Chapter 2 - The Command
The heart monitor’s shrill, frantic wail sliced through the oppressive silence of Room 412, echoing down the cold linoleum corridor of St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital.
Head ICU Nurse Brenda froze, her gloved fingers hovering an inch above my three-year-old daughter’s fever-dampened shoulder.
Roman Vale’s hand was locked around Brenda’s wrist like an iron vise.
His skin, pale and cold from three weeks in a medically induced coma, looked stark against the dark, bruised veins running down his forearm. But there was no tremor in his grip. No weakness. His knuckles were bone-white, his thick fingers digging into her skin with a force that made Brenda drop her clip-board. It hit the floor with a sharp clatter.
“Don’t... touch... her,” Roman growled.
His voice was a low, terrifying rasp, dragged up from the dark depths of a three-week silence. It sounded like rusted iron dragging across stone, heavy with a lethal, ancient authority that made the temperature in the room drop twenty degrees.
Brenda gasped, her eyes bulging with sheer terror. “Mr. Vale... you’re... you’re awake!”
Roman didn’t look at Brenda. His dark, storm-grey eyes—eyes that had commanded the most feared criminal syndicate on the Eastern Seaboard—turned slowly toward my daughter.
Lily lay on his broad, black-gowned chest, her small cheek pressed over his heart. Her tiny, feverish fingers were still tangled in the cotton of his gown. Her ragged, breathless crying had smoothed out into quiet, hiccuping sighs. Her skin, which had been burning hot ten minutes ago, was resting against a man who looked like he had clawed his way back from the grave just to shield her.
“Mamma...” Lily whimpered softly, her long eyelashes fluttering shut against his chest.
I couldn’t move. My knees were shaking so hard I had to press my back against the cold tile wall behind the trash bin I’d been emptying. My hands, still wearing thin yellow rubber gloves, were trembling uncontrollably.
“Let go of her, Mr. Vale! You need medical evaluation!” Brenda panicked, reaching out with her free hand to press the red code button on the wall.
Roman’s eyes snapped toward Brenda. The look in his gaze was so pure, so predatory, that Brenda involuntarily yanked her arm back, shrinking against the doorframe.
“If you reach for that alarm again,” Roman rasped, his chest rising and falling in slow, heavy surges beneath Lily’s tiny body, “I will choke you with your own stethoscope.”
The door flew open.
Victor Vance—Roman’s second-in-command, the man who had stood beside this bed twenty-four hours ago calculating forty-seven hours until Roman’s execution—stepped into the room. He was flanked by two broad-shouldered men in bespoke dark suits, their hands tucked suspiciously inside their tailored jackets.
Victor stopped cold in the middle of the room. His cold, handsome face drained of every drop of color. The funeral flowers he’d brought yesterday were gone, but the vulture’s hunger in his eyes remained.
“Roman?” Victor whispered, his voice cracking slightly. “My God... it’s a miracle.”
Roman’s eyes shifted to Victor. The terrifying spark in his gaze dimmed instantly, replaced by a dull, unfocused glaze. His iron grip on Brenda’s wrist slackened just enough for her to yank her arm free and stumble back toward the hallway.
Roman let out a weak, raspy groan, leaning his head back against the white pillow, pretending to drift back into semi-consciousness. But his right arm—heavy, thick with muscle, and covered in dark tattoos—stayed draped protectively over Lily’s back, locking my tiny daughter safely against his ribs.
“Victor...” Roman mumbled, his voice slurred, playing the part of a confused, brain-damaged patient waking up from trauma. “Where... where am I?”
Victor took a tentative step toward the bed, his eyes scanning the monitors, the IV lines, and finally landing on me—a broke night cleaner cowering in the corner in an oversized blue uniform—and the feverish toddler sleeping on his boss’s chest.
“What is this garbage doing in here?” Victor hissed, his voice dropping into a vicious whisper as he rounded on me. “Who let a janitor bring a sick kid into the ICU?”
Victor reached out with his manicured hand to grab Lily by her collar and throw us out into the hall.
Before his fingers could graze Lily’s cotton dress, Roman’s hand shot out again.
He didn’t grab Victor’s wrist. He grabbed Victor by the throat.
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Roman’s thick fingers clamped around Victor’s windpipe with terrifying, explosive speed. The heart monitor beeped once, loud and flat, as Roman pulled the sleek, sixty-year-old mob executive down until their faces were inches apart.
“She stays,” Roman whispered into Victor’s ear, his voice suddenly sharp, crystal-clear, and lethal. “The woman stays. The child stays. If you lay a hand on either of them, Victor... I will complete the autopsy they were planning for me tonight on you.”
