapter 5 - The Emergency Ward
Mercy Hospital’s emergency entrance was chaos when the black SUV tore over the curb and came to a halt directly in front of the doors. Dominic didn't wait for the orderly. He kicked the door open and stepped out into the snow, carrying me straight into the bright, frantic warmth of the trauma bay.
“I need a doctor!” Dominic shouted, his voice slamming through the quiet of the admissions desk like a physical fist. “Now!”
A nurse with silver hair and a clipboard looked up, her expression hardening as she saw the blood-red tint of the snow on my coat and the black-suited men flooding the corridor behind us. “Sir, you need to sign in at the desk—”
Marco DeLuca stepped forward, placing a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills directly onto her clipboard, followed by a gold badge that belonged to the city’s deputy police chief. “The boss doesn't sign in, sweetheart. Get the chief of medicine out here in three seconds, or we buy this hospital and fire you before midnight.”
Within thirty seconds, a team of four doctors and three nurses had surrounded the gurney where Dominic had placed me. They cut away my wool coat, their scissors making a sharp, clicking sound against the frozen fabric.
“Hypothermia, severe,” the lead physician, Dr. Robert Chen, announced as he hooked a monitor to my chest. The screen flared to life, showing a heart rate that was dangerously low—twenty-eight beats per minute. “Body temperature is eighty-four degrees. She’s in ventricular fibrillation risk. Prepare the warm saline irrigation. We need the Bair Hugger blankets immediately.”
Dominic stood at the foot of the bed, his hands covered in the grimy gray water from my coat, his face pale under the fluorescent lights. He didn't move an inch, even when a nurse tried to gently push him toward the waiting room.
“Sir, you can’t be in here during the resuscitation,” she said.
Dominic looked at her. He didn't say a word, but the young guard, Tony, stepped between them, his hand resting casually on his jacket where his piece was holstered. “The boss stays,” Tony said simply.
I felt the pain return before I saw the light.
It started as a deep, agonizing burn in my chest—the feeling of boiling water being poured into my veins as the warm saline began to circulate through my system. My lungs expanded with a sharp, ragged gasp, and my eyes flew open, the bright white ceiling of the hospital room blinding me.
“Emma,” a voice said.
It wasn't a doctor’s voice. It was deep, rough, and entirely familiar.
I turned my head slowly, the movement sending a wave of nausea through my stomach. Dominic was standing there, his tuxedo jacket gone, his white shirt smudged with dirt and melting snow. His dark hair was a mess, and his eyes—usually so cold, so controlled—were wide and bright with a terrifying intensity.
“Sir?” I whispered, my voice nothing more than a dry croak.
He took a step forward, his large hand reaching out to touch my forehead. His skin felt like fire against my cold flesh. “You’re in the hospital, Emma. You fell in the alley. You’re safe.”
I looked past him, seeing Marco and the guards standing by the door, their faces tight with an expression I had never seen before: fear. Not fear of an enemy family or the FBI, but fear of what the man holding my hand might do if I closed my eyes again.
“The... the contracts,” I managed to say, my brain still trapped in the logic of the office. “The sticky note... D.M....”
Dominic’s jaw tightened so hard I heard the bone click. He leaned down over the bed rail, his face inches from mine. “Forget the contracts, Emma. Forget the office. The only thing you need to do right now is breathe.”
He turned back to Dr. Chen, his voice returning to that cold, commanding pitch that made the entire room freeze. “She stays in the private suite on the fourth floor. I want two guards at the door, and no one enters without my personal clearance. If her temperature drops by a single fraction of a degree, I want to know about it within the second.”
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As they began to roll my bed out of the trauma bay toward the elevators, I looked back at Dominic. He wasn't looking at the doctors anymore. He was looking at Marco, and the look in his eyes was the reason men died in Chicago.
“Find out who authorized the delivery trucks to park in that alley at eleven o'clock,” Dominic said to Marco, his voice dropping to a whisper that made my blood run cold despite the warm blankets. “And find out why the security door was locked from the outside.”
