Chapter 3 - The Hospital Corridor
The air on the fourth floor of St. Jude was thick with the sterile scent of antiseptic, ozone, and impending catastrophe. Overhead, emergency fluorescent lights flickered slightly against the power surges caused by the storm outside.
As Dominic burst through the stairwell door, followed closely by Marcus and a breathless, disheveled Bianca, the scene in front of him froze time.
A team of nurses and a senior attending physician were rushing a rolling gurney out of Room 412 toward the trauma and critical care elevators. On the gurney lay a woman with skin as pale as marble, her dark hair splayed across the white pillow, eyes closed, an oxygen mask strapped tightly over her face while an IV drip swung rhythmically from the metal pole.
Lauren.
"Move!" the doctor barked, pushing past a cluster of panicked junior nurses.
Dominic froze. His entire body went cold. The powerful, untouchable king of the Chicago underworld stood rooted to the linoleum floor, unable to draw breath.
"Lauren," he whispered, the name tearing from his throat like broken glass.
He lunged forward, but a scrub-suited nurse stepped directly into his path, holding up a gloved hand. "Sir! You cannot pass this point! Patient is in critical cardiac arrest—we are moving her to the operating theater immediately!"
"Get out of my way," Dominic growled, his eyes flashing with a terrifying golden-brown intensity. "I am her husband."
"Her chart lists her as single with no emergency contact on file!" the doctor snapped back, not intimidated by Dominic's size. "Step aside or security will remove you!"
"I am Dominic Moretti!" he roared, the sheer volume of his voice echoing down the silent corridor, causing the medical staff to recoil for a fraction of a second. "That is my wife on that gurney!"
Before the doctor could reply, a soft, high-pitched wail echoed from down the hallway, coming from the open door of the neonatal intensive care unit.
Twin cries.
Dominic’s head snapped toward the sound. Emma and Caleb. His children. Alive. Breathing. Somewhere down that sterile corridor.
"Dominic, please," Bianca hissed, grabbing his arm with manic desperation, her red dress stained with rain at the hem. "Let the doctors do their job. You rushing in there won't change anything. Let's go back to the penthouse and handle this legally—"
Dominic slowly turned his head to look at Bianca. The sheer hatred radiating from his gaze made her step back, her fingers slipping off his sleeve.
"If you ever touch me again," Dominic said softly, "or if you ever speak another word in my presence, Bianca, I will ensure you spend the rest of your natural life wishing you had never been born."
Marcus stepped between Bianca and Dominic, his face carved from granite. "Get out, Bianca. Now. I’ll have a car take you back to your apartment, and don't ever let me catch you near a Moretti property again."
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Bianca’s lips trembled, her mascara running down her cheeks from the rain and tears. She looked around the empty, hostile corridor, realizing with crushing finality that her empire of manipulation had collapsed in a single night. With a muffled sob, she turned and fled down the stairwell.
Dominic didn't watch her leave. His eyes were locked on the elevator doors that had just closed, swallowing Lauren away into the depths of the operating theater.
